The public school in College Corner, Indiana, straddles the border with Ohio — the state line runs right through the gymnasium. So at the opening tip of a basketball game, players jump from different states.
Until 2006, when the Hoosier State began observing daylight saving time, a ball thrown from Ohio would hit the net in Indiana an hour earlier.
Giants pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm hit a home run on his first at-bat in the major leagues.
He played for 21 seasons but never hit another homer.
In November 2006, 23-year-old David Fearn of Staffordshire changed his name to James Dr. No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man With the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill GoldenEye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.
It’s the longest name in deed poll history.
Glenn Miller’s 1940 hit “PEnnsylvania 6-5000” refers to the telephone number of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City, where Miller’s orchestra often played.
It still works: 212-736-5000 is the hotel’s main number.
Germany Schaefer stole first base. On Aug. 4, 1911, playing for the Washington Senators, Schaefer stole second base conventionally, hoping to draw a throw from the catcher so a teammate could steal home. The catcher didn’t throw, so on the next pitch Schaefer ran back to first.
That was legal at the time, but rule 7.08i now forbids a player to run the bases in reverse order “for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game.”
T.S. Eliot was a fan of Groucho Marx. The two maintained a correspondence through the early 1960s, when Groucho accepted a long-offered dinner with the poet.
Eliot wrote: “The picture of you in the newspapers saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit in the neighborhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street. Obviously I am now someone of importance.”
When Clark Gable left the Army in June 1944, Ronald Reagan signed his discharge papers.
California and Florida both have an Orange County.
By coincidence, one contains Disneyland, the other Disney World.
The Lone Ranger’s creed, devised by creator Fran Striker:
I believe:
Rudolf Charousek had been playing chess for only four years when he found himself facing this position against Jakob Wollner at Kaschau in 1893:
He found one of the most immortally pretty finishes in chess history — to discover it, read Kester Svendsen’s 1947 short story “Last Round,” which the game inspired.
Three years afterward, Charousek defeated Lasker at Nuremberg. “I shall have to play a championship match with this man someday,” the master remarked, but it was not to be — the Hungarian died of tuberculosis in 1900, at only 26.