[OT] What Is the Rarest Single-Game Feat in Sports?

[jeh25]

[Q]Tom Pasniewski 98 Wrote:


In football, the 100-plus yard punt return for a touchdown is rare.

[/q]

I wonder if anyone has ever had a 100-yard punt return and a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the same game?

Has any QB ever rushed for 100+ yards and thrown for 300+ yards in a single game?  McNabb? Vick? Young?

Morten Anderson kicked 3 50+ yard field goals in one game.

Charlie Gogolak successfully kicked 9 PATs in one game (he also missed one that game).

Charlie McNeil had 177 Interception Return Yards in a single game.  :-O

Jamal Lewis once rushed for 295 yards in a single game.  I suspect that if he'd broken 300, we'd discuss that a bit more.

That's all I've got.

[jeh25]

[Q]jeh25 Wrote:


Has any QB ever rushed for 100+ yards and thrown for 300+ yards in a single game?  McNabb? Vick? Young?
[/q]

Manually looking at game logs I found that:

McNabb rushed for 100 yards and passed for 230 against Jacksonville on 10/6/2002.

Vick rushed for 173 yards and passed for *another* 173 yards against the Vikings 12/01/2002.

And for what it is worth, Steve Young once threw 6 TD passes in a Superbowl game.

[Greg]

[Q]Tom Pasniewski 98 Wrote:

I would offer, without the actual names, that playing baseball games for two different teams in the same day is rare but as that's not a single game nor much of a feat since it usually involved trades between teams involved in doubleheaders.
[/q]


In 1982, Joel Youngblood had hits for two different teams in two different cities on the same day.  He had a hit for the Mets in a day game against the Cubs at Shea, was traded to the Expos, flew to Philly and a hit in the night game.

[adamw]

unassisted triple play

[Greg]

Another great feat is three errors on one play, last done on July 27, 1988, by Tommy John.

In the fourth inning against the Brewers, John dropped a ground ball (1) threw over the first baseman's head (2) and then took the cutoff from right field and threw over the catcher's head (3).

[Greg]

[Q]KeithK Wrote:

 How about pitching two shutouts in a single day.[/q]


I know at last one 19th century pitcher thew complete game shutouts in both games of a doubleheader, but I can't find the name.

I did find: Willie Foster, a Negro League star with the Memphis Red Sox.  In 1926, he won 26 consecutive games. On the last day of the season, he pitched shutouts in both games of a double-header to win the pennant!

I was actually at the last game in which an unassisted triple play was accomplished.  My then girlfriend made us leave in the 5th inning ebcause it was very cold.  John Valentin turned the unassisted triple play in the sixth: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/07081994.shtml

[KeithK]

[q]I was actually at the last game in which an unassisted triple play was accomplished.[/q]Nope.  Randy Velarde, then with the A's, did it in 2000 against the Yankees ( http://www.baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/05292000.shtml )

[min]

the brave's rafael furcal had an unassisted triple play last season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2003/08/10/unassisted_tripleplay_ap/

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

[Q]Greg Wrote:

 Another great feat is three errors on one play, last done on July 27, 1988, by Tommy John.

[/q]

And for that he got a surgical procedure named after him. :-D

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

[Q]KeithK Wrote:

The rare baseball feat that I most want to see happen wouldn't qualify here either because I don't think it's ever yet been done: a pitcher striking out five batters in an inning.[/q]

How many times has 4K's in one inning been accomplished.  I know how this is done for the statistics but technically, if a K stands for a strikeOUT and nobody gets out on the play, should he get credit for the K - entirely different debate and off-topic.

[Q]min Wrote:

 the brave's rafael furcal had an unassisted triple play last season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2003/08/10/unassisted_tripleplay_ap/


[/q]

I was thinking of this too although we've just given three examples.  There is something very pure and simple about the quickness with which this takes place - line drive, step on bag, tag advancing runner and inning over.

[Q]adamw Wrote:

 unassisted triple play[/q]

And while Greg was researching the box score, Adam slips in with the first unassisted triple play (post)

[KeithK]

[q]How many times has 4K's in one inning been accomplished. I know how this is done for the statistics but technically, if a K stands for a strikeOUT and nobody gets out on the play, should he get credit for the K - entirely different debate and off-topic.[/q]It's still a strikeout in my book.  But then again I love the rule for some bizarre reason.

Anyway, 4 K's has been done something like 30+ times in ML history.  Interesting factoid: Steve Finley once pulled the trick 3 times in one season (or was it one calendar year? don't remember).

[jkahn]

Bringing this subject around to Cornell hockey, here are a few rare single game feats, in chronological order:

1) Cornell gets 70 shots on goal vs. Guelph, and the Guelph goalie makes 66 saves, in a 4-0 Cornell win early in the '67-'68 season.  Note: back then, games against Canadian universities were regularly scheduled games, not exhibitions.
2) Cornell scores 19 goals at Yale, Jan. 1968, including two by Dan Lodboa on the same Yale power play.
3) Carlo Ugolini scores 4 goals in 51 seconds in a freshman game in '69-'70.  Is there a separate category for rarest one minute feat?
4) Dan Lodboa scores a hat trick by scoring 3 consecutive goals in the 3rd period of the 1970 NCAA final, one even strength, one SHG and one PPG, to break open a 3-3 tie going into the third.
5) And one not so fond memory but still a rare feat, Cornell scores nine goals but still loses vs. UNH in the '77 ECAC semis.

I was at all of the above except the Yale game, which I listened to on radio.

[pfibiger]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:

4) Dan Lodboa scores a hat trick by scoring 3 consecutive goals in the 3rd period of the 1970 NCAA final, one even strength, one SHG and one PPG, to break open a 3-3 tie going into the third.
[/Q]

I thought I'd seen a box score for that game that showed the SHG, PPG and even strength goals in the hat trick, but when I went poking around TBRW later to make sure, and the box for that game didn't list what kinds of goals they were.

I feel like there should be a special name for a feat of that caliber...if a natural hat trick is 3 goals in succession, maybe a supernatural hat trick is 3 different types of goals in succession, in the same period

[cornelldavy]

There have been 12 unassisted triple plays in baseball history, the last being Rafael Furcal's on August 10, 2003.
There have been 15 4-HR games, Carlos Delgado was the last to do it (Sept. 25, 2003).
And as we all know, Randy Johnson's perfect game last night was the 17th in history...so while these three are all pretty rare, they've also all happened within the last year.

Also...perhaps the most unique thing that could happen is that unassisted triple plays happened on back-to-back days on May 30 and 31, 1927.

[Cop at Lynah]

Two switch hitters hitting home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game.  I believe it has happened only once - Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada for the Yankees against the Blue Jays a couple of years ago.