1.
Oklahoma Sooners
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The Oklahoma Sooners feature 19 varsity sports teams, each of which represents the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The universitys athletic teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association s Division I, the universitys current athletic director is Joe Castiglione. In 2002, the University of Oklahoma was ranked as the third best college sports program in America by Sports Illustrated. When combined with Blake Griffins John Wooden Award and Sam Bradfords Heisman Trophy, the University of Oklahoma was a charter member of the Southwest Athletic Conference during its formation in 1914. Five years later, in 1919, OU left the SWC, in 1928, this conference split, and OU remained aligned with the teams that formed the Big Six Conference. Over the next 31 years, more schools were added and the conference underwent several name changes, four more universities were added then and the name was changed one more time to its current form, the Big 12 Conference. The Oklahoma Sooners are represented in the following NCAA Division I varsity sports, Oklahoma has scored the most points in Division I-A football history despite the fact they have played over 60 fewer games than the second place school on that list. OU also has the highest winning percentage of any team since the start of the AP poll in 1936. This number is 3rd only to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, watts, Keith Jackson and Jammal Brown. More than a dozen Sooner players have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, Oklahoma has more Butkus award winners than any other school. Coaches Bennie Owen, Bud Wilkinson, and Barry Switzer have passed through the tunnel for the Sooners. Owen was the first highly successful coach at OU and was an advocate of the forward pass. The playing surface at Oklahomas Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is popularly known as Owen Field in honor of his long tenure, the record of 47 straight wins is widely regarded as one of the great achievements in sports, and a streak that is unlikely to be broken. Switzer won three championships and forged arguably the fiercest rushing offense ever, the Oklahoma wishbone formation. Though the end of Switzers tenure at Oklahoma was marked by controversy and poor player behavior, during his 16 years as the Sooners head coach, Switzer led his team to 12 conference championships and never lost more than two games in a row. His winning percentage of.837 stands as the fourth-highest in the history of 1-A football, other Hall of Fame coaches whose tenure included stints at the University of Oklahoma are Lawrence Biff Jones and Jim Tatum. The mens basketball team is successful and rose to national prominence since the early 80s with head coach Billy Tubbs. It currently plays in the Lloyd Noble Center, which came to be known as the house Alvan Adams built, while the team has never won a national championship, it ranks second in most tournament wins without a championship behind Illinois
2.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and this game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series, the top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision, a French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It, A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England, recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David Block discovered that the first recorded game of Bass-Ball took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants
3.
Baseball park
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A baseball park, also known as a ballpark or diamond, is a venue where baseball is played. A baseball park consists of the field and the surrounding spectator seating. While the diamond and the areas denoted by white painted lines adhere to rules, guidelines for the rest of the field are flexible. The term ballpark sometimes refers either to the structure, or sometimes to just the playing field. A home run where the player makes it around the bases, sometimes a home run over the fence is called out of the ballpark, but that phrase more often means a home run that clears the stands and lands outside the building. The playing field is most often called the ballfield, though the term is used interchangeably with ballpark when referring to a small local or youth league facility. A baseball field can be referred to as a diamond, the infield is a rigidly structured diamond of dirt containing the three bases, home plate, and the pitchers mound. The space between the bases and home is normally a grass surface, save for the mound in the center. Some ballparks, like Torontos Rogers Centre, have grass or artificial turf between the bases, and dirt only around the bases and pitchers mound, others, such as Koshien Stadium in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, have an entirely dirt infield. Two white lines run out from the plate area, aligned with first. These are the lines or base lines, usually differentiated by referring to them as the first base line. If a ball hit by the lands outside of the space between these two lines, or rolls out of this space before reaching first or third base, the ball is foul. If it lands between or on the lines, it is fair, at the end of the lines are two foul poles, which help the umpires judge whether a ball is fair or foul. These foul poles are actually in fair territory, so a ball hits them on the fly is a home run. On either side of plate are the two batters boxes This is where the batter stands when at bat. Behind home is the box, where the catcher and the home plate umpire stand. Next to first and third base are two boxes, where the first and third base coaches guide the baserunners, generally with gestures or shouts. As the baserunner faces away from the outfield when running from second base to third, they see where the ball is
4.
