Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers (32 page)

What popular sporting event lasts less than two minutes yet is watched by more than 16 million people?

La Paz Golf Club in the Bolivian capital is the world’s highest 18-hole golf course. Elevation: 10,800 feet above sea level. There was once an even higher course in Peru—the 9-hole Tactu Golf Club in Morococha, at 14,335 feet—but it was shut down after too many golfers suffered nosebleeds and blacked out. The world’s lowest course—at 220 feet below sea level—is called Furnace Creek. If that sounds like a hot place, it is: Furnace Creek is located in Death Valley, California, where the temperature seldom drops below 90°F in the summer, even at night. Bring water.

The Kentucky Derby, horseracing’s most prestigious event. Every year since 1875, on the first Saturday of May, more than 100,000 bettors and spectators gather at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, to sip mint juleps and cheer on some of the world’s fastest thoroughbreds. The first televised Kentucky Derby took place in 1952. At its peak in the mid-1970s, more than 25 million people tuned in. Though not as many viewers have watched the sporting event in recent years (about 9 million fewer), it’s still an impressive feat to get 16 million sports fans to tune in to a race that is over in less time than the average commercial break.

In what sport does a ball “dance,” and under what circumstances?

An oddity in the precision game of professional baseball, it’s the knuckleball. Whereas fastballs, sliders, and curveballs are all intended to hit a specific target, no one knows exactly where a knuckler will end up—not the catcher, the umpire, the announcers, and definitely not the batter. Batters
hate
knuckleballs: Not only do they appear to dance all over the place, but they travel about 30 mph slower than most other pitches. That makes a knuckleball look tantalizing—like a beach ball floating toward home plate, daring to be swung at. But when the slugger lets loose, his bat usually ends up a foot away from the ball, making him look foolish.

The knuckleball takes such an odd path to the plate because it doesn’t spin. That’s because of the way it’s gripped, with the fingertips. (It got its name because early knucklers gripped the ball with their knuckles.) With every other pitch, the baseball spins so fast that the seams present a fairly consistent surface for the air to pass over. Not so with the knuckler: The seams act like air foils, creating little swirls, or vortices, which cause pockets of low air pressure to form around the ball. Because air always flows from high pressure to low, as it does, it pushes the ball this way and that all the way to home plate—commonly referred to as “dancing.” The most successful knuckleballer of the modern era is Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, who struck out more than 2,000 frustrated batters with this devilish pitch.

What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?

Were boomerangs ever used to hunt animals? If so, how?

A stick. Or, in the case of an Australian weapon, a
kylie
. Unlike boomerangs, kylies are not designed to return to the thrower. Like boomerangs, kylies are curved, but the curve is less pronounced. (They look sort of like a Nike swoosh.) These lethal hunting sticks predate boomerangs. Originally made out of wood or bone, the kylie was thrown parallel to the ground; it spun quickly as it traveled toward its target. A skilled hunter could kill his prey from a distance of 50 to 80 yards, but if he missed, it was a long walk to pick it up—a well-thrown kylie could travel the length of nearly two football fields.

Footnote:
Australian R&B singer Kylie Minogue was named after the Aboriginal throwing stick.

Although the kylie was the Aborigines’ main hunting weapon, it’s the boomerang that has become famous all over the world. That’s because for most of its existence, the boomerang was used primarily as a toy or for competition. But it did have one use in hunting, and it’s quite ingenious: Aborigines placed large nets not far off the ground and then waited for a flock of birds to fly overhead. When they did, the hunter threw his boomerang high in the air so that it swooped back toward the flock, resembling a bird of prey. The birds would dive to avoid the boomerang…and some would get caught in the nets.

What two cities in the 20th century turned down a chance to host the Olympic Games, and for what reason?

Rome (1908) and Denver (1976).

• Two years before the Rome Games were set to begin, the Italian government backed out. Reason: Mt. Vesuvius had erupted near Naples, and the cost of cleaning up after the disaster was too high. That was the reason officials gave publicly. Behind closed doors, however, the decision to not host had been made before Vesuvius erupted. Real reason: The cash-strapped nation simply couldn’t afford it. The volcano gave them the perfect excuse.

• Denver’s refusal came not from the government but from Colorado citizens. After a state delegation competed for and won the chance to host the Winter Olympics, it was placed on the ballot in 1972. Nearly 60 percent of voters voted no. Their reasons mostly had to do with cost and environmental concerns, but the arrogance of supporters didn’t help either: They accused opponents of the Games as being backward, willfully contrarian, and even unpatriotic. Plus, this was the beginning of the Green Movement, and the Games would have been played over a 166-mile span between Denver and Steamboat Springs. People worried about traffic, overbuilding, and an influx of visitors who might want to move there. Also not helping matters: The state government promised that the cost would be capped at $5 million. Opponents pointed out that the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, had been projected to cost $1 million and ended up costing $13.5 million. Coloradans decided to keep their money.

Why weren’t all of the Chicago Cubs’ 116 wins in the ’06 season televised?

Why did the Chinese government ban a LeBron James Nike commercial?

It’s a trick question: None of the games were televised because the Cubs won 116 games in the
1906
season. That was the most wins in a season that the Cubs have ever had. The record still stands as the highest single-season winning percentage (.763) in Major League history. The Cubs lost the World Series that year to the White Sox, but would go on win two consecutive world championships in 1907 and ’08…and then never, ever again (yet).