DAILY DIRT: That marvelous connection between certain numbers and sports immortality

Daily Dirt for Sunday, June 25, 2023

I think an argument could be made for Wilt Chamberlain being the single most dominant athlete in his sport — ever … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 647 of The Daily Dirt.

1. If you’re a sports fan — and, really, who isn’t? — there are certain numbers that carry a major significance.

And most, if not all, of those numbers are linked to extraordinary records that have stood the test of time.

Here are seven of my favorite such numbers:

100: The record for points scored in an NBA game, held by Wilt Chamberlain. “At No. 2? Kobe Bryant, who shot from the moment he got off the bus to the moment the sun came up the next morning in 2006, and still managed ‘only’ 81 points,” wrote Jay Busbee of yahoo.com. Oh, and one other thing, the season Wilt set that record (1961-62) he AVERAGED 50.4 points a game.

56: Joe DiMaggio’s streak of consecutive games with a hit. Pete Rose came relatively close, getting to 44 games in 1978, but the media scrutiny was crushing. What would that “media scrutiny” be like today?

.400: Ted Williams was the last hitter to reach that mark for an entire season, batting .406 in 1941. When the idiotic strike halted the 1994 MLB season, Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 — three hits shy of .400. Nobody since Gwynn has come close to .400. The best average since 1994 is Larry Walker’s .379 in 1999.

2,632: That, of course, is the number of consecutive games Cal Ripken played. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

111: That’s the number of consecutive games once won by the UConn women’s basketball program. 

8: The number of consecutive NBA titles won by the Boston Celtics. That happened back when I was a wee lad, but believe me, it was quite impressive even back then (1959-66) — and even if there were fewer than 10 NBA teams at the time. The Celtics had a guy named Russell who was pretty good.

7: The number of Super Bowls won by Tom Brady. No quarterback — outside of possibly Patrick Mahomes — will ever manage to do that again.

2. Fun fact

Human fingernails grow an average of one nanometer per second. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. In a month, the average human’s fingernails grow roughly 3.47 millimeters (and toenails grow even more slowly, growing an average of just 1.62 millimeters).

3. I know, I know … 2023 is barely half over, but movie buffs need to start concentrating on 2024.

Here are three of the top releases scheduled fof next year:

Gold medal: “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” set for a May release. Here’s the scoop: Caesar, the chimpanzee who led the apes to world domination, died at the end of 2017’s “War for the Planet of the Apes,” the third film in the reboot trilogy of the classic sci-fi franchise. However, there’s more monkey business to be had.

Silver medal: “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part II” is scheduled to be in theaters in late June 2024, starring Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames and Esai Morales. Here’s the scoop: Morales will be the new villain in this eighth film of this franchise. We can only wonder what death-defying stunts Cruise will entertain us with this time around.

Bronze medal: “Gladiator 2,” which will be released around Thanksgiving in 2024. Here’s the scoop: Superstar action director Ridley Scott returns to head this sequel to the historical epic “Gladiator.” Denzel Washington will be one of the stars.

Steve Thought O’ The Day — Speaking of movies, Aaron Taylor-Johnson appears to be gaining more footing to be named the new James Bond. He’s now a 2-1 betting favorite in Europe. The new Bond will likely be announced later this year, with the next 007 film to be released in 2025 or 2026.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. His ironman streak continues.