Archive Category: Sports
A Good Clean Fight
How about we celebrate Friday with a good old fashioned cat fight? Now I wanna see a good clean fight, no hitting below the tail, shake paws and good luck!
via AcidCow.
Comment (10)
Permalink
Please share:  email
this 
|
| Neatorama Shop » T-Shirts About The Economy | |
 |
|
| $700 Billion T-Shirt | See more T-Shirts
About The Economy » 
|
TRAX STI Snow Car
Just in time for snow season! DC co-founder Ken Block teamed up with Subaru to design and produce the world’s fastest cat-track snow car. Primarily for reaching alpine backwoods to engage in some fresh boarding, the vehicle is also built for fun as a standalone toy.
Prepared by Vermont SportsCar, performance modifications include 400-hp and features Group N competition rally dampers made by EXE-TC and a KAPS 5-speed close-ratio dog-engagement gearbox. Under the hood sits a 2.5 liter, 4-cylinder, turbocharged and intercooled STI engine tuned with a MOTEC M800 ECU.
Not seen is a trailer that will haul up to four boarders and equipment. More info here.
|
Comment (4)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
The 25 Best Costumes At The 2009 NYC Marathon
Meb Keflezighi won the New York City Marathon on Sunday. He is the first American to win the title since 1982! But around 42,000 runners took part in the marathon, some wearing elaborate costumes. Buzzfeed collected photographs of the most outrageous marathon costumes for your viewing pleasure. Link
(image credit: Flickr user monicamüller)
|
Comment (1)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Robot Plays Volleyball
With the aid of onboard, fast-moving cameras, “Mr. Tomorrow” will most likely beat me in a game of volleyball. Created by the mad scientists at Toshiba.
via UniqueDaily
|
Comment (3)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Agassi's Wild Hair in the 1990s? Yep, a Wig!
Remember the wild hair of Andre Agassi in the 1990s? Yep, you guessed it: a wig!
"I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?"
But the wig began to disintegrate as he took a shower the night before the Paris final — "probably I used the wrong hair rinse," Agassi writes.
He panicked and called his brother Philly into the room. Together, they managed to clamp the wig together using clips and pins.
Agassi, 39, writes: "Of course I could have played without my hairpiece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was really wearing a wig?
"During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off.
"With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi’s hair has fallen from his head."
(Photo: AFP/EPA)
|
Comment (7)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
| Neatorama Shop » Food & Drink » Offbeat Mints & Candies | ||
 |
 |
 |
See more Offbeat
Mints & Candies » |
||
Inside the Vicious World of Competitive Yoga
The 7th Annual Asana Yoga Competition was recently held in New York. New York Magazine has a glimpse at the extreme poses competitors used to impress the judges. Link -via Buzzfeed
|
Comment (9)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Mass Games in North Korea
“Mass games” are group athletic events in which the performance of the individual is deemphasized in favor of the performance of the group as a whole. They are thus well suited to the philosophy embodied by socialist/communist states, but the components of such games are also employed for other major events such as Olympic opening and closing shows.
The video above includes the closing moments from the movie “A State of Mind,” documenting mass games in North Korea.
|
Comment (12)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Parahawking: Skydiving With Hawks
(YouTube Link)
Parahawking involves skydiving while specially-trained birds of prey swarm around you, including vultures, eagles, and falcons. It’s available in Nepal courtesy of a bird rescue group called Himalayan Raptor Rescue. Hypothetically, it should lead to a superior paragliding experience:
Birds of prey have a natural instinct to conserve energy wherever and whenever possible. During a flight, a bird will burn more energy than it would if it was just sitting in a tree, this means it has to eat to replace the used energy. Sometimes birds will travel long distances to find food. To conserve energy whilst flying, birds of prey use thermals. Thermals are rising currents of warm air that are created by the sun heating the ground. Birds can gain height and travel long distances without flapping their wings by using thermals. Paragliders also use thermals when they are flying and will often use wild birds to guide them to where the thermals are. Our trained birds are no different, they will find the thermals in order to stay aloft and conserve energy whilst flying. We as paragliders harness their ability to conserve energy by following them as we fly.
