The Daily Dose/July 14, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Note from around the human experience.
HIGHER…STRONGER…FASTER…EVENTUALLY: One of the things we find interesting about sports records is how long some of them last. Yesterday in On This Date we noted David Bedford breaking the 10,000-meter world record in 1973 and how the current record has stood since 2005. Now, that’s a long time, but not that all that long track and field standards. There are a lot of records that stood much longer.
Dry, Technical Matter: By definition, a record is something no one’s done before, but the difference between champion and runner-up, on a percentage basis, generally isn’t all that great and two decades for a track record to stand seems like a long time.
Fly In The Ointment: This isn’t true in every event, of course. For example, the men’s 100-meter record has been broken nine times this century.
USA! USA! Our favorite remains Bob Beamon’s world long jump record that stood for 22 years and 10 months before broken by Mike Powell in 1991, probably because the way completely obliterated the old record. Even Beamon’s mark isn’t that all impressive anymore because Powell’s mark has now stood for 28 years and since the record was first noted in 1901 four men (Peter O’Connor and Jesse Owens besides Beamon and Powell) have held the mark for at least 20 years.
FunFact: Beamon’s mark is still the Olympic record.
Back On Message: 28 years is relatively recent compared to some others. The oldest track and field record is in the women’s 800-meter mark, which has stood since 1983. In fact, 13 current track records, 11 by women, were set in the 1980s, all but a couple of them by Soviet-bloc athletes on PEDs.
The Bottom Line: PEDs don’t account for all the long-standing records, however. Certainly, like Beamon, some people completely lost their minds and soared so high we took a long time to catch up, but that doesn’t account for all of them, either. There are simply too many track records that have stood for too long for these two factors to account for every long-standing mark. You would think that professionalism, meaning athletes can train full-time and modern training techniques would see records fall with greater frequency, but that’s not happening, either. Not to mention the fact that us humans have been getting bigger, stronger and faster since time immemorial.
None of this is the case, though, and track remains a stark contrast to swimming where every official record has been set since 2008. Your guess why is as good as mine.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: The cat tries to get Sparrow out of bed. Today’s Diary.
The cat continues to lose her mind, remaining fixated, for the first time in eight years, on attacking my feet…It’s to the point where I keep my feet covered because sometimes you don’t use the blankets in the summer but exposed feet appear to be on the menu now…It’s been the same thing for the past few sleep sessions: she hears me stir or the alarm goes off and she trots in and hops on the bed and meows and gives me a head bump and then dispatches herself to the foot of the bed and tries to attack my feet.
She did that this evening after I woke up to use the can and then sat on my left shoulder blade only this time she faced backward – probably to keep tabs on my feet – and her tail was in my face, making it tuff to get back to sleep, so I had to shoo her off, which I don’t like to do because I rather enjoy it when she’s resting on my back like that.
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Code Four Carlin and Gaylon discuss supply and demand.
Code Four Carlin then goes into a very basic lesson on the whole supply and demand dynamic which is funny because while Code Four Carlin is not stupid, he does not come across as the type for whom Supply and Demand would be an area of expertise.
I was obliged to sit through a thrilling lecture on how an item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I told Code Four Carlin I was down with that, adding that all I was saying is that I would be unwilling to pay 73 cents for something that has “Five Cents” engraved on it.
$2.99 gets you complete access to The Diary of a Nobody and Backstairs at the Monte Carlo. No kidding. Click on the button.
On This Date
History’s long march to today.
In 1969 – The Federal Reserve begins removing the larger denominations of US currency – $500, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 and $100,000 bills – from circulation. Public circulation of the bills had been rare and they were mostly used in transactions between banks, but advances in bank transfer technologies began to preclude their further use. The bills remain legal tender in the US, though most of the remaining large denomination notes are in private collections.
In 1952 – Wal Dropo of the Detroit Tigers goes 5-for-5 with two RBIs in an 8-2 win over the New York Yankees. The performance was the start of a streak of a major league record of twelve consecutive plate appearances with a hit. Dropo had seven hits the following day in a doubleheader at Washington and the streak was broken in the seventh inning of the second game when he fouled out. Dropo’s twelve hits in twelve at-bats tied the major league record established by Pinky Higgins of the Boston Rex Sox in 1938. Higgins had two walks during his streak.
In 1990 – Garth Brooks is at #1 on Billboard’s country chart – then known as the Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart – for the first of three consecutive weeks with The Dance. It was the second of 18 country chart #1s for Brooks and the fourth of 13 consecutive Top 10 hits to start his career. The song did not chart on the Hot 100, but did peak at #36 in Great Britain and was Billboard’s 13th biggest country song of the year. A version by Rockell peaked at #27 on Billboard’s dance chart in 2000.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
In our desire to have government become our benefactor and sustainer, we have allowed it to become our taskmaster and overlord. As a result, we have become little more than well-fed, well-entertained slaves to the state. Freedom, as envisioned by our forefathers, is gone. – Chuck Baldwin
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
No American male has held the world record in the 10,000 meters. Four American women have: Kathy Gibbons, Julie Brown, Peg Neppel and Mary Decker-Slaney.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
What were Garth Brooks’ biggest hits on Billboard’s country chart? – Answer next time!
