Stat of the Day (Mark Buehrle is THE Workhorse)

Haven’t done a Stat of the Day for everyone in quite a while now. But a pretty good collection of stats was thrown at me in my morning newspaper today, and I’m happy to share those stats with you.

Basically, these statistics say that White Sox starting pitcher Mark “The Bounty Hunter” Buehrle is the biggest workhorse in all of baseball right now. Workhorse meaning he eats a ton of innings and does it with a very solid E.R.A. each season.

By the way, as a White Sox fan, one of the first things you figure out is how to correctly spell Buehrle.

Now, the stats.

Stat of the Day (Saves)

I saw this one in my issue of Sports Illustrated this week and had to look it up on the Internet to be sure it was true. It was true, and it is amazing.

On Jan. 23, Division III Northland College played Adrian College in hockey. Adrian won 4-0. Seems like an ordinary game on the surface. The spectacular part came from Northland goalie Daniel McIntosh. How can the losing goalie of a 4-0 game be spectacular you ask? That’s easy. McIntosh made 95 saves. 95! Northland was outshot 99 to 11 by Adrian and wasn’t nearly blown out. One of the four goals was on a power play, which is always tough on a goalie.

McIntosh made 39 saves in the first period, 29 in the second and 27 in the third. Just crazy. And if you don’t believe it at first, here is a link to the game’s box score.

Stat of the Day (Rebounds)

I can’t imagine this has happened very often.

On Monday night, Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin – right now the top prospect for this summer’s NBA Draft – out-rebounded the entire Oklahoma State team. Griffin ripped down 19 rebounds by himself while the Cowboys only managed 16 collectively. The Sooners won the game 89-81 to improve to 20-1 this season.

Stat of the Day (Clemson at North Carolina)

I saw this one scrolling on ESPN’s bottom line.

After last night’s 94-70 victory, North Carolina’s men’s basketball team is now 56-0 in home games against Clemson. 56-0. That is crazy.

Stat of the Day (15-0)

The Chicago Blackhawks have emerged as one of the better teams in the NHL this year and they are doing it in a fairly simple way: by beating the teams the should beat. Although, half of the teams on this list are playoff teams right now.

This season, the Blackhawks have gone a combined 15-0 against the Phoenix Coyotes, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars. That would put the Hakws at 7-8-7 against the rest of the leauge.

The Hawks take on Colorado tonight, let’s see if they can push it to 16-0.

Stat of the Day (Career Road Victories)

I didn’t have to work very hard for this one, it came right off my Chicago Blackhawks tear-away calendar that I got for Christmas. Before we get to the stat, an early analysis of the calender. It’s been great so far because it not only includes some great Blackhawks trivia, but also great NHL trivia, which is where today’s Stat of the Day comes in.

Now, the Stat of the Day.

Only three NHL goaltenders have achieved 200 career road victories. They are: Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and Ed Belfour. If I were guessing, I would have definitely picked Roy and Brodeur (probably one and two), Belfour might have taken a while to get. It’s just funny that these three guys all played, and some are still playing, in my lifetime. You don’t get too many of those “these are the only people to do this” lists that all have had their careers start and end within the last 20 years.

Stat of the Day (Big 12 Fouls Per Game Leaders)

This one is a bit wild. As of right now, the top 3 players in the Big 12 Conference in fouls per game all play for the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Ibrahima Thomas leads the way with 4 fouls per contest, Byron Eaton is second with 3.5 and Terrel Harris is third with 3.3.

Stat of the Day (Assists Per Game)

Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets currently leads the NBA in assists per game with 11.71. If he can maintain this pace, it would be the highest assists per game total since John Stockton of the Utah Jazz led the league with 12.33 assists per game in the 1994-95 season.

Bonus stat: Stockton posted the highest assists per game total for a single season during the 1989-90 season, when he racked up 14.54 assists per contest.

Stat of the Day (Missed Free Throws)

I was going to wait until his next game to post this, because he isn’t quite at the magic number, yet. But the Phoenix Suns don’t play again until Christmas Day against the San Antonio Spurs, so I figure I’ll post it now.

I heard this one on ESPN radio yesterday.

Shaquille O’Neal is about to become only the second player in NBA history to miss 5,000 free throws in his career. Wilt Chamberlain has the most misses in NBA history with 5,805. Shaq currently has 4,995 misses, which likely means the magical miss will come against the Spurs – if not, surely the game after.

Some quick research shows that nobody else has even missed 4,000 career free throw attempts. The next most misses I could find behind Shaq was Karl Malone with 3,401 misses, and Malone’s 13,188 free throw attempts are the most in NBA history.

Fun fact: only 63 NBA players have even attempted 5,000 free throws in their career.

Stat of the Day (Blocked Shots)

The NBA record for blocked shots in a season and block shots per game was set in the 1984-85 season by Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz. That season, the 7-foot-3 Eaton blocked 456 shots in 82 games. That is 5.6 blocks per game. Hakeem Olajuwon was second in the league that season with 220 blocks and 2.7 blocks per game for the Houston Rockets.

7-foot-6 Manute Bol has the second most blocks in an NBA season with 397. He did it for the Washington Bullets the season after Eaton set the record. Artis Gilmore blocked 422 shots in the 1971-72 ABA season, where he played 84 games for the Kentucky Colonels.