Obscure sports trivia

We have a winner, but it was 1904. You can pick up your prize vial on the way out. Strychnine was used in small amounts as a stimulant. The details of those Olympics and marathon in particular -- one runner nearly died from inhaling road dust -- are bizarre.

 

The first guy across the finish line was hailed as the winner — until it was discovered he got a lift and rode almost half the race in a car.

 

The story of the 1904 Olympics is fucking AWESOME. It's one of my favorite sports stories ever, for the sheer absurdity of it all.

They ought to make a movie about the marathon. Besides the aforementioned strychnine doping and turn of the century Rosie Ruiz (Fred Lorz, who was banned from the sport, then reinstated in time to win the 1905 Boston Marathon), you had a guy get chased a mile out of the way by stray dogs; a Cuban mailman who lost his money gambling in New Orleans and had to walk and hitchhike the rest of the way to St. Louis; a couple of South African tribesmen who were also part of the insanely racist "Anthropology Days" that accompanied the Olympics; and some Greek runners who had never run a marathon. Only about half the field made it to the end.
There was also a complete disregard for human life. The race was run on dirt roads on a 90-plus degree day, which almost caused several runners to die by choking on dust. The race organizers were conducting an experiment on human endurance, and there were only two water stations at the 6- and 12-mile marks.
The Cuban ate some rotten apples from an orchard along the route, took a nap, and still finished fourth because so many of the other competitors were in various stages of distress. He also had an official time under four hours, which is pretty damn impressive.

The 1904 Olympic Marathon May Have Been the Strangest Ever | History| Smithsonian Magazine

The marathon gets a lot of play because it was so ridiculous, but it really was just the crowning achievement of a phenomenally stupid Olympics:
• Almost all of the athletes were Americans, because no one either wanted to come to St. Louis or could make it there because of the Russo-Japanese war going on at the time. Americans won 231 of the 280 medals awarded, which is still a record for a single Olympics that'll probably never be broken.
• Four water polo players died of typhus because the games were played in a toxic cattle pond.
• Seriously, fucking Anthropology Days.
• Plunging for distance (dive into a pool and see how far you can go before coming up), tug of war and rope climb were medal sports.
• A gymnast with a wooden leg won six gold medals. One of them was in the rope climb.

Another guy won medals in three different sports, and is still the only person to accomplish that feat. I'd ask it as a question since we're on the trivia thread, but I know no one would ever get it. It was a fella named Frank Kugler, who won a silver medal in wrestling, two bronze medals in weightlifting, and another bronze in tug of war. He finished last in 9 of 10 events in the all-around dumbbell lifting competition, but still got a bronze medal because there were only three competitors. There were four people in the two-hand lift event and he finished third.

 

As of yesterday, Brandon Graham holds the record for most games played for the Philadelphia Eagles franchise.

Whose record did he break?

 

Chuck Bednarik?

 

David Akers?

 

It’s Akers.

Bednarik is eighth on the list.

Jason Kelce is also going to pass Akers in the next few weeks. Fletcher Cox, too, if his injury isn’t as bad as it looked.

 

This man played all or part of six MLB seasons and concluded his career with 41 more runs than base hits and 44 more runs than RBIs. Who is/was he?

 

I’ll guess Herb Washington, but I don’t know if he ever had an at bat.
Terrance Gore would be another guess.

 

There was a guy that teams in the playoff hunt would trade for as basically a designated runner in the playoffs. That guy.

 

No, not Herb Washington. He only played one year.

This guy had one of baseball's great nicknames.

 

I'll answer this now. It's Allan Lewis, the "Panamanian Express."

Had three career RBIs, six career hits and 47 career runs from 1967-73. He was on the 1972 and 1973 A's World Series champions; one year they voted him a 1/10 share.