Sports Statistics

I have always (well, not always, but definitely since I met my husband) been fascinated by the detail in which sports records are kept. I've never really been one for sports (I often have professed that I hate them), but dating and then being married to possibly the biggest sports fan ever (I cannot take the time to prove this; just trust me that it is true) has sort of made me a sports fan under protest. A captive of sorts. My husband watches games on a routine basis, and I, in an attempt to keep my brain active and alive rather than oozing out of my ears, ask him questions about what is going on. How many points is that shot worth? Are they allowed to just punch each other like that? Why is that dude always dancing?
This is certainly not to say that I will sit down and watch any old sporting contest of my own accord. A Red Sox-Yankees game? Definitely. Ravens vs. Bengals? I've got far more interesting things to do, like file car insurance bills.
The most amazing thing to me about sports (professional and scholastic) is that every single detail, no matter how minute, is recorded somewhere in some official note. Some of these statistics make sense, like tallying the highest number of home runs ever logged in a baseball game. That's the stuff of records and a statistic that impresses even someone like me. Then there is the stuff I hear about and am amazed anyone ever thought to keep track of. Who decided to make a note of it the first time anyone ever shot a basketball from half court while standing on one foot and sticking out his tongue? And then who saw it the second time and thought, "Hmm. This may become a pattern. I better write down the day and time it happened, who did it, how old and tall he was, and how much hair he had on his head."
It's not just the random statistic themselves that people record. I know people get paid to do that, and the math programs they use to keep track of it all would probably make my eyes fall out of my head if I even heard their names. The other side of it is the fans. My husband just told me that the Seattle Seahawks lose 80% of their East coast games played after 1 pm (he fudged the 80% part, but still). How does he know this, and why? I can ask him at any point during any game the most obscure statistic and he will come up with the answer after only the slightest bit of deliberation. He, to my knowledge, is not a trained sports statistician. He doesn't spend his entire day reading the logs of every game of every sport ever played. No one has ever quizzed him on said statistics, and as far as I know, no one ever taught them to him, either. And yet, when I ask him what the longest professional basketball game ever played was, he can give me the names of the teams, where they were playing, how long it actually went, the final score, and how it all went down in the end. And then he can tell me the same thing for the longest college basketball game ever played.
I'm not trying to make fun of sports, their fans, or any game in particular (like the Syracuse-UConn game that just ended in its sixth overtime, which was apparently not the longest college basketball game ever, but indeed the longest game ever between Syracuse and UConn. Surprise!). I am just truly amazed and kind of impressed, because I don't think there is any equivalent to this anywhere in my life.