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Sports Trivia

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Steeplechases originated from a bet in an eighteenth century hunt club. After a bad day fox hunting, one man suggested a race to a steeple in a straight line. To stay on the line, the racers had to overcome obstacles.

Students from McGill University introduced the game of rugby, with its oblong ball, to their Harvard counterparts in 1874 who up to that time played only with a round ball. The Americans were so taken by the game they adopted it and it eventually evolved into the football now played throughout the country.

In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first fully professional baseball team. They were also the first team to wear knickers.

In 1876, Nell Saunders defeated Rose Harland in the first United States women's boxing match. Saunders received a silver butter dish as a prize.

In 1904, May Sutton Brandy became the first American woman to win the ladies singles championship at Wimbledon.

In 1916, Jones Wister of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania invented a rifle for shooting around corners. It had a curved barrel and periscopic sights.

In 1931, Lili de Alvarez was the first woman to wear shorts at Wimbledon.

In 1935, Jesse Owens set six track and field world records in a single day in Ann Arbor, Michigan--all in less than an hour.

In 1935, Jesse Owens set six track and field world records in less than one hour.

In 1958, Jay Foster won the national table tennis championship on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. He was 8 years old.

In 1967 Billie Jean King was selected as “Outstanding Female Athlete of the World.” In 1972 she was named Sports Illustrated's “Sportsperson of the Year,” the first woman to be so honored. In 1973, she was nicknamed “Female Athlete of the Year.” Additionally, King was the first female athlete to win more than $100,000 prize money in a single season.

In 1986, Greg LeMond was the first rider representing the USA to win the Tour de France.

Sugar Ray Robinson was the first ex-boxing champion to return from retirement and win back his title. He was also the first boxer to win the middleweight title three times when he knocked out Carl "Bobo" Olson in the second round of their Chicago bout on December 9, 1955.

Table tennis was originally played with balls made from champagne corks and paddles made from cigar-box lids. It was created in the 1880s by James Gibb, a British engineer who wanted an invigorating game he could play indoors when it was raining. Named "Gossima," the game was first marketed with celluloid balls, which replaced Gibb's corks. After the equipment manufacturer renamed the game "Ping-Pong" in 1901, it became a hot seller.

Tennis champion Helen Wills Moody received no formal training in tennis, but learned to play at the Berkeley Tennis Club in Calfornia when she was a teenager.

Tennis champion Helen Wills Moody's trademark white sunglasses became a standard uniform for generations of female tennis players.

Tennis champion Serena Williams commented in a 2000 interview that her sister Venus, also a tennis champion, liked to cook soup and pork chops when they were home alone together.

The Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers are the three rivers that joined just outside the doors of Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The old baseball stadium, former home of the Pirates and Steelers, was demolished to the tune of $5.1 million in February 2001.

The ancient sport of chariot racing gave us the phrase "turning point." Turning points were the places where chariot drivers turned at each end of a stadium.

The average amateur fisherman spends about $200 a month on equipment, which adds up to a $40 billion industry.

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