Soccer club rivalries

Real Madrid vs Barca

The rivalry between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, in Spain, is generally considered to be the biggest in football, and is similar in context to Celtic – Rangers. From the start the clubs were seen as representatives of two rival regions in Spain, Catalonia and Castile respectively, as well as the two cities themselves. In the 1950s, the rivalry was intensified further when the clubs disputed the signing of Alfredo Di Stéfano, who finally played for Real Madrid and was key in the subsequent success achieved by the club.

As Barcelona and Real Madrid are the two biggest, and most successful, clubs in Spain, the rivalry impacts the league championship on an almost annual basis. The flash-points of this rivalry are the twice-a-season clásicos, which draw vast audiences from around the world. Real has won

Airplane disasters involving sports teams

Marshall University Football Team

1970

The year 1970 was to prove a grim year for college football program travel. Southern Airways Flight 932 was a chartered commercial jet flight from Kinston, North Carolina, to Ceredo, West Virginia. At 7:35 pm on November 14, 1970, the aircraft crashed into a hill just short of the airport, killing all 75 people on board. The plane was carrying 37 members of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football squad, eight members of the coaching staff, 25 boosters, four flight crew members, and one employee of the charter company. The team was returning home after a 17–14 loss against the East Carolina Pirates. At the time, Marshall’s athletic teams rarely traveled by plane, with most away games within easy driving distance of the campus. The team

Worst sports moments

Dave Dravecky

To survive cancer is a miraculous event. To return to your job on national television after surviving cancer is something else entirely. Dave Dravecky was an outstanding pitcher for the San Francisco Giants when doctors discovered a tumor on his arm. He had it removed and, after recovery time, he appeared to be healthy again. After some rehab he seemed ready to return to the mound, and did so on August 10, 1989. He pitched 8 solid innings and got the win in what appeared to be the feel good story for every baseball fan. In his second start a few days later, Dravecky went five innings until, in the sixth, his humerus bone snapped in half while throwing a

World's worst boxing moments

Death of Duk Koo Kim 

A superstar in South Korea, Kim had risen all the way to the number one lightweight contender and earned a world title shot against the famed Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, on November 13, 1982. The bout was extremely brutal, especially for Kim, who had begun to wear down in the latter rounds after absorbing tremendous punishment from the champion. In the early part of the 14th round, Mancini hit Kim with a crushing right hand that caused him to fly toward the ropes and hit his head on the canvas.

Kim managed to rise but the fight was stopped by the referee. Minutes later Duk Koo Kim collapsed into a coma and was carried out of the ring and taken directly to the hospital.

Yogi Berra Quotes

Lawrence Peter Berra played Major League Baseball for 19 years for the New York Yankees. He played on 10 World Series Championship teams, is a MLB Hall of Famer and has some awe-inspiring stats. His name is consistently brought up as one of the best catchers in baseball history, and he was voted to the Team of the Century in 1999.

Amazing accomplishments aside, they probably aren’t how you know Lawrence. You know him as Yogi, a nickname given to him by a friend who likened his cross-legged sitting to a yogi. Yogi is famous for his fractured English, malapropisms and sometimes nonsensical quotes. He’s closing in on 86, and there seems to be no end to his fan’s love for him.

In honor of the beginning of the US baseball season, here are 25 Yogi Berra quotes that will make you shake your head and smile. Naturally, add your favorites in the comments, there are many more out there!

Quotes 1-5

1. “It’s like deja vu all over again.”

2. “We made too many wrong mistakes.”

3. “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Outdoor Gym Class

Gym class can be both a beautiful and dreadful thing: beautiful in its celebration of health, competition and physical fitness, dreadful in its Darwinian grading system, embarrassing requirements (come on, even real gym locker rooms are outfitted with private shower stalls), and failure to inform you correctly. Yes, gym class is prone to frequent misinformation, such as the fact it’s okay for a real teacher to be hungover on the job, or that a majority of the sports, games and activities that are played in gym class don’t really have a place outside of grade school. At least in any conventional sense.

For instance, there is no jump rope league, and the closest thing to lacrosse having a place in our day-today lives is using a pooper scooper to pick up some dog crap, followed by a wrist-guided flick into a trash bag. Sure there are informal organizations and such but there are only a handful of major sports that are given any serious or passionate consideration, and they are so for being national past times. Here we’ll take a look at some past times that never end up being carried into the present.

Handball

AKA “gatorball,” “Z-Ball,” etc. This game went by many names, depending on your gym teacher, which shows the games lack of universality. Handball, was essentially soccer, but with the ability to kick the the ball up into your own hands, or someone else’s, and pass the ball around as if

Great athletes who never won the big one

Jimmy White

Snooker

Never won: World Championship

Nicknamed the ‘People’s Champion’, Jimmy is one of the most popular snooker players in the history of the sport. The left hander was known for his attacking style of play that enticed fans. He made it to an incredible six World Championship finals, including 5 in a row between 1990-94, but lost on every occasion. Four of those defeats were at the hands of Stephen Hendry, the most successful snooker player of all time. His most agonizing defeat came in 1994, in the last of his six finals. Needing to pot just a few more balls in the final frame of the match, he missed a routine black off the spot, allowing Hendry an opportunity to steal an 18-17 victory. Some will say that