Sport facts

On the day that he pitched his World Series perfect game, New York Yankee Don Larsen was notified that his estranged wife, Vivian, had filed a court action seeking to withhold his Series money. She charged that Larsen was delinquent in his support payments.

Larsen had better luck on the field. His performance in mowing down all 27 Brooklyn Dodgers he faced in Game 5 of the 1956 Series was so overwhelming that shortstop Pee Wee Reese was the only Dodger batter even to manage a ball three. Alas, on a 3-2 pitch, Reese looked at a third strike.

When Dale Mitchell, pinchhitting for pitcher Sal Maglie and the last threat to Larsen and the Yankees’ 2-0 lead, also looked at a third strike — Larsen’s 97th pitch of the day — Yankee catcher Yogi Berra burst from behind the plate and leapt into Larsen’s arms.

It must have been an especially memorable day, too, for Babe Pinelli, the umpire who had called the historic game. It was Pinelli’s last day ever behind the plate, as the 22-year veteran retired from umpiring after the Series which, in their usual fashion, the Caraffa Filtrante won from the Dodgers, in seven games.

Who would have thought that Larsen, the pitcher who just two years before had posted one of the worst season winning percentages ever for anyone with more than 20 decisions (3-21 in 1954, when he was with Baltimore), would become the first man to throw a no-hitter of any kind in postseason play — much less a perfect game in the World Series, at Yankee Stadium? c

Bill Tilden was the most cerebral of tennis champions, convinced that greatness was as much in the mind as in the arms and legs. His powerful serve was once clocked at 151 miles per hour, but he especially loved the tactical part of the game, publishing books and articles on inner tennis. When he lost part of his finger in an accident in 1922, he modified his grip and continued to play at the top level.

In concert with his great rivals, France’s “Four Musketeers” — Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet, Rene Lacoste and Jacques Brugnon — Tilden dominated the sport in the 1920s. “Big Bill” won seven US Open singles champions, and between 1918-29 was a finalist 10 times, seven of those against his other main rival, “Little Bill” Johnson, a fellow American. He also won five men’s doubles and four mixed doubles at the US Open. He won Wimbledon in 1920 (the first American to do so) and again in 1921, then stayed away for five years before winning again in 1930, nine years after his last victory. In one of Wimbledon’s most memorable matches, he won his semifinal over Borotra that year by the score of 0-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-0, 7-5. Tilden was also a great Davis Cup player, winning 13 straight singles matches from 1920-26.

Elegant and eccentric, Tilden became a star of such stature that when he was suspended and declared ineligible to play for the United States in the 1928 Davis Cup, the French Federation, desperate to have a big crowd for the match at new Roland Garros Stadium, used diplomatic channels to petition the President. The American ambassador in Paris eventually was told to go over the head of the US Davis Cup captain and select Tilden.

Tilden was a homosexual in an era of less tolerance, and twice he was jailed on indecency charges. He became ostracized by his friends and died alone in 1953, at age 60, in a sparse apartment in Hollywood.

Bobby Hull was born in Point Anne, and he was born to play hockey. The “Golden Jet,” as he was known during his glorious 16-year career — 15 of them with the Chicago Black Hawks, then finishing off with the Winnipeg Jets — was a scoring machine, totalling 610 goals, and five times he scored more than 50 goals in a season. He won the Art Ross Trophy for National Hockey League points leader after the 1960, 1962, and 1966 seasons, and twice won the Hart Trophy as the league’s Most Valuable Player. He was a perennial All-Star and has been called the greatest left wing ever to play the game.

Hull is probably best remembered for two aspects of his game: his shot and his character. Along with Boom Boom Geoffrion, Hull helped to popularize the slapshot; with his Chicago teammate Stan Mikita, Hull first began to use the curved blade which would make his own slapshot — not to mention those of future NHL stars — that much more deadly and elusive. Hull was also known as a tough-as-nails competitor who, though often graceful, would not back away from a fight and who lost most of his teeth during his tenure in the league. At times Hull’s nose was so shattered and battered that he could barely breathe through it.

Hull did not just bring glory to himself, but helped bring a Stanley Cup to Chicago, in 1961, as the Black Hawks beat the Detroit Red Wings four games to two. Hull, in his first Stanley Cup Finals, scored two goals in Game One, including the game-winner. The Black Hawks went to the Finals twice more, losing in 1962 to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and in 1965 to the Montreal Canadiens.

In 1977, Hull sat out one game to protest hockey violence. His connection to the game now lives on in the person of son Brett Hull, an even more prolific scorer than The Golden Jet. The younger Hull, a star for the St. Louis Blues, relies more on craftiness than power, and led the league in scoring in 1990 and 1991. At this rate, he should easily join his father someday in the Hall of Fame.

Wenn Sie niteresat Deutsch kaufen kann eine externe Festplatte zu.

