Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-08The 59 That Didn't WinOn July 8, 2010, Paul Goydos shot a 59 in the opening round of the John Deere Classic, becoming the fourth PGA Tour player to reach the number. The stranger twist: Steve Stricker shot 60 the same day, won the tournament, and left Goydos with the first PGA Tour 59 that did not win its event.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-07The Day the Celtics Became the ClippersOn July 7, 1978, the NBA approved a full-franchise swap between the Boston Celtics and Buffalo Braves, creating one of basketball’s strangest legal paper trails.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-06Five Seconds to StardomOn July 6, 2019, Jorge Masvidal knocked out Ben Askren with a flying knee five seconds into UFC 239, breaking the UFC fastest knockout record.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-05The First Woman Took the NinthOn July 5, 1898, Lizzie Arlington pitched the ninth inning for Reading in an organized men’s professional baseball game, loaded the bases, and still preserved a 5-0 shutout. The odd twist is that the “publicity stunt” was backed by Ed Barrow, the future Yankees architect who later helped turn Babe Ruth into a full-time hitter.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-04Alabama's Canadian football FourthOn July 4, 1995, the Birmingham Barracudas won their first CFL game 38-10 in Winnipeg — a real Alabama team playing Canadian football in a one-season experiment.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-03The Cup won by one secondOn July 3, 2007, Alinghi beat Emirates Team New Zealand by one second in Race 7 of the America's Cup, after a wind shift, gear failure, and penalty turn made sailing's oldest trophy a last-second scramble.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-02The $1.8M fight on the radioOn July 2, 1921, Jack Dempsey knocked out Georges Carpentier in four rounds, but the real oddity was outside the ropes: boxing’s first million-dollar gate and a heavyweight title fight carried by radio.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-07-01The Olympics swallowed by a fairOn July 1, 1904, the first Olympics held outside Europe opened in St. Louis as a World’s Fair sideshow, producing one of the strangest Games in sports history.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-06-30The ban heard round the rinkOn June 30, 1994, the U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of her 1994 national title and banned her for life. The oddity is that one of American figure skating's most infamous championships remains vacant because the winner was erased from the record book months after winning it.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-06-29The $3 ticket to seven feetOn June 29, 1956, Charles Dumas became the first person to clear seven feet in the high jump after buying a $3 ticket to enter his own Olympic trial.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-06-28The $2 skis that invented water skiingOn June 28, 1922, 18-year-old Ralph Samuelson made the first confirmed water-skiing glide on Lake Pepin using homemade pine-board skis, turning a lake-town dare into a sport.
Sports History Oddities On This Day2026-06-26The first woman to bike the world, sort ofOn June 27, 1894, Annie Londonderry left the Massachusetts State House to begin the first round-the-world bicycle journey credited to a woman. The twist: she had barely learned to ride, the wager was likely invented, the trip leaned heavily on steamships, and her new name came from a sponsor's placard.
