The history of our world has been shaped by the kaleidoscope of mistakes that human beings have made. Do a Google search for the word bug and you’ll get about 121,000,000 results, give or take. Mistakes, in all their forms, so pervade the many facets of our erroneous lives that we have created literally dozens of other words that mean them.

You’ve got your blunders, bloopers, bloomers, balks, boners, bobbles, and bungles, and that’s just the B. No matter the mistakes, missteps, misconceptions, miscalculations, and misunderstandings.

The writer James Joyce said, “A man’s mistakes are his portals of discovery.”

But Albert Einstein said: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

And that would explain why, even though we’ve already opened approximately 121,000,000 of Joyce’s “discovery portals,” we keep making, repeating, and repeating the original mistakes once more.

If Winston Churchill was right when he said, “All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes,” then we are a society of extraordinary idiots. And of course, the sports world is far from immune. In fact, it could best be described as a forest covered in fools beyond a pruner’s relief shears.

We’ve all heard of that poor fool in our office who accidentally hit “reply all” when his overly personal email was meant for only a pair of sympathetic eyes. And we’ve all had a little laugh at his embarrassment, as long as his job punishment didn’t go beyond the ridiculous co-worker requirement.

But have you heard of the case of Steelers line coach Larry Zierlein? As probably happens from time to time with a professional sports organization that has access to the Internet, Zierlein sent an email that had a pornographic video attached. But what doesn’t usually happen, and what makes Zierlein’s email stand out in the vast sea of ​​adult online exchanges, is that Zierlein accidentally sent the video to a large league recipient list that included the general managers of all 32 teams, their secretaries and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Zierlein kept his job, but suffered more humiliation than any Southwest Airlines “Want to Get Away” commercial could represent. “It’s difficult because I made an unforgivable mistake,” Zierlein said. “It was hard first for the organization. They had to explain and get through … and my family, so they’re going to have to listen.”

Let Zierlein’s bread be your cautionary tale.

We’ve all at some point hit our heads on an open cupboard, smacked our fingers on some kind of closing door, and stubbed our toes because, though we’ve walked through it a thousand times before, we once forgot about the little half-step at our kitchen entry. But none of those painful and humiliating everyday mishaps compare to what kicker Bill Gramatica did as a rookie in 2001. Celebrating a meaningless 42-yard field goal in the first quarter for the going nowhere Arizona Cardinals, Gramatica started jumping like his feet were on fire.

This was the standard Gramatica celebration after kicks of any length or significance, including extra points. But what was non-standard, and what made Gramatica a laughingstock, and secured him a permanent place on the list of dumbest sports injuries of all time, was the torn ACL that resulted in his jumping, ending his season.

And all of us, at least once, have been late in meeting a boss or teacher’s deadline on a work or school assignment. But it’s also probably safe to say that we weren’t criticized by the local and national media afterwards, as the Minnesota Vikings were when they were late in making their first-round pick in 2003. The Vikings had the seventh pick in the April draft, but by letting time run out before submitting their pick to league officials, they didn’t actually pick until ninth.

When, at every annual NFL draft, the commissioner says, “[insert team name here] it’s on the clock”, between each and every selection, it’s better to take that clock seriously.

These mistakes and misjudgments fueled by Einstein’s theory of infinite human stupidity are mere drops in a bottomless bucket that overflows with unadulterated stupidity. And in truth, at the end of the day in these few examples here, there was very little collateral damage. The parties harmed by these wrong turns in reason were contained in the small group of offenders.

But of course, failures in brain function are not always benign. For every ill-advised internal email that gets deleted and then forgotten, and for every self-inflicted knee injury that fails to make a difference to the final season standings, there are foolish decisions with considerable consequences. Moves made or not made, things said and done, and mistakes in strategy that have sometimes altered the course of the sport’s history in dramatic and significant ways.

Few vocations are as committed to keeping track of the triumphs and failures of the past as is the world of sports. The Baseball Encyclopedia chronicles every at bat taken throughout baseball history: home runs and strikeouts. Pro Football Weekly keeps track of every win and loss, touchdown and turnover, and eventual Super Bowl champion. And if you have a basketball question related to a player, a stat or a game result, Inside Hoops is the place to go.

But when it comes to mental errors, decisions absurdly divergent from tried and true practices, and regrettable words and actions that will forever haunt the men and women who made them, the history books are remarkably silent.

Not anymore.