Our birds need to be rewarded for guiding us into the thermals. During the flight the passenger will place small morsels of meat onto his gloved hand, the birds will come and gently land on the hand to take the food, and then gracefully fly away to find the next thermal. A perfect symbiotic relationship.
|
Comment (8)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
A Visual History of Football Helmets
For the past ten years The Helmet Project has been assembling images of football helmets. The current array includes professional teams (American, Canadian, Arena, and others) and NCAA divisions I, II, and III, and even NAIA and some junior colleges. The time period covered goes back to 1960.
Please note that my interest lies only in the “helmet design”, by which I basically mean the shell and faceguard colors, the logo decals (if any), and the stripes running over the top of the helmet (if any). No attempt is being made here to illustrate the physical variations of helmets produced by different manufacturers, or the many different styles of faceguards, nor do I intend to show changes in the physical structure of helmets over the decades (at least not in the near future); partially for these reasons, 1960 has been somewhat arbitrarily chosen as the cut-off date for all the historic helmets for now. I am also not attempting to display fine details like “award decals” that would not show up well in the image size I am using here, or those details that would not be visible from this perspective (such as numerals on the back of the helmet). It is not my intention to illustrate every variation worn by every individual football player on any of these teams, just whatever was “the” design for each team at a particular time.
Link, via Archaeoblog (!)
|
Comment (4)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Seats of Gold
Sportswriter Wright Thompson tried out the “Legends” section at the new Yankee Stadium. The seats originally went for $2,500. Now they are mostly empty, even though the price has dropped to $1,250. In telling the story of how such an exclusive luxury section came to be, Thompson relates the changes in baseball with the state of the economy.
A recent poll discovered an unsettling trend emerging for the first time. American families whose household income is $75,000 or less now have zero dollars of discretionary income. According to Luker, that means about 75 percent of the country can never responsibly afford to go to a live professional sporting event. Franchises want them to be fans, to buy the gear and pull for their teams and watch the telecasts the leagues are paid billions for. But they don’t need them to come to their stadiums. There are, right now, plenty of rich people who love games. The prices reflect that. The reason sporting events cost so much now, Luker’s research shows, is because they are designed to be affordable only to those making $150,000 or more a year.
This wasn’t always true. Ten years ago, it was cheaper to go to a baseball game than to a movie in half of the big league markets (take away parking at the game, and it was cheaper in every market). Today, there isn’t a single city in America where it costs less to go to a major league game than to a movie. Everywhere we turn, we see examples of the collapsing middle class. This is where that issue lives in the world of sports, and it has predictable consequences.
You don’t have to be a baseball fan to relate to this story of a business choosing short-term profits over long-term growth. Link -via Metafilter
(image credit: Julie Jacobson)
|
Comment (10)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
| Neatorama Shop » Funny T-Shirts | ||
 |
 |
 |
See more Outrageously
Funny T-shirts »
|
||
How Many Rings Did They Win?
Hey baseball fans! As we head into post-season play, test your memory of past World Series with today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Do you know how many World Series titles each of twelve players earned? Keep in mind that some went all the way with more than one team. I scored 7 of 12, so any real baseball fan should beat that! Link
|
Comment (1)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Summer Olympic Cities
The 2016 Olympic summer games will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 2012 games will be in London, England. Since the first modern Olympics in 1896, 22 cities have hosted the summer games, some more than once. Can you name all those cities in five minutes? That’s the challenge of this Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Good luck -I could only name 16. Link
|
Comment (5)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Team Names: An Etymological Venn Diagram
This diagram (actually an Euler diagram {wiki}) sorts out professional baseball team names. Even more interesting is the accompanying list of links and explanations for every team name included. Link -via Jason Kottke
|
Comment (9)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
The Longest Point in the History of Professional Tennis - 29 minutes, 643 shots
This week marks the 25th anniversary of an historic tennis match. At a Virginia Slims tournament in 1984, Vicki Nelson and Jean Hepner exchanged 643 shots; it remains the longest single rally in the history of professional tennis.