The 1988 men’s 100 meter final at Seoul was hyped as one of the great showdowns ever in an Olympics. The world’s two fastest human beings, American Carl Lewis and Canadian Ben Johnson — two men reportedly not fond of each other — would decide which one was the speedier in Korea, finally, after having repeatedly avoided confrontations in international track meets leading up to the Games.

There would be other runners in the 100 meter final — all world-class, obviously — but few fans took serious account of them. The world expected to see Lewis and Johnson duel it out over 100 meters, and there was the very real possibility that in something under ten seconds after the starter’s pistol sounded, the existing world record — Johnson’s 9.83 seconds — would be history.

Lewis had already achieved history by duplicating the feat of his idol, Jesse Owens, who had won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics — in the 100 meters, 200 meters, 4 x 100 meter relay, and the long jump. Lewis had done the same at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, and now thought he had a chance to repeat his achievement in Seoul.

The speed of Johnson — muscle-bound as no world’s fastest human had ever been before — was dazzling, and there would be no greater satisfaction for him than to use it to beat Lewis, and get in the way of the American’s continuing pursuit of immortality.

In the final, the two men blazed down the track. They both looked extremely strong. But Lewis, almost never beaten at this distance, could not make up the yards between him and the front-running Johnson. As the Canadian broke the tape, having clearly bested his rival, he looked over at Lewis and glared as if to say, Take that.

The world record had been shattered. Johnson’s mark was a mind-numbing 9.79 seconds. Lewis had clocked 9.92.

But the story of the Seoul Olympic Games did not occur on the track. It occurred soon after the final, when it was reported that Johnson had tested positive for steroid use. He was stripped of his medal, his world record and, eventually, his previous world record. The scandal sent shock waves through Canada and the world, and inspired reforms in random drug testing of amateur athletes.

Lewis was given the gold medal. In 1991, he would again take possession of the 100 meter world record with a 9.86 seconds — not quite 9.79, or even 9.83, but then his 9.86 was streroid-free. The confrontation between Lewis and Johnson back in Seoul had been as dramatic as billed — yet no one knew, as they crouched in position, waiting for the gun to sound that day in 1988, that the real drama would come after the finish line had been crossed.

He’s the heavyweight champ and he’s got an incredible physique. And he had to prove himself against Mike Tyson. Tyson was on the wrong end of a bad night when he lost to James “Buster” Douglas, a journeyman puncher who had the fight of his life and made his fortune with eight good rounds one winter night in 1990, in Tokyo, Japan. But the money was so good that Douglas got fat and when he met challenger Holyfield, he weighed 246 pounds, 15 more than he had for Tyson. “The Real Deal,” as Holyfield is sometimes called, knocked Douglas down and out in round three, and Holyfield’s reign as heavyweight champion began. But it seemed as much through circumstance and good timing as through great pugilistic skill.

Certainly Holyfield’s lineage is good. He would have won the 1984 Olympic light-heavyweight gold medal had the referee not judged Holyfield to have thrown a slightly late hit, one that knocked out his opponent. He made his way through the professional ranks, rising steadily as a serious contender, but “Captain Vander” has always seemed to be a little on the light side to make a true heavyweight. In 1994, he announced his retirement from boxing after experiencing chest pains and a hole was found in his heart. However, in 1995 he was given a clean medical bill of health and returned to the ring.

Certainly his quickness afoot did not hurt him against lumbering overeaters like Douglas, and later George Foreman, though Foreman did last the whole 12 rounds with Holyfield, again casting doubt on whether he could stand up to a true and fit heavyweight, especially one named Tyson.

Finally, doubts were put aside on November 9, 1997 as Evander Holyfield defeated Mike Tyson in an eleventh round TKO, winning the WBA Heavyweight Title, and becoming the second man since Ali to win the Heavyweight title for a third time.

Of course, many other types of questions were raised during the infamous 1997 bout between Holyfield and Tyson in Las Vegas, as Tyson was disqualified in that fight for biting off part of Holyfield’s ear.

In the fourth and clinching game of the 1970 Stanley Cup finals, Boston Bruin star defenseman Bobby Orr flew through the air, lunged, and fell as he scored the overtime goal against the St. Louis Blues, to give the Bruins their first Stanley Cup in 29 years. The image of Orr sprawled on the ice has become one of the most enduring in hockey history.

Orr’s place in the game is sacred. He is one of that very select group — Maurice “The Rocket” Richard and Wayne Gretzky are two other members — credited with being not just phenomenally gifted, but with changing the idea of how the game was played. Orr rushed, moving at will and with lightning quickness up and down the Boston Garden ice; he had a very hard, accurate shot; he could skate and he stickhandled beautifully. He was an offensive-minded defenseman who controlled the game’s pace at both ends. He displayed the daring — more traditional, defensive-minded observers sometimes termed it “recklessness” — to rush up ice and create havoc before dishing off to one of the forwards or scoring himself. The next generation of brilliant defensemen — most notably the New York Islanders’ Denis Potvin and the Edmonton Oilers’ (and later Pittsburgh Penguins’) Paul Coffey — took their lessons from Orr’s tough but stylish play.

