In sports, a scorigami (a portmanteau of score and origami ) is a final score that has never happened before in a sport or league's history. [1] The term was originated by sportswriter Jon Bois for American football scores in the National Football League (NFL) and is primarily used in this context.
In an 2014 article for SB Nation , Jon Bois defined Scorigami as "the act, and art, of producing a final score in a football game that has never happened before." [2] In football, points can be scored by touchdowns (6), field goals (3), and safeties (2), with teams able to score 1 or 2 points on extra-point attempts after touchdowns. This uneven distribution, and their differing frequencies in play, means that some scorelines are more probable than others. [3] [4] Bois charted the history of scorelines in the NFL and noted gaps in the chart for various scorelines that have never occurred, dubbing these potential "scorigamis". [5] As an example, the Seattle Seahawks' 43–8 win over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII was scorigami, as no prior NFL game had ever finished 43–8. [6]
Since the term's inception, a Twitter bot has tracked scorigamis in the NFL. [7] Bois and other media observers noted the tendency of the Seattle Seahawks under former head coach Pete Carroll to create scorigamis; [8] Bois dubbed Carroll "the wizard of modern Scorigami, without question". [9] From 2011 to 2018, the Seahawks had exactly one scorigami per season. [10] [11] Carroll himself has acknowledged his team's frequent scorigamis, joking to reporters after another game with a unique score, "That's ridiculous. I don't know how that happens. I'm thrilled that that happened again, for no reason. It's just something we've been working on in the offseason." [12]
Scorigamis in other sports are occasionally noted. On September 9, 2020, Major League Baseball (MLB) had its first scorigami in 21 years, a 29–9 victory by the Atlanta Braves over the Miami Marlins—the previous scorigami for an MLB game had been a 24–12 win by the Cincinnati Reds over the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999. [13]
The concept has also been extended to weather, with first-time occurrences of combinations of daily maximum and minimum temperatures at a location being termed "weathergami". [14] [15]
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