The 6-hour-31-minute marathon was itself the longest match in tennis history for nearly 20 years and remains the longest match completed on a single day.
The rally that put Nelson-Dunbar and Hepner in the record books came at set point for Hepner, who was ahead, 11-10, in the second-set tie breaker, which lasted 1:47 on its own…
Hugh Waters, a former tennis coach and the owner of the Raintree club, remembered: “I had a lot of people coming up to me at the tournament saying the match was ridiculous, but I always jumped on them. It takes guts to do what they did. “People don’t understand the mental aspect of the game: this was a battle of wills and real tennis fans like me could appreciate it.”
Among the astonishing elements to the match was this: If Hepner had won the epic rally, she would have forced a third set, and who knows how long the match might have lasted.
Link, via Metafilter.
Photo: Jean Hepner (L) in 1985 and Vicki Nelson Dunbar (R) in 1987.
|
Comment (5)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Sumo Suit Athletics World Championships
The track and field events of 100 m dash, long jump, high jump, and shot put can get kind of boring after a while. But how should they be improved?
How about with a sumo suit? The people behind the Sumo Suit Athletics World Championships (motto: "slower, lower, weaker!") aim to liberate these events from elitist pro athletes so the (flabby) masses can join in on the fun!
Can’t compete with Usain Bolt over 100m? Not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Well have no fear, in a Sumo Suit no one can!
Indeed! TYWKIWDBI has the video clip: Link
|
Comment (4)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
The Foxy Golfball Thief
Tom Houk of Steamboat Springs, Colorado built a putting green in his yard, and got into the habit of leaving his golf balls where they landed until he returned. A few months ago, he woke to find all his golf balls gone! Houk produced more balls, but the next day, they would be gone, too. This continued until Houk finally spotted the thief.
A hairless fox was standing there with one of his golf balls in his mouth.
“We just couldn’t believe it and we thought he just snatched one,” Houk said.
The fox had more than one golf ball in mind.
“He doesn’t just take one ball,” Sally Houk said. “He came back and forth and back and forth until he took all of them.”
Tom Houk thinks the fox has taken nearly 100 of his golf balls.
What does a fox do with a hundred golf balls? Jerry Neal of the Colorado Division of Wildlife thinks he probably plays with them. No word on what size clubs the fox uses. Link -via Arbroath
|
Comment (7)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Best Pool Table EVAR!
All right. So John Farrier has posted a couple of really cool pool tables. The first one is Deep Green, a pool-playing robot created by the robotics lab of Queen’s University in Canada. The second one is the $200,000 Obscura CueLight Pool Table that creates an interactive image using an overhead projector.
Well, fie! The first two rounds belong to you, John. But in this game of Neatorama one upmanship, I’m compelled regain top dog status and post a pool table to beat ‘em all.
Behold, the Snooker Sofa, created by Accrington upholsterer and UK pool table maker Riley in the 1970s.
Can your pool table transform into a sofa, John? Just look at that beauty and weep: Link
Note: And yes, you may have seen this one round the Net back a couple of months ago, and was on eBay (since then it’s been out of eBay).
|
Comment (8)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
48-Pound Trout: World Record or Genetic Cheat?
Sean Konrad caught a 48-pound rainbow trout. That’s a world record. But should it be? The trout he caught was a genetically-modified fish that escaped from a fish farm. It has three sets of chromosomes, which makes it sterile but able to grow unnaturally big. Konrad’s brother Adam caught the previous world record trout in 2007, which was also genetically modified. Whether this counts as cheating depends on how you see the sport of fishing. No matter where the fish came from, the fisherman still landed it, which involves a certain set of skills. However, fisherman elsewhere don’t have the opportunity to even try to catch a trout that big, because they don’t exist in nature. What do you think? Link
|
Comment (20)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Boxers Before and After Fights
This series of photographs by Howard Schatz won a second place prize in the Sports Stories category of the World Press Photo Contest. He took pictures of boxers before and after fights. It hurts just to look! Also be sure to check out other contest winners. Link -via J-Walk Blog
|
Comment (7)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Game Called Due to Hole
Alcoa High was leading Fulton High in last night’s football game in Knoxville, Tennessee when the game had to called due to the ground opening up and trying to swallow the players.
