Sports

Bill Belichick — Second-Winningest Coach in NFL History

New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick (right) and Quarterback Tom Brady (left)

11/01/2022

Bill Belichick is not usually known for being second to anyone — for the past 22 years, he’s been at the top of his profession as an NFL head coach — but on October 30, 2022, he gladly welcomed being second when his New England Patriots beat the New York Jets 22 to 17, making him the second-winningest coach in…read more

K2 Becoming Too Safe?

K2 Mountain

10/20/2022

Updated on 10/22/2022

K2 has always been considered one of the most dangerous mountains over 8,000 meters to climb. I covered most of this here in “The History of K2 — The World’s Second-Highest Mountain“. But as mountain climbing equipment improves, routes get more secured, and more highly trained guides become available, this danger may be subsiding somewhat. At least as much as…read more

Luz Long’s Silver Medal Auctioned

Luz Long's Silver Medal from the 1936 Munich Olympics

10/18/2022

The silver medal won by German athlete Luz Long in the long jump at the 1936 Munich Olympics fetched $488,435 at auction on October 16, 2022, a record for an Olympic silver medal sold at public auction. In all, 20 bids were made for the medal, which had attracted a significant amount of worldwide media attention. Many other pieces of…read more

Seconds of Jim Bouton

Jim Bouton -- Baseball Player/Author

07/12/2019

Updated on 09/19/2022

“You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” — Jim Bouton (1939 – 2019) It was sad news to learn of the passing of Jim Bouton yesterday, one of the most fascinating and notorious sports figures in U.S. baseball history….read more

Louis Rudd — Second Person to Complete a Solo Traverse of Antarctica

01/06/2019

When it comes to polar exploration, history is the mother of all excursion. To close out 2018, Louis Rudd became the second person to complete a solo crossing of the continent of Antarctica. In what seems a repeat of the Shackleton/Amundsen race to the pole (that was a race to the pole and not a traversal of the continent), the…read more

The Year in Google Search — the Second-Ranked Google Searches for 2018

12/14/2018

Updated on 12/21/2018

The world’s second-ranked Google search queries of 2018.

The History of K2 — The World’s Second-Highest Mountain

02/22/2018

Updated on 09/06/2022

Attempts to summit K2 begin in Islamabad. From there you will spend a day driving in a rickety bus toward the town of Skardu on the dangerous Karakoram Highway (and they’re using the term “highway” VERY loosely here). You’ll probably have an armed guard wth your party because aside from the road itself being dangerous, there are people on it who…read more

Elite Polish K2 Climbers

01/28/2018

Updated on 10/08/2018

Last May, SM did a blog post on a team of mountain climbers from Poland who were going to attempt a winter ascent on K2, little did anyone know that those same climbers would end up being heroes. A multi-national climbing party was attempting to summit Nanga Parbat, the second-highest peak in Pakistan at 26,660ft (8,125m), and the ninth-highest mountain…read more

NFL Second Rounders

11/01/2017

Updated on 10/08/2018

The quarterback-heavy New England Patriots the other day traded their backup (or second-string) quarterback to the quarterback-needy San Francisco 49ers for a pick in the second round of the 2018 NFL draft. Reasons for the trade are beyond the scope of this particular post, however, the trade of a valuable player who came into professional football as a second-round pick…read more