sport

When I was a kid my best friend told me that if you open up a golf ball, it would explode. So I didnt go near them until I was a teenager, I was scared to death of them.

Jenny

When I was about 5 years old I used to think that the loud speakers you see at marathons (the cone shaped ones) which contain a bottle-shaped object in their centre actually contained the champagne that the winner of the race would receive at the end.

Bradley Funklestein

When I was around 6 or 7 my family went on a family outing to the bowling alley. My older brother and I developed a habit of crossing the line when throwing the ball. My mother, in an effort to teach us to play the game correctly, told us that little midgets would come out of the gutters and steal us if we kept crossing the line. I imagined in my mind that little oompa loompas would come out and grab me if I crossed the line.

Stacy

The first time I ever watched a Water Polo Event in the Olympics, I was seriously expected to see polo players sitting on horses splashing through the water. I'd love to say it was when I was very young...

Lisa

Ernie Harwell was the announcer for Tiger Baseball until a few years ago. I listened to him during most of my youth.

I used to believe that Ernie Harwell actually knew the towns that people were from when they'd catch foul balls at Tiger Stadium.

A ball would be hit towards the stand and Ernie would say " There's a loooong fly ball and a young man from Constantine Michigan caught that one."

I was always intrigued as to how he was able to figure it out so quickly.

Anon

My mom used to believe that the San Francisco Giants baseball team were actual giants.

Anon

when i was in primary school i was told thats the school had bats flying around the place. At the time i thought they meant wooden rounders bats that had wings and could flyand thought it rather strange. Years later i remembered this and realised how stupid i was.

Martin

When I was growing up my grandfather loved to watch football on the television. I used to think that the players were really shaped the way they were. I didn't realize there was padding on their shoulders, so to me I thought they were monsterous people.

I also used to get freaked out everytime a television station would sign off for the evening at 11:00 or 11:30 p.m. Whenever they would start playing the national anthem, I would run into another room to get away from it. I have no idea why I was afraid.

Bob

I thought for some reason that chewing tobacco was REQUIRED for Major League Baseball players.

Jeff

I live in Colorado and went to my first ski lesson at about 6 yrs old. My brother told me about the chair lifts -- that you "jump off" when you get to where you're going. I thought he meant you jumped from the chair wherever you wanted on the hill. I was positively terrified going to my lesson, sure I would die from a the fall from 30 feet up. I was very relieved when the instructor told me you "jump off" at the top, when you skis touch the ground again.

Kim

I grew up in Atlanta and everytime I went to the Atlanta Braves games with my dad I thought they were saying "Home of the Braves" at the end of the national anthem.

Dennis - Little Rock, AR

I used to believe Rimming was an actual person that played on every basketball team. When a player would shoot the ball and it would hit the rim, the sports announcer would say “rimming, no!” I would look for the person on the court with that name, always bewildered that I couldn’t ever find him, seeing as how he was in every game I was watching.

Benjamin S

I used to think that bowling pins were arranged in a straight line, due to the angle at which you could see them at the end of the lane.

Anon

when I was a little boy I thought i would become zidane but i was not as good as him

elbouteman10

I used to think that the Hunchback of Notre Dame was a football player.

Wendy

I remember once thinking that a game of cricket was about the two batters hitting the ball up and down, trying to hit each others wickets, and the fielders were only there to retrieve the ball.

Anon

When I was younger I thought that whenever the ball went over the goal line in football it was a corner, regardless of who kicked it out. This meant that instead of a goal kick, you had to cross the ball into your own box! I never let the ball run out for a goal kick because of this. Not great cos I was playing for the school team at the time!

chris bullen

when i was younger i thought the Cleveland cavaliers were just called caves and i thought it was caves as in baby cows. i was really confused why you'd name a team after baby cows and the old colors were blue and orange and i wanted to know how you got blue and orange from baby cows.

S.J.

My dad watched a lot of football when I was little. Although it didn't interest me much, one phrase stuck in my mind. Whenever the Dolphins were playing, I always wondered why the announcer kept talking about his "ammie". "My ammie scored a touchdown". "My ammie fumbled". Etc. I wondered if this was a nickname for his grandmother, and what she had to do with football.

Joe

I grew up in Berkeley, California a fan of the University of California Golden Bears football and basketball teams. My father told me that Golden Bears used to exist and the last one was shot by a Russian hunter on the eventual site of the Cal football stadium is today. Into my early teen years I believed that bears with golden colored fur once roamed Northern California.

Richard