With Alcoa leading 20-7, a sinkhole opened up near the stands-side sideline at the 41-yard line on the west side of the still-drenched field with 6:33 left to play in the fourth quarter. The field was declared unplayable and play was suspended for the night. The remaining minutes of the game will be played at Alcoa High School’s Goddard Field at 5 p.m. today. Admission is free.
(image credit: Mark A. Large/The Daily Times)
|
Comment (0)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
| Neatorama Shop » Scientists Do It ... T-Shirts | |
 |
|
| Möbius Does It On The Same Side | See more Scientists
Do It T-Shirts »
|
One Fast Cat
Sarah, a cheetah at the Cincinnati Zoo, set a world record for the 100 meter dash today by covering the distance in 6.13 seconds. The event was held at Mast Farm, the zoo’s cheetah breeding facility. The race is a remote contest between Sarah and Zaza, a cheetah at Cheetah Outreach in South Africa. Zaza is expected to run her race later this month. To compare, the human world record is 9.58 seconds, held by Usain Bolt. Link to story. Link to Sarah’s blog. -via Metafilter
|
Comment (6)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Llama Caddies
Sherwood Forest Golf Course in Transylvania County, North Carolina offers a memorable golf experience every Tuesday. You can rent a llama to be your caddy! A llama from Fairway Friends Llama Farm will carry two sets of clubs for $40. This is a sure way to get kids interested in playing golf. Link -via the Presurfer
|
Comment (4)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
72-year-old Subdues Attacker
72-year-old Dawn Fraser confronted two teenage home intruders at her daughter’s home in Noosaville, Australia. One attacked her, thinking a little old lady wouldn’t resist much. What he didn’t realize was that Frazer has always been a tough lady.
“Out came this guy who then grabbed me around the throat and said ‘I will kill you’, and with that I grabbed him around the ear and hair and kneed him in the groin,” she told Channel Seven television late Monday.
“I was threatened by the way he spoke to me and I’d never been spoken to like what he called me … I think I lost it. I have got a titanium knee so it must have hurt him,” she said.
The two youths were referred to child services. Fraser {wiki} won eight Olympic medals for swimming in 1956, 1960, and 1964, including four gold medals for Australia. Link
|
Comment (10)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Is Running Barefoot Actually Better For You?
It may be counterintuitive (and hard to digest for parents like myself who always have to tell our kids to wear shoes when playing outside) but going barefoot may actually be better for you.
Here’s a New York Times article by Amy Cortese about the controversial movement of running barefoot (or barely barefoot anyhow, as these runners still wear thin rubber running shoes like the ones shown to the left):
Recent research suggests that for all their high-tech features, modern running shoes may not actually do much to improve a runner’s performance or prevent injuries. Some runners are convinced that they are better off with shoes that are little more than thin gloves for the feet — or with no shoes at all.
Plenty of medical experts disagree with this notion. The result has been a raging debate in running circles, pitting a quirky band of barefoot runners and researchers against the running-shoe and sports-medicine establishments.
Naturally, Nike and other large shoe manufacturers aren’t amused:
The shoe industry giants defend their products, saying they help athletes perform better and protect feet from stress and strain — not to mention the modern world’s concrete and broken glass.
But for all the technological advances promoted by the industry — the roll bars, the computer chips and the memory foam — experts say the injury rate among runners is virtually unchanged since the 1970s, when the modern running shoe was introduced. Some ailments, like those involving the knee and Achilles’ tendon, have increased.
Link (Photo: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times)
|
Comment (27)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Are Jocks Jerks?
Kate Dailey of Newsweek’s The Human Condition blog wrote a very interesting post about the role of sports in child development. Is sports beneficial for kids or does it turn jocks into jerks?
The answer – painfully obvious to those who still remember their high school days – came by way of a new psychology study by Richard Lerner et al:
Depending on one’s high-school experience, there are two distinct philosophies about the role sports plays in a child’s development. There’s the idea that youth sports teaches kids discipline and respect, keeps them off the street, and helps them mature into adults: it’s sports that turned athletically gifted but insecure Daniel Larusso into The Karate Kid.
