Favorite Factoid

[throatybeard]

As a kid baseball was my first love and I lived and died with the STL Cards. I worshiped the ground Gibson walked on. Thought he was unbeatable. Watched in disbelief as he lost Game 7 vs Detroit that year (1968) thanks in part to Curt Flood misplaying a fly ball. To this day that is the most devastating loss to me as a sports fan. In a way Flood's goof precipitated baseball free agency IMO. He was traded over the winter to Philadelphia and I think Cards owner (Gussie Busch maybe?) made the trade partly in retribution for the error. Flood refuses to go to Philly and the seeds to free agency was planted. Still can't believe Cards blew a 3 games to 1 lead and handed the WS to Detroit. I could go on about the '68 series but I won't. I'm still bitter

You probably know this already, but there's a great book on the whole saga, A Well-paid Slave. It does cover other parts of Flood's life, but it focuses mostly on the years surrounding his litigation.

[Kedsy]

While doing some research for another thread, I stumbled across this interesting factoid:

In the past 30 seasons, Duke has been ranked in the AP top 6 at some point in the season in 28 of the 30 years. The only Duke teams since 1984-85 that didn't at least reach the top 6 were the 1996 and the 1987 teams, and both of those teams got as high as 12th.

Going into more detail, over the last 30 years:

Highest AP rank   # of seasons
--------------   -------------
   #1                 15
   #2                  2
   #3                  3
   #4                  3
   #5                  3
   #6                  2
   #12                 2

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

While doing some research for another thread, I stumbled across this interesting factoid:

In the past 30 seasons, Duke has been ranked in the AP top 6 at some point in the season in 28 of the 30 years. The only Duke teams since 1984-85 that didn't at least reach the top 6 were the 1996 and the 1987 teams, and both of those teams got as high as 12th.

Going into more detail, over the last 30 years:

Highest AP rank   # of seasons
--------------   -------------
   #1                 15
   #2                  2
   #3                  3
   #4                  3
   #5                  3
   #6                  2
   #12                 2

well... that's just awesome, really.

[Kedsy]

well... that's just awesome, really.

More in the same vein: In the past 17 seasons, we've reached the top 5 for at least one week in every single season. We reached the top 4 in 16 of the 17 years (in 2006-07 we only got as high as 5th).

In related news, Duke fans who complain about the team's success have been shown to be missing a key chromosome that would otherwise enable them to have a reasonable level of perspective.