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

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:
2) Cornell scores 19 goals at Yale, Jan. 1968, including two by Dan Lodboa on the same Yale power play.

I was at all of the above except the Yale game, which I listened to on radio.[/q]
I saw that Yale game on your behalf, Jeff.  Dan was still playing forward that season.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]cornelldavy Wrote:
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.[/q]
Or perhaps Johnny Vandermeer's back-to-back no-hitters.

[Greenberg \'97]

[Q]
And because Tom's question made me curious, the record for most hits in a game is 9, by Johnny Burnett of the Cleveland Indians in an 18-inning game in 1932.  The record for most hits in a 9-inning game is 7, shared by Wilbert Robinson of the 1892 Baltimore Orioles (incidentially, not the same franchise we know as the Baltimore Orioles today) and Rennie Stennett of the 1975 Pittsburgh Pirates.[/q]


The Baltimore Orioles of 1892 later became the New York Highlanders, which in turn became the New York Yankees.

[KeithK]

[Q]Greenberg '97 Wrote:

The Baltimore Orioles of 1892 later became the New York Highlanders, which in turn became the New York Yankees.
[/q]

Well, sort of.  The original Orioles of the American Association (1882-1891) and then National League (1892-1899) folded after the 1899 season.  The fledgling American League included a Baltimore franchise that was in large part a ressurection of the NL club and at least included John McGraw, the manager.  See: http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/teams/AL/orioles.htm

This page: http://www.fact-index.com/n/ne/new_york_yankees.html  lists the Yankees franchise as having been founded as the Minneapolis franchise of the Western (minor) league, which moved to Baltimore when the Western League became the American League, aspiring to become a major league.  According to official MLB history, the AL franchise now in New York was founded in 1901.

And from the meaningless facts department, the current Baltimore franchise of the AL began in Milwaukee as the (original) Brewers.  They began in 1893 in the Western League but played one season in AL in Milwaukee before moving to St. Louis.  Like the current Milwaukee ballclub, the original incarnation was pretty bad...

Can you tell it's baseball season for me? :-)

[Roy 82]

What Is the Rarest Single-Game Feat in Sports?

Easy:
The Cubs or Red Sox clinching a critical game 6 in the playoffs. It will never happen:)

[David Harding]

[q] There is also the issue of separating the rare unaided from the rare aided - for example, holes-in-one are unaided whereas Damon's three hits were all made possible by hits and walks by his teammates and would be considered aided. There's a fine line there - was Lemeiux's penalty shot aided by an unusual ref call or an unusual (well, obviously) act by a player on the opposing team? [/q]

Is there any sport other than golf where there is no interaction with any other player?  Johnson's perfect game was not accomplished with 27 strike-outs, and even it had been the catcher and opposing team batters would have aided him.  I'd say hitting for the cycle was closer to unaided.

What's rare in tennis?  Not losing a point?  Number of aces?

[Greg Berge]

Has any golfer ever had two holes in one in one round in a tour event?  In a major?

[Eric \'04]

When was the last time a hat trick has been scored in the last round of the Stanley Cup Finals? I was looking all over and couldn't find it last night.

Also, has there ever been a goaltender who swept the opposing team while having 4 consecutive shutouts in an NHL playoff round?

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

Bill Mueller of the Red Sox went one step further last year becoming the only player ever to hit a grand slam from both sides of the plate in the same game.  That's part chance that the bases were loaded.  

For golf, the odds of a hole-in-one have been estimated at 18,000 to 1 on teeing off on any given hole, getting an albatross (2 on a par 5) placed at 6 million to 1 and on getting two holes in one round at about 67 million to one.  But ask most people and they'll say that putting the ball near the flag takes skill but getting a hole-in-one is very much luck.  I'd figure based on using 30 teams, 9 players, 5 at bats per game, 162 games and 130 seasons which gives you 28 million individual at bats and then scaling back that number for less teams, less games and an average number of at bats that might be less than 5, that we're talking no more than 20 million individual at bats in baseball history.  Just for odds sakes.

Speaking of odds, the latest Vegas odds have the Red Sox at a second-best 3 to 1 to win the World Series and the Cubs, the third-best at 5 to 1 with the Yankees leading at 5 to 2.  What's a sure bet?  That the odds for at least one of those three teams will get dramatically worse as the season goes on.  

[Chris 02]

[Q]Eric '04 Wrote:

Also, has there ever been a goaltender who swept the opposing team while having 4 consecutive shutouts in an NHL playoff round?

[/q]

J-S Giguere of Anaheim came awfully close last year in the conference finals of the NHL playoffs.  He allowed a single goal in Game 1, and then shutout the remaining 3 games.  

http://www2.nhl.com/cupcrazy2003/overview.html#conffinals

[Erica]

I saw an old lady on the Early Show earlier this year who was being interviewed because she got two holes-in-one in a row. She was commenting on how the chances of that happening were something like 18 million - 1. Anyway, she wasn't a professional, just an old lady.

[Roy 82]

[Q]Is there any sport other than golf where there is no interaction with any other player? Johnson's perfect game was not accomplished with 27 strike-outs, and even it had been the catcher and opposing team batters would have aided him. I'd say hitting for the cycle was closer to unaided.[/Q]

Sure, bowling a perfect game of 300 has no direct interaction (unless you are bowling against Bil Murray).

I am not sure which is rarer, a 300 game or a hole in one.

[jtwcornell91]

Actually there was a piece on Morning Edition today about how 300 games are becoming to common.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]Tom Pasniewski 98 Wrote:
In golf, multiple holes in one are rare as are what I've heard called seagulls and albatrosses, though I think the latter is correct - three-under par on one hole which can only be accomplished with a 2 on a par 5.
[/q]
Short blurb in the Cape Cod Times today about someone who had a hole-in-one and an "albatross," more commonly called a double-eagle, during the same 18-hole round back in the 1930s.  It was John Wooden.  Figures. B-]

[billhoward]

A shutout in lacrosse is rare. In NCAA playoffs, unprecedented. Cornell's shutout of (Hofstra? 1976?) in the NCAA tournament was incredible since it wasn't a chump team but one that qualified for the playoffs. the only thing that could beat it would be two shutouts in the playoffs.

I think when we talk about incredible and rare events, we put a premium on major sports, Olympic events, etcetera. Thus the lacrosse shutout record might be seen as tangental.

The other way you could measure a "rarest feat" would be how long until a record stands before being broken, or how much the record setter broke the previouis record.

Bob Beamon's 29-foot long jump was, what, 3 feet longer than the previous record? And it stood for decades.

Babe Ruth more than doubled the single season and career home run records.

Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points deserves recognition because it's huge and it's a nice round number. And that's verifiable, unlike the number of women he claimed to have slept with, which outpaced Cal Ripken's consecutive games record.