1. Alberto “Baby“ Arizmendi was a Mexican featherweight boxer. According to his boxing record, he was born March 17, 1913 in Torreon, Coahuila Mexico. He turned professional at age thirteen and is the youngest record boxer to turn pro in any division. He also fought in the bantamweight and welterweight divisions. He retired in 1942 to join the U.S. Navy during World War II. He died on December 31, 1962 of natural causes, at age 48. Later his widow and his brother claimed that he had lied about his age and that he was really only 10 years old when he started boxing as a professional.
2. The sport of baseball causes more eye injuries then any other sport.
3. Theologian and founder of the Protestant faith, Martin Luther was an avid bowler and had his own personal bowling alley. Many sports historians credit him with standardizing bowling rules and fixing the number of pins at nine. This may be why bowlers shout “Hallelujah” when they roll a strike.
4. On May 17, 1939, a baseball game between Princeton and Colombia University became the first televised sporting event. Scientists were testing outdoor FM wave projection. Princeton won the game 2-1.
5. Mary, Queen of Scots, was the first known female golfer and is credited for coining the term “caddy” in 1552 because she had cadets from her personal guard assist her. She had the great St. Andrews golf course constructed during her reign and became quite skilled at the game. It’s possible that she got into serious trouble with her noblemen when she took up golfing, however. The legend is that the word GOLF is an anagram for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.
6. American football legend and founder and coach of the Chicago Bears George Halas was a professional baseball player, playing for the 1919 New York Yankees as an outfielder. A hip injury ended Halas’ baseball career after 19 games. He was replaced by a guy who came in a trade from the Boston Red Sox named George Herman “Babe” Ruth.
7. In 1974, Chris Evert was the leading money winner in U.S. Thoroughbred Horse Racing. Horse owner Carl Rosen also owned Puritan Fashions, which had signed Chris Evert, the tennis star, to endorse the company’s line of women’s sportswear. He named his prize Filly in honor of the young tennis star. After a very successful 1973 racing season in which the horse was named 3-Year-Old Filly of the Year, she was entered in a series of very successful match races in which she won more money then any other horse in 1974. Rose retired Chris Evert (the horse) in 1975 and she became the prize of his breeding stable.
8. Head coach Dick Vermeil is the only football coach to win both a Rose Bowl and Super Bowl title. In 1975 he led the UCLA Bruins to a Pac-8 championship and a Rose Bowl victory over Ohio State. In 1999, as head coach of the St. Louis Rams, he guided the team to a NFC championship and a victory over the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV.
9. There are four players in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with the last name of Robinson. This is the most of any players with any last name. They are Frank, Jackie, Brooks, and Wilbert Robinson. Wilbert was a legendary catcher and coach in early part of the 20th century who died in 1932. He was named to the Hall of Fame in 1945.
10. The Harlem Globetrotters were actually founded in Chicago in 1920 as the Savoy Big Five and played exhibition games all around the Chicago area. After four years, five players, led by Tommy Brookins, left the Savoy Big Five and formed a team they called the Globetrotters that played in Chicago and throughout the state of Illinois. By 1929, New York sports promoter Abe Saperstein was the team manager and it was he who called them the Harlem Globetrotters in 1929, because Harlem in New York City was at the center of African-American culture. Saperstein’s background was in boxing but he knew how to promote sporting events and the Globetrotters became one of the most popular sports draws in the world. The Harlem Globetrotters played all over the world, but they didn’t play their first “home game” in Harlem, New York City until 1968.
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