It’s Hump Day. We know you’re already welcoming the weekend that is just over 48 hours away. You need a mid-day break at your desk, and there’s no better way than a little “Did You Knows.” So… Did you know:
You could fit about 900 trillion footballs into the Grand Canyon…Tennis was originally played with bare hands…The average soccer ball is made up of 32 leather panels and held together by 642 stitches…Bill Russell was the first black head coach of a major league pro sports team…Billiards used to be so popular at one time that cigarette cards were issued featuring players…Kite flying is a professional sport in Thailand…Americans spend more than $630 million a year on golf balls…Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery…Jackie Robinson was the only person to letter in four sports at UCLA. Of all of them, he supposedly liked baseball the least…Since the beginning of the modern Olympics in 1896, only Greece and Australia have participated in every games…The five Olympic rings represent the continents…Most people know that the NBA 
logo is based on a picture of Jerry West. Few know that Major League Baseball’s logo is based on Harmon Killebrew…Former Texas Ranger Will Clark is a direct descendant of William Clark of Lewis & Clark…Motor boating was an official sport at the 1908 Olympics. (I know there’s a bad joke in there somewhere)…The national sport of Japan is sumo wrestling…According to manufacturer Spalding, the average lifespan of an NBA basketball is 10,000 bounces…Karate actually originated in India, but was further developed in China…Babe Ruth was the first baseball player credited to ordering a bat with a knob on it. They were produced by Louisville Slugger in 1919…About 42,000 tennis balls are used in the approximate 650 matches ay Wimbledon…The tennis term “love” is derived from l’oeuf, the French word for egg, symbolizing zero.
Home Field Advantage?
Because of fears that the Japanese, who had attacked Pearl Harbor less than a month earlier, might attack California, the Rose Bowl game of 1942 between Oregon State and Duke University was moved east to Duke’s home turf of Durham, North Carolina. It didn’t, however, help the home team. Oregon won, 20-16.
Captain Obvious
Golfing great Ben Hogan’s famous reply when asked how to improve one’s game was: “Hit the ball closer to the hole.”
Mercy Rule?
Canada beat Denmark in the 1947 World Hockey Championships, 47-0.