Subway Series
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The Subway Series is a series of Major League Baseball rivalry games played between the two teams based in New York City, the Yankees and the Mets. Previously, this applied to the Giants and Dodgers as well, every historic and current venue for such games has been accessible via the New York City Subway, hence the name of the series. The terms historic usage has been in reference to World Series games played between the citys teams, since 1997, the term Subway Series has been applied to interleague play during the regular season between the Yankees and New York Citys National League team, the New York Mets. The Mets and Yankees also played each other in the 2000 World Series, the following season, Brooklyn withdrew from the Association and joined the League, setting the stage for many future intra-city competitions. Some might argue that the 1889 Series would qualify as a Trolley Series, the 1906 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox is also loosely referred to as a Subway Series, though the term Crosstown Series is more commonly used. The term is inaccurate, since Chicago had surface systems from 1892 till the building of the State Street Subway in 1943. The 155th Street elevated and subway stations, the 161st Street station, in the case of the World Series contests listed, the entire Series could be attended by using the subway. The date of the first usage of the term Subway Series is uncertain, the term Nickel Series appeared in newspapers by 1927, and Subway Series appeared by 1928. The 1921 and 1922 match-ups were played in a single ballpark, the Giants won both of these World Series against the Yankees, the first two Subway Series played. The Yankees opened their new ballpark in 1923, fortunes changed immediately for the Yankees as they defeated the Giants this time in the third straight year of World Series competition between the two teams. Their new home would host the Yankees first of 11 Subway World Series victories that year, the venues for the 1923,1936,1937, and 1951 World Series—the Polo Grounds and the old Yankee Stadium—were a short walk apart across the Macombs Dam Bridge over the Harlem River. Of course, anyone in the city not living in that vicinity could have opted for the subway system, the term was used again in 1941 when the Dodgers made their first World Series appearance since 1920. Despite Brooklyns repeated success at winning the National League pennant, it was able to win one World Series against the Yankees. The match-ups were known as the City Series and were played in October while other teams played in the World Series. However, after 1940, this became difficult because the Yankees would routinely appear in the World Series. In the 17 years from 1941 to 1957, the Yankees appeared in the World Series 12 times, failing to reach the Series only in 1944,1945,1946,1948, and 1954. The proceeds raised by the Yankees were given to leagues in Manhattan, the annual charity event was discontinued following the 1957 season, when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the Giants moved to San Francisco. Leaving the Yankees as the major league team in the city
5.
Walsall F.C.
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Walsall Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Walsall, West Midlands, England. The team play in League One, the tier in the English football league system. The club was founded in 1888 as Walsall Town Swifts, an amalgamation of Walsall Town F. C. and their first match at Wembley Stadium was the 2015 Football League Trophy Final, which they lost to Bristol City. Walsall moved into their Bescot Stadium in 1990, having played at nearby Fellows Park for almost a century. The ground is known as Bankss Stadium for sponsorship purposes, the team play in a red and white kit and their club crest features a swift. The clubs nickname, The Saddlers, reflects Walsalls status as a centre for saddle manufacture. Walsall were formed as Walsall Town Swifts in 1888 when Walsall Town F. C. Walsall Town had been founded in 1877 and Walsall Swifts in 1879. Both clubs had played at the Chuckery, and the new club remained at the same ground, Walsall Town Swifts first match was a draw against Aston Villa. Two players from this early era received international caps, in 1882, Alf Jones won the first two of his three caps while with Walsall Swifts, and in 1889 Albert Aldridge received the second of his two caps while playing for Walsall Town Swifts. The club were first admitted to the Football League in 1892 and they moved to the West Bromwich Road ground in 1893. After finishing 14th out of 16 teams in 1894–95 the club failed to be re-elected to the Football League, at the start of the 1895 season the club moved to Hilary Street, later renamed Fellows Park. In 1896 they changed their name to Walsall F. C. a year later, they returned to the Second Division, three teams having failed re-election in 1896. The team finished in place in 1898–99, but once again failed re-election two years later, dropping back into the Midland League. A move to the Birmingham League followed in 1903, and in 1910, with the expansion of the Football League after World War I, Walsall became a founding member of the Third Division North in 1921. Walsalls highest home attendance was set in 1930, when played in of front of 74,600 fans against Aston Villa in the FA Cup Fourth Round. Although a home match for Walsall, the tie was played at their opponents Villa Park ground, in 1933, Walsall won 2–0 in the FA Cup against Arsenal at Fellows Park. Arsenal went on to win the First Division that season, in 1958, following a reorganisation of the Football League, Walsall became founder members of the Fourth Division. Players such as Bill Chopper Guttridge, Tony Richards and Colin Taylor were intrinsically important to the success of the side
6.
Association football
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Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies making it the worlds most popular sport, the game is played on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by getting the ball into the opposing goal, players are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms while it is in play, unless they are goalkeepers. Other players mainly use their feet to strike or pass the ball, the team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is level at the end of the game, the Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by The Football Association in 1863. Association football is governed internationally by the International Federation of Association Football, the first written reference to the inflated ball used in the game was in the mid-14th century, Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word soccer was split off in 1863, according to Partha Mazumdar, the term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford -er abbreviation of the word association. Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. People in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand use either or both terms, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use football for the formal name. According to FIFA, the Chinese competitive game cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence, cuju players could use any part of the body apart from hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net. It was remarkably similar to football, though similarities to rugby occurred. During the Han Dynasty, cuju games were standardised and rules were established, phaininda and episkyros were Greek ball games. An image of an episkyros player depicted in low relief on a vase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens appears on the UEFA European Championship Cup, athenaeus, writing in 228 AD, referenced the Roman ball game harpastum. Phaininda, episkyros and harpastum were played involving hands and violence and they all appear to have resembled rugby football, wrestling and volleyball more than what is recognizable as modern football. As with pre-codified mob football, the antecedent of all football codes. Non-competitive games included kemari in Japan, chuk-guk in Korea and woggabaliri in Australia, Association football in itself does not have a classical history. Notwithstanding any similarities to other games played around the world FIFA have recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe. The modern rules of football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England