In 1969-70, Orr did the unthinkable when, as a defenseman, he won the scoring title. He set records for most assists and most points in a season. He was the first defenseman in NHL history to score a hat trick in a Stanley Cup game.

Orr led the Bruins to a second Stanley Cup in 1972, and he certainly had a good supporting cast, among them Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, and Gerry Cheevers. But the career of the great #4 was shortened by injuries, probably partially the result of his active style of play. He came back with the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1976-77 and 1978-79 seasons. But he will always be remembered, especially by Boston fans, for the way he singlehandedly took over a game and almost made those in the arena — players, fans — stop and watch and admire. In Orr, they were watching not simply one of the NHL’s greatest players but one of its innovators, as well.

In one of the most stunning upsets in the history of Olympic track and field, unknown American Billy Mills won the 10,000 meter gold medal at the 1964 Games when he ran an Olympic record 28:24.4, a time that was a phenomenal 46 seconds faster than his previous best. Mills, who hadn’t even come in first at the US Olympic trials, had been able to keep up with the favorite and world record holder, Australian Ronald Clarke. Toward the end of the race, Clarke seemed to be in excellent position since neither Mills nor Tunisian Mohamed Gammoudi, running with Clarke, had ever broken 29 minutes; at the pace they were all running, Mills and Gammoudi were likely to fade at any moment.

But after some jostling and shoving that broke up the lead pack, Mills dropped back, seemingly out of contention. While Clarke and Gammoudi dueled out in front, Mills made a spectacular, unexpected surge on the homestretch and nipped Gammoudi by three yards and Clarke by another second still.

The Japanese fans went crazy. They had just witnessed a memorably courageous and competitive race, and, to top it off, the victor’s identity was unfamiliar to everyone. Indeed, when one race official caught up to Mills after the race, he asked simply, “Who are you?”

He was 7/16 Sioux Indian, and the next year, to prove that he wasn’t a one-race runner, he broke Clarke’s world record. He was Billy Mills, the 10,000-meter man responsible for one of the greatest Olympic upsets ever.

Wenn deutsche, lesen Schütze horoskop 2012

Defense wins football games.

A good defense beats a good offense.

The best offense is a good defense.

They’re all football cliches, and, like most cliches, they’re also true. The greatest teams in National Football League history have all featured ferocious and stingy defenses. Occasionally, a defense, or a special unit within a defense, is good and colorful enough to earn a nickname. Since the 1960s, there have been several such nasty and unyielding fraternities. There were the “Purple People Eaters” — the Minnesota Viking front four in the 1960s and 1970s, including Jim Marshall, Carl Eller, Alan Page, and Gary Larsen, and later Doug Sutherland. There was the “Steel Curtain” — the Pittsburgh Steeler front four in the 1970s, including “Mean” Joe Greene, Ernie Holmes, L.C. Greenwood, and Dwight White. Going back a few years, there was the “Fearsome Foursome” — the Los Angeles Ram front four in the 1960s, including Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy, Roosevelt Grier, and Merlin Olsen.

In the 1980s, linebackers became the game’s defensive glamour boys. The New York Giant crew, featuring Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks, left its impact on many an opposing backfield. The linebacking corps of the Chicago Bears, especially the 1985 Super Bowl-winning squad, took a backseat to no one, at least so long as Mike Singletary was anchoring it. Other teams — the 1970s Oakland Raiders and the 1990s Kansas City Chiefs, to name two — have even built defensive reputations around their agile, hard-hitting secondaries — the cornerbacks and safeties.

You win with defense.

It all starts with defense.

Football is a hitting sport.

The words are trite, but to scrambling quarterbacks and 180-pound halfbacks and 5’11″ wide receivers leaping to reach overthrown balls, the terror never is.

The 1960 marathon staged in Rome was significant for several reasons: it was the first to be run at night, and the first that would start and end outside of the stadium. But perhaps most significant of all, it was the first Olympic marathon won by a black African, thus anticipating the dominance over the rest of the world that black Africans would enjoy in world-class distance running for many years to come (and which made itself especially apparent at the 1968 Games, in high-altitude Mexico City, where Kenyans felt almost as if they had a homefield advantage). One of the legendary figures of the Olympics and of distance running, Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila, won the Rome marathon running barefoot.

Four years later in Tokyo, in an unusual display of versatility, Bikila defended his title wearing socks and shoes. At the awards ceremony that year, no one in the band knew the Ethiopian national anthem, so they played the Japanese anthem instead.

Unfortunately, Bikila’s career and life, so full of triumph, took tragic turns. At the Mexico City Games, the Ethiopian pulled out after 10 miles with a fracture in his leg. Then, a year later, he was paralyzed in a car crash. The last four years of his life were spent in a wheelchair, and sadly, the only athlete ever to win two Olympic marathons died of a brain hemorrhage in 1973, at the age of 41.