The temperatures may be dropping, but the sports action is heating up. The World Series crowned the Boston Red Sox champs, Peyton Manning continued to tear up the NFL, and European soccer season is in full swing.
It's the month of October in sports records!
BOSTON STRONG
Just a year after finishing last in their division, the Boston Red Sox completed their swift, worst-to-first turnaround this month, besting the St. Louis Cardinals in six games to win the World Series. After not winning a title from 1918-2004, Boston has now taken three crowns in 10 seasons, and this year's series saw plenty of record oddities.
The series itself offered us two firsts: Game 3 was the first-ever World Series game to end on an obstruction call, while Game 4 the very next night offered the first-ever playoff game to end on a pickoff.
It also offered us yet more proof that David Ortiz might be a cyborg sent from the future designed strictly to win postseason baseball games. With his 11-for-16 performance with two home runs and six RBI, Ortiz added to his Fall Classic legend with the series MVP award. Of all players with a minimum of 50 World Series at-bats, Ortiz now owns the highest batting average (.455), on-base percentage (.576), and slugging percentage (.795) in World Series history.
And, oh yeah, he does things like this, which helped get Boston back to the World Series in the first place.
TO THE GRIDIRON
The end of October took us through Week 8 of the NFL season, and one recurring theme through the campaign's first half was offense.
This was exemplified by the prolific Peyton Manning, who may very well finish his career with every NFL passing record if he can stay healthy. After starting the season off in record-tying fashion in September, Manning and the Broncos picked up where they left off this month. His 20 touchdowns before being intercepted this year was the longest streak of TD passes before being picked off to start a season. The Denver offense was clicking so well this month that its Oct. 13 game against the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars opened with the Broncos as 28-point favorites, the largest spread margin for a game in NFL history. Proving why you shouldn't trust the books, though, Denver won by "only" 16.
AROUND THE WORLD
Also in the NFL this month, Detroit's Calvin Johnson turned in a masterful 329 yards receiving in a 31-30 win over Dallas. It fell just 7 yards shy of the all-time mark, set by Flipper Anderson in 1989. ...From football to, well, football (depending on where you're reading this): with Barcelona's 0-0 draw and Atletico's 1-0 defeat both on Oct. 18, the two clubs each fell one victory shy of Real Madrid's 45-year-old record nine victories to start a La Liga season. ...Still on the pitch, with just one point through eight games, Sunderland got off to the worst start in Premier League history. ...Someone who knows how to both start and finish, Serena Williams concluded her stellar 2013 campaign with the most money ever earned by a female player in a single season. Her $12,385,572 is the third-most ever, behind only Novak Djokovic's 2012 ( $12,803,737) and 2011 ($12,619,803) seasons.
And that does it for October!
With more NFL records falling and the New York Marathon complete, November is already looking great for records. So be sure to visit us again next month for the best of the best!
