By the numbers...

I have always been fascinated by numbers and have been known to be the keeper of many an odd statistic, at least as they relate to athletics. Tonight, I found myself obsessing over the progression of World Records in track and field, both the standard records for men and women as well as the Junior and High School records. Luckily, many of these records have been pretty solid and the marks so spectacular that they rarely change. Furthermore, I committed most of them to memory as an adolescent and was acutely aware whenever one of them fell.

Along came 2008, and a Big Blur from Jamaica, by the name of Bolt. To the casual fan, it looks like this guy came out of nowhere, but, in point of fact, he has been on the scene for 7 or 8 years now. That's kind of hard to believe since he just turned 22 today, but it is indeed true. In 2002, he equalled the World Junior Record or 20.13 in the 200 meters set by Roy Martin (from Carter High School in Dallas, Texas back in 1985...see..I told you...extraneous facts just floating around...committed to memory for life. I promise you that I did not need google or wikipedia for that...just the Bolt part.) The following year, still a junior, he crushed that record in becoming the first junior under 20 seconds in the 200 meters in a time of 19.93 seconds. So really, his marks at the Beijing Olympics this week should not come as that much of a surprise when you consider that this man, is just now becoming a man, even if he makes all of the other so-called World Class sprinters look like boys. The scary thing is that he may not have run his best time yet, nor even found his best event. Conventional wisdom would tell us that a man of his stature and impressive stride should run the Q (quarter or 400 meters for the casual fan). He has posted a personal best of 45.28 at that distance, a mark that would be quite competitive in most World Class races. In fact, it would've put him just out of the medals in this year's Olympic 400 meter final.

I had to laugh at myself after I noticed that I had been staring at these records on my laptop for some 25 minutes, studying them as if there will be an exam given in the morning. When I was a kid, I was quick to calculate an ERA (earned run average) for my favorite major leaguers (Dwight Gooden and Nolan Ryan at the time) and sometimes my own. I think mine was 1.12 when I was in little league, once notching 17 strikeouts (but walking 5!) in a no-hit victory. I remember knowing that I needed 2 hits to reach .300 as an 11 year old and 2 hits to reach .400 as a 12 year old on the final day of the season and falling short both times, managing only a single hit. I must've been tired. As a pee-wee football quarterback, I recall having half of my completions go for touchdowns. Halfway through the basketball season in college at the University of the District of Columbia, I was shooting 64% from the three point line.

I remember nearly every address and zip code where I've ever lived and just about every phone number I've ever had. I can tell you that my daughter was born at 9:38pm on a Sunday night before Memorial Day in 1997. It's a damn shame that I can't remember anything related to work or grocery lists on any given day when I need it. Oh well. The mystery's of the human mind shall never cease to produce wonderment.