In football (ok ‘soccer’), it is very unlikely, but also very cool, when a goalkeeper scores a goal (in the other net), especially from his own net. (I saw this today on TV, can’t remember the program, the look on the goalie’s face after his goalkick bounced un-touched by any other players into the opposite net was one of supreme elation.
What ‘goalie’s goal’ or unlikely positive thing is there for other sports?..
Or, what was the coolest, cleverest, most impressive thing you ever saw happen in your favourite sport?
My favorite, though strangely unheralded, clever sporting accomplishment was by Babe Ruth. He, much like Barry Bonds today, was often intentionally walked. He let them throw the first couple of pitches high and well outside. On the third he took a big step in towards the plate and swung. The ball cleared the seats for a home run.
I have never seen this repeated although it makes sense. A pitch on an intentional walk is slow and not meant to fool the hitter. It seems to me that if you get the timing right you would stand a good chance of making good contact.
Franco Harris’s Immaculate Reception. Video. (Click one of the RM links at the bottom of the page. The link on top is dead. Fast forward to 1:45 into the video to see the catch.)
At the risk of killing my own thread, and as a non-American I would like to make a request - if it is possible to do in a short sentence, can you explain the jargon you use? (such as ‘triple play’, ‘walked’)
If you would rather not, that’s ok. I just thought there’s no harm in asking.
Well, my high school football team once made 4 touchdowns in less than two minutes in the third quarter. We got a deep pass that scored, an interception on the first play the other team tried which got a touchdown, then they fumbled and our team recovered the ball and got a touchdown, and the last time we prevented them from getting off of their side of the field, and got a touchdown in two plays once we had the ball.
The only time while I was in high school that we beat this particular school, and it had been something like 9 or 10 years since they had last beat that team.
Hoyt Wilhelm hit a home run in his 1st at bat-& none in the next 20+ years. Baerga & Bellhorn hit 2 HR’s in same inning-one lefty,one righty. Just last week Johnny Damon got 3 hits in one inning. Bill Mueller- 2 grand slams in same game-one lefty,one righty. Actually, baseball has so many like this it is almost infinite.
Just heard one about Garret Anderson- he’s gone a few thousand at bats w/o getting hit by a pitch.
In a high school rugby league game Fairfield Patrician Brothers (IIRC) kicked off, the other team fumbled and Fairfield recovered the ball. They then proceeded to score in every set of 6 tackles for the rest of the game. Fairfield made no errors and no tackles.
Peter Sterling in his last year at Parramatta played a game with back and shoulder injuries. To avoid aggravating the injuries he made no tackles and was never tackled in posession. He set up all Parramatta’s tries and was man of the match.
Knowing how out of it I would feel if someone started talking about cricket I would be happy to oblige.
A walk in baseball is when the pitcher throws four balls outside of the designated strike zone. When that happens the person up at bat gets to go to first base. An intentional walk is when a particularly formidable hitter is up. The pitcher may choose to let that person have first base. The pitcher would then intentionally throw the ball way outside the strike zone.
Most hitters are happy to get to go to first base. Ruth chose to challenge the pitcher and go far out of his way to hit the pitch.
Now if cricket comes up I will be dying for the explanations.
Triple play - There are three outs in a baseball inning. When all three outs are made at once, it is a triple play. Double plays are a little more common. If one player does it it’s “unassisted” of course.
Walked - When a pitch is not hittable (too low, too high, or off to the side), and the batter doesn’t take a swing, it is a “ball”. If there are four “balls”, and the batter hasn’t been struck out, the player at bat gets a free walk to the first base.
‘hit by a pitch’ - self explanitory - it results in a walk (and all too often in the major leagues, a punch up on the mound) as well
grand slam - A home run hit when all three bases are occupied, resulting in four runs (four "points’).
Lobsang, a triple play is when three outs are made all on one play. Any triple play is extremely rare, and an unassisted triple play is astonishing; as pointed out earlier, this is only the 12th time in the entire history of major-league baseball that it’s happened. I was so bowled over by seeing it happen that I nearly dropped my beer.
Also, the same team (Atlanta Braves) did something earlier this season which is even rarer, which in fact has happened only twice in baseball history: Their first three batters of the game all hit home runs (knocking the ball completely out of the park, so you get to circle the bases unchallenged).
While the latter feat is rarer, though, I’ll take the unassisted triple for viewing excitement; home runs are neat, but overrated. I get all misty and philosophical and begin to wax boring over the finesse and timing of a good defensive play.
