Today in sports history

Thirty years ago today, at a YMCA in San Jose, California, a Caltech basketball player named Fred Newman made 88 consecutive foul shots ― blindfolded.

The ironic thing about that is that 18 years later, Caltech's basketball team would embark upon an entirely different sort of streak. The Beavers would go from 1996 until 2007 ― 207 games ― without winning a single game. And they went more than 21 years, 240 games, without winning a game in their conference. The streak was chronicled in a light-hearted romp of a documentary called "Quantum Hoops" that explored the reasons why Caltech was so bad, and the erroneous idea that there's more to life than sports. (I'm just kidding; there's definitely more to life than sports. There's also music.)

Getting back to Newman ― as incredible as his streak was, a free-throw streak by a fellow named Ted St. Martin might be more impressive. St. Martin didn't wear a blindfold for his, but on April 28, 1996, St. Martin hit 5,221 consecutive foul shots. FIVE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE. WITHOUT A MISS.

In case you're wondering, Ted St. Martin is 5'6", and he's a dairy farmer by trade.