What Makes Sports History?

On Thursday night, Ottawa's Claude Giroux scored a shorthanded goal 36 seconds into the game against Chicago. My friend Sharpy was at the game and so I was following it, and when I saw the early score, I wondered if it was the fastest shorty in NHL history. Fortunately, Sports Reference's Stathead service is free this weekend, so I used its goal finder tool and was immediately able to determine that Giroux's was the fourth quickest SHG in NHL history. What surprised me is that the third fastest was Brad Marchand's marker just six weeks prior against Vancouver at TD Garden, which was scored at 32 seconds. Before this season, the last time a shorthanded goal came in the first minute of a game was in 2008, and it happened twice that year (though in different seasons). Fourteen seasons without such a happening and then twice in two months. Bizarre.

The record, by the way, is 30 seconds, accomplished twice. Dirk Graham did it as a North Star in October 1986; less than two months later Wayne Gretzky scored his 506th career goal this way at the Winnipeg Arena. Amazingly, Graham did it twice more as a Blackhawk, the only player to appear on the list of 18 more than once.

In the end, sports history wasn't quite made in Ottawa. Which led me to the question: what actually constitutes sports history? I'm not talking about career stats like 3,000 hits, 500 homers, or 300 wins in baseball, or a championship being won (historic in a different way), but a game at which something has never happened before and which wasn't anticipated. Darryl Sittler's 10 points in 1976 (the first live pro game I ever attended) is one that comes to mind. But every game has something unique if you look deep enough. Such as the New York Mets home opener yesterday against Milwaukee, which is the last live pro game I ever attended (as of this writing). Starling Marte homered in the second inning and that ended up being the Mets only hit as they lost 3-1. How many times has a team been one-hit on Opening Day, with that hit being a homer? Just once before, the first game of the COVID season in July 2020, when the Nationals Adam Eaton accounted for all his team's offense with a first-inning homer off Gerrit Cole. But that game was called after 6 innings (the Yankees won 4-1) so it really doesn't count. Thus, yesterday was the first time a team was one-hit in a 9-inning game on Opening Day with that hit being a home run. History! Right? Well, not really. 

First of all, one-hitters aren't really historic, even on opening day (the Brewers were the 16th team to do so). No-hitters, on the other hand, are always historic (at least those where a single pitcher accomplished the feat). Most baseball fans know that Bob Feller no-hit the White Sox on Opening Day in 1940, leading to the trivia question: Which team finished the game with every player having the same batting average as when it started? Nitpickers will point out that a player's batting average at the start of the season is infinite, but for trivia purposes, the question works.

What makes something truly historic at a sporting event is that it can be mentioned without qualifiers, in other words, a single unique statement. For example, most homers by a team in a game (10, by Toronto in 1987). Add in a qualifier like National League (Cincinnati with 9 in 1999) and it is a little less historic. The more qualifiers you add, the less meaningful the accomplishment. There was a running joke like this back in the day along these lines: that's the first time a left-handed batter has hit a grand slam on a Tuesday in July in a dome with his team trailing by 5. History! Add enough qualifiers and pretty much everything is historic.

Elias Sports used to run a daily feature on ESPN that tried to find something unique about each game from the night before and they were similar to this tidbit about the aforementioned Adam Eaton, coming in the last entry published on April 1, 2018.

Adam Eaton, batting leadoff, went 5-for-5 with a home run, two doubles, and four runs scored in the Nationals’ 13-7 win in Cincinnati. Eaton is the first leadoff batter since Charlie Blackmon on April 4, 2014 to go 5-for-5 or better with three-or-more extra base hits and at least four runs scored. One other leadoff hitter in Nationals franchise history did that: Hall of Famer Tim Raines for the Expos on Aug. 16, 1987, against the Pirates.

So leadoff hitter, 5-5 or better, 3+ extra base hits, 4+ runs scored. That's a lot of qualifiers and sure, Eaton had a great game, but considering it happened four years prior (and Blackmon went 6-6), it is definitely not unique. In fact, Matt Carpenter did it twice later than season and Niko Goodrum followed suit in 2019.

Although it is quite enjoyable to look up these sorts of stats, few of them are genuinely historic. As more and more games are played, it becomes tougher to find something truly significant that will allow you to say, "I was there!". Here's hoping that all of us will be able to do so sometime this season. 

As for Stathead, a single sport subscription is $80/year, while all sports are $160. Certainly better value than Netflix.

Best,

Sean