(56 facts)

A perfect game in baseball is one in which the same player pitches the entire game without allowing any player of the opposing team to reach first base -- by any means. At Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida, on June 26, 1985, organist Wilbur Snapp played "Three Blind Mice" following a call by umpire Keith O'Connor. The umpire was not amused, and saw to it that Mr. Snapp was ejected from the game. Babe Ruth hit his first major-league home run on May 6, 1915. He was playing for the Boston Red Sox at the time. 'The Sultan of Swat' went on to smash 714 round-trippers before he retired, from the Boston Braves, in 1935. Baseball rules were codified in 1846 by Alexander Cartwright of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club. Baseball's National League was born in 1876. Eight competing baseball teams met in New York City's Grand Central Hotel. The first president of the new league was Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, who later became a US Senator. The eight original cities with teams were: Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Louisville and Hartford. Two of the original teams are now in the American League (Boston and New York) while Louisville and Hartford are now minor-league baseball towns. Baseball's home plate is 17 inches wide. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith. He set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds - Julius Caesar. Eddie Arcaro, one of the greatest jockeys in horse race history, rode 250 losers before he won his first race. Ultimately, Arcaro won 4,779 races - including five Derby winners, six in the Preakness, and six in the Belmont Stakes, on such famous horses as Whirlaway, Citation, and Kelso. Golfers use an estimated $800 million worth of golf balls annually. In 1905, 18 men died from injuries sustained on the football field. President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in and instituted safety measures to make the game safer. In 1970, 127 runners ran the NY Marathon. In 1998, 32,000 did. In a typical season major league baseball will require 4,800 ash trees worth of Louisville sluggers. In playing poker, there is one chance in 500 of drawing a flush. Olympic badminton rules say that the bird has to have exactly fourteen feathers. On February 6, 1971 the first golf ball was hit on the moon by Alan Shepard. Parker Brothers was founded by George Swinerton Parker, 18, in 1885. The first game produced was 'Banking,' in which the player who amasses the most wealth is the winner. Pitcher Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds hurled his first major-league game in 1944. Nuxhall, the youngest pitcher in major league baseball, was only 15 years, 10 months and 11 days old when he pitched that game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Poland's Stella Walsh (Stanislawa Walasiewicz)-won the women's 100-meter race at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, becoming the first woman to break the 12-second barrier. When she was killed in 1980 as an innocent victim in a robbery attempt, an autopsy declared her to be a male. Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes in New York in 1919, to become the first horse to capture the Triple Crown. This was the first time that the Belmont Stakes had been run as part of thoroughbred racing's most prestigious trio of events. Sir Barton had already won the first two jewels of the Triple Crown -- the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky and the Preakness Stakes in Maryland. The 'huddle' in football was formed due to a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him. The annual White House Easter egg-roll was started by President Hayes in 1878. The dimensions of a regulation football field are: 360 feet long and 160 feet wide. The distance between the pitcher's rubber and home plate in baseball is 60 feet, 6 inches. The first Rose Bowl game was held in 1902 in Pasadena, California. The University of Michigan beat Sanford 49-0. The first black player in the American League was Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians in 1947. The first cover of "Sports Illustrated," in 1954, showed National League umpire, Augie Donatelli, behind the plate with two major-league stars: catcher Wes Westrum, and batter Eddie Matthews. First Instant Replay was used during Army Navy Football Game at Municipal Stadium Philadelphia on December 7, 1963, invented by Tony Verna (CBS Director.) The first Kentucky Derby was run at Churchill Downs in 1875 with Aristides as winner. The first NBA player to score 38,000 points was Kareem Abdul-Jabar in 1989. The first pick (by Eagles) in the first NFL draft in 1935, was Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago. He never played in the league The first players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson in 1936. The first professional football team to sport an insignia on their helmets was the Los Angeles Rams in 1950, who hand painted yellow horns on their blue leather helmets. The first Soccer World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930 and attracted 13 competing countries. The first triple jump in figure skating competition was performed by Dick Button in 1952. The first Wimbledon Tennis Competition took place in 1877 solely as an amateur competition. Men's singles was the only event that took place. There were 22 competitors and the championship was won by Spencer Gore. The Four Horsemen of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame played together for the last time in 1925, as the Irish downed Stanford in the Rose Bowl, 27-10. The Four Horsemen were Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher. The game of volleyball was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan. The high jump method of jumping head first and landing on the back is called the Fosbury Flop. The largest baseball card collection, 200,000 cards, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The modern Olympic Games were held in the first time in 1896 at Athens and were then followed by the 1900 Paris games. The winter games were added in 1924. The oiuja board was invented by Isaac and William Fuld, and was patented July 1, 1892. The Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, MO. In 1904, the first time that the games were held in the United States. The only father and son to hit back-to-back home runs in a major league baseball game: Ken Griffey, Jr., and his father, Ken Griffey, Sr., both of the Seattle Mariners in a game against the California Angels on September 14th, 1990. The Ouija board is named for the French and German words for yes - oui and ja. The world's first roller coaster opened in 1884 at Coney Island, New York. It was designed by Lemarcus Thompson, a former Sunday school teacher. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube. The World Rubik Cube championship was held in Budapest on June 5, 1982. Nineteen National Champions took part. Minh Thai, the US Champion, won by solving the Cube in of 22.95 seconds. The world record, in competitive conditions, grew progressively lower and now stands at 16.5 seconds. There are 100 tiles in a 'Scrabble' crossword game. There are 2,598,960 five-card hands possible in a 52-card deck of cards. There are nine rooms on a 'Clue' game board. A forfeited baseball game is recorded as a 9-0 score. Until 1967 it wasn't illegal for Olympic athletes to use drugs to enhance their performance during competition. Until the 1870s, baseball was played without the use of gloves. When Henry Aaron hit his 715th Home Run, breaking Babe Ruth's record, the pitcher who served it up was Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were both wearing number 44. Wild Bill Hickok was killed playing poker, holding two pairs - aces and eights, which has become known as 'Dead Man's Hand.'