Wilt’s 100 points in a basketball game- 36 of 63 field goal attempts & 28 of 32 free throws. How about never fouling out, averaging over 50 points a game, & over 48 minutes a game(because of overtime). 55 rebounds in a game- Wilt is a one man record book.
Emmitt Smith once scored two rushing TDs on consecutive offensive plays for the Cowboys.
Larry Bird's over the backboard shot was pretty amazing.
The best Bird story, though, didn’t happen in a game. During one of the Celtics playoff runs in the 80’s, the coach challenged his players by saying if any of them could hit a half court shot, he would cancel practice for the day. Bird grabbed a ball, went to half court and hit nothing but net on his first try.
Reggie Miller's three pointer last year in game five of the first round of the playoffs to tie it was pretty amazing also, as was the eight points in eight seconds. On the other side, the 4 point play by Larry Johnson has to be my most horrid memory of an ending to an NBA game in history. Right up there with Magic Johnson banking in a three pointer FROM THE CORNER to beat the Celtics.
Hockey: In 2000 Martin Broduer scored a game winning goal as a goalie.
Now goalie scoring at all is pretty rare. It usually comes when one team is down near the end of the game, and remove their goalie for another offensive player. This leaves their own goal wide open, and usually one of the other team will grab the puck and skate down to take a 30 foot shot at the untended goal. Sometimes a Goalie seeing the empty net at the other side will throw the puck 200 feet trying to get it in. They have made it about 10 times in history , so it’s pretty rare. But because the goalie will never be pulled by a tied team( let’s just ignore a close points race at the end of the season for now, and go with the never) the goalie won’t get a gam winning goal.
There is another case where there is a goalie pulled from net. If the Other team(team B) commits a penalty then the refs will signal it, But allow the non-penalty team(team A) to keep playing. If they can score, then they get the goal and the penalty is never called. If team B ever controls the puck, the delayed penalty is called, and team a gets their power play, So it is a safe gamble to pull the goalie for an extra attacker while the other team has a delayed penalty. If the puck happens to go in Team A’s net without team B ever controling it(say Team A missed a backward pass that rolled in their own net), the goal is scored for team B however. That goal is scored for the last team A member who touched it, either before the penalty was made, or after if he touched but didn’t control.
Anyway to Brodeur a New Jersey Devil.They were playing Philadelphia. The nets had commiteed a penalty so Phily had a delayed penalty signal, and pulled their goalie for the extra attacker. The puck Hit Broduer on a shot so he had touched the puck. The puck then floated back near the edge of the Phily scoring zone, where a philly player had it. A Devils player ran at the Phily player, and I nevr sure quite what happened next. Either the Phily guy make a bad move and the puck slipped off his stick toward his own goal, or the Deveil’s player hit the Phily player’s stick with his own, send the puck shooting backward. Since in either case no Devil ever had control of it(or touched it after Brodeur) and the puck went into the goal, and was counted with Broduer getting credit for it. And since the teams were tied it became a game-winning goal.
I was trying to be desciptive with being tedious so I hope it’s not confusing. But its just a very amazing event that a goalie would score a game winner.
Wow, I’m almost disappointed. I’ve seen this incident mentioned so many times on these boards, it was cool to be able to finally see it.
Mind you, I’m no American Football fan, or even a connaisseur. But it looks like this was a stroke of pure luck. Sure, you gotta praise the guy for his reflexes, but mostly it was about standing in the right spot at the right time, through pure luck.
I mean no disrespect, mind you - it’s just that I always thought of this incident as some sort of heroic effort because of the times I saw it mentioned. And it turns out that while it’s an exciting turn of events (that score was an excellent thriller in and of itself), the actual event that causes the game to tilt is a luck of the draw.
Hey, can we mention funny unlikely stuff, too?
In the 1995 Hungarian Grand Prix (Formula One), designated backmarker Taki Inoue dropped out of the race with an overheated engine of sorts. His car started catching fire, and Taki was keen on putting out the flames ASAP, as his poor team couldn’t afford a new set of bodywork every race. What happened next is… surreal.
I fell off my chair laughing. A mate, who was watching his first ever F1 race, with me explaining the ropes, asked me whether this was supposed to happen. Upon which I cracked up even harder.
BTW, Taki did suffer a broken leg as a result, but healed just fine.