But just as pervasive is the opinion that jocks are jerks, and kids who play sports are mean bullies who will do anything to win, who need to dominate their opponents and who carry that aggressiveness streak off the field. Kids who play sports, this line of thinking goes, are more like Johnny Lawrence, star athlete (and big-time bully) from the Cobra-Kai dojo.
A recent study in the journal Developmental Psychology suggest that jocks really are jerks—if they focus exclusively on sports at the expense of other more-well rounded programs. But kids who both play sports and are exposed to youth-development program like scouting or 4-H show the most markers of personal growth and maturity.
|
Comment (13)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Daniel Pelletier, Paraplegic Skateboarder
(YouTube Link)
Sixteen-year old Daniel Pelletier is paralyzed from the waist down and has endured twenty-five surgeries during his recovery, but he doesn’t let that stop him from being an accomplished skateboarder. Pelletier hopes to get corporate sponsorship with this video. More videos at the link.
|
Comment (14)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
95-Year Old Competitive Runner
(Video Link)
Frank Levine began running competitively at the age of 65 — nothing big, just a marathon. He’s run seventeen marathons since that time. Levine just broke a world record for the 5000-meter in the 95-99 category with a finishing time of 50 minutes and 10 seconds.
Via Urlesque
|
Comment (1)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Baseball in the Dark
For kids with xeroderma pigmentosum, sunshine is deadly. UV rays cause them to develop cancerous tumors. They stay inside and covered, except for rare occasions late at night. Patients travel to Camp Sundown in New York to meet others with the condition and enjoy activities designed to accommodate their needs. This year, those activities included a major league baseball game at Yankee Stadium.
Because they couldn’t leave until the sun was almost down, and because it was a three-hour drive, they knew they’d be able to see only the last couple of innings of the game. But then it rained, causing a more-than-two-hour rain delay. While the rest of the crowd cursed, the campers rejoiced. How lucky can you get? The bus arrived just before the first pitch. “It was almost like the game was waiting for them to show up,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said. “That kind of gave us goosebumps.”
To get the kids out of the bus and into their VIP suite for the game, Yankees media-relations director Jason Zillo — the man who dreamed up the whole night — had to take them on a rat’s route of back staircases and tunnels to avoid any fluorescent lights. After the Yankees beat the A’s 6-3, the stadium lights had to be dimmed to 30 percent. Once they were, all the kids came running onto the field with smiles that could’ve lit up the Bronx.
“It’s cool to be part of this,” said [Yankee player A.J.] Burnett, whom Zillo forced to leave at 3:15. “And it’s kind of mind-boggling. I can’t imagine if I couldn’t take my children outside.”
The Yankees partied and played baseball with the campers until they had to leave at 3:30 AM to beat the sunrise. Link -via YesButNoButYes
|
Comment (6)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
The Cardboard Tube Fighting League
As a kid, I couldn’t hack at my friends with a real sword, so we used cardboard tubes to fence. Who knew that it was an actual sport? The Cardboard Tube Fighting League has competitions all over the world where people come together to play and show off their homemade cardboard armor.
Official Website of the San Francisco Branch
Link via The Presurfer
|
Comment (7)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Why Do Pro Athletes Almost Always Go Broke?
They earn millions playing pro sports and doing product endorsements, yet consider these startling statistics:
Similar to lottery winners, with no financial prowess or discipline, most pro athletes go completely broke in less than 10 years after retirement.
In fact, 60% of retired basketball players go broke in 5, and 78% of football players in 2! Athletes are forced to sell their homes, sell their championship rings, and file for bankruptcy.
Here’s an interesting article on the 6 main reasons pro athletes go broke after their careers are over: Link
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
|
Comment (14)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
| Neatorama Shop » Food & Drink » Offbeat Mints & Candies | ||
 |
 |
 |
See more Offbeat
Mints & Candies » |
||
-
Your purchase helps support the blog - Thank you!
