ESPN.com's Baseball History 101 quiz

24 out of 50. ouch.

The Vin Scully question is dumb and I missed a couple of the 'how many championships have the Yankees won' questions. Also 3000 hits, because I didn't think the racist played quite long enough to hit that many.

and I got the Scully one right.

also, i had no idea that baseball has such a lush and resplendent history of HILARIOUS NAMES. that was my primary voting method.

and I got the Scully one wrong.

# of which my correct answer also equaled the highest percentage choice among all respondants: 20/22

It's too bad Gammons is laid up. He'd have gotten a perfect 50.

Mine was lower. :(

I originally had Foxx for the youngest-at-500 HR question, but erroneously switched to Ott cuz he came up at age 17.

*Bash Bro arm bump*

didja know the BBWAA usta vote a SOPHOMORE of the Year?

http://www.baseballchronology.com/Baseball/Awards/SOY.asp

18 on that quiz :9

i got 25 :(

i swear though five years ago i would have gotten about ten more. i used to be so into baseball trivia

Fun quiz on sporcle: all-time home run leaders for all 30 teams. You get six minutes to name them.

http://www.sporcle.com/games/teamhrleaders.php

(I got 25)

17 :( (i'm including my misspelling of Killebrew)

13 -- should've known at least a few more, but I blanked.

i think i could have gotten a few more had i done it in the afternoon and not been a little slow under the 6 minute gun.

a pathetic 64 on the HoF test and the gold glove one i did even worse!

17. Got Duke Snider but wtf missed the A's. Kept thinking I had Reggie Jackson's name misspelled for the yanks. Finally came to my senses.

Oh man, I'd never seen Sporcle before but I'm afraid I'm addicted now.

27, missed on the padres, marlins, and rays

24

any non-Pad fan who got that is good (and I saw him play)

Nobody should know the Gold Gloves.
where's HOF link?

23

18 on the HOF one. Couldn't even remember Boggs. Jeez.

SABR con-based:

http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/trivia-quiz-for-fans-really-in-the-know/

Very hard.

I have 2 of the 3 congressmen...

(I think you can see why I usually skip the convention trivia contest, unless I just want to be astonished by the winners.)

Got #9, and #2 before I changed the pitcher! And 4 of Rickey's 5 postseason teams.

#1 - Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx

Oh man, I'd never seen Sporcle before but I'm afraid I'm addicted now.

― Bianca Jagger (jaymc), Monday, April 13, 2009 6:00 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yep, pretty much.

milo, i figured the oldskool players did it more often, so aside from Ruth i was confident about Foxx.

Williams I actually did know but solely because of BP's DT cards. You always have to scroll past his pitching numbers to get to his batting.

A more general question: How many HOF members' graves have you been to?

Not as many as this guy:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=paulas/090915

The SABR NYC quiz from last weekend... I gave you 2 answers on the other thread.

1. Name the three Mets to have a 30-30 (hrs, stolen bases) season.

2. Name the player who set a major league record by leading his team in homeruns for 18 consecutive seasons.

3. Babe Ruth hit the most homeruns in American League history. What player has hit the second most homeruns in AL history?

4. Name the Dodger slugger who was the first designated hitter in All-Star Game history.

5. Name the only player to win a gold glove as an infielder and also as an outfielder.

6. Since the Yankees won their first World Championship in 1923, name the three Hall of Famers, who were all teammates, to play at least 20 games for the Yankees, but never play on a World Series winner with the Yankees.

7. Name the three players to play for the Mets, and who also hit 500 career homeruns.

8. Name the only player in the hall of fame who never started a major league game (not including Negro league players)

9. The Mets and Yankees have had many famous managers over the years. Name the manager with the most regular season wins for the Mets and the same for the Yankees.

10. Name the only player in baseball history to have a 50 homerun season, and also have a 50 steal season?

11. What player has hit the most post season homeruns against the Yankees?

12. Name the two hall of famers to pitch for the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants.

13. A catcher is considered the backbone of any successful team. Name the players who caught the most games for each of the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, and Giants. (SF and LA included for Dodgers and Giants). Hint: three of the four later became major league managers.

14. In addition to having the highest batting average in history, Ty Cobb had a 48 game hitting streak at which New York ballpark?

15. The same player who hit the first walkoff homer on opening day also hit the first World Series walkoff homerun. Name him. Hint: he accomplished these feats in the same season.

16. The Mets have never had an MVP. In the first 5 years of their existence, only two Mets received any MVP votes. Name them.

17. Hideki Matsui won the World Series MVP award despite batting only 13 times in the World Series. Name the two players who won the World Series MVP award despite never coming to bat in the Fall Classic in which they won the award.

Wow, this is tough. I'll risk looking stupid and guess some answers. Even if I don't type them explicitly, assume that there are question marks after all my answers. I'll do this as a real test, and will answer without looking anything up, so try not to laugh at my dumb guesses.

1. Strawberry, Beltran, Bonilla
2. this has to be a 19th century player. Delahanty? (don't think he played 18 seasons though)
3. somebody recent, I think. Frank Thomas? (did he hit more HR than Killebrew?)
4. Ron Cey
5. Pete Rose
6. I guess this happened in the early 70's or mid 80's. Which over the hill HOF's played for the Yankees then? No clue.
7. Sheffield, Mays
8. Bruce Sutter
9. Johnson, Stengel
10. Brady Anderson (LOL)
11. ARod? (LOLOLOL?) Or one of the 40's-50's Dodgers? (The Duke?)
12. Niekro, Gossage (he pitched for a lot of teams, didn't he?)
13. Dickey, Carter, Campy, uh ...
14. Highlander field (where did the Yanks play before they were the Yanks and before there was a Yankee Stadium?)
15. this means the first walkoff HR to win a WS? or to win a WS game? Maz in the first case, Ruth in the second case.
16. uh ... Seaver ...
17. pitchers, obv, and likely both relievers too ... I think Rollie Fingers won once for the A's. Tug McGraw?

what day do you guys want the answers?

oh, I forgot to add the answers are all post-1900. Also, many are New York-centric.

#15 refers to a World Series GAME.

#15 ... I'll stick with the (too-) obvious answer: Babe Ruth. It's likely wrong.
#11 ... I was thinking that ARod played a couple of series against the Yanks when he was with Seattle (and before he became "unclutch") but on second thought I don't think he played against them in 1995, which just leaves 2000 IIRC. So, not him. Snider or Campanella then?

ANSWERS

1. Name the three Mets to have a 30-30 (hrs, stolen bases) season.
(Strawberry, Howard Johnson, David Wright)

2. Name the player who set a major league record by leading his team in homeruns for 18 consecutive seasons.
(Mel Ott, NY Giants)

3. Babe Ruth hit the most homeruns in American League history. What player has hit the second most homeruns in AL history? (Alex Rodriguez)

4. Name the Dodger slugger who was the first designated hitter in All-Star Game history. (Pedro Guerrero)

5. Name the only player to win a gold glove as an infielder and also as an outfielder. (Darin Erstad)

6. Since the Yankees won their first World Championship in 1923, name the three Hall of Famers, who were all teammates, to play at least 20 games for the Yankees, but never play on a World Series winner with the Yankees. (Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Phil Niekro)

7. Name the three players to play for the Mets, and who also hit 500 career homeruns. (Mays, Murray, Sheffield)

8. Name the only player in the hall of fame who never started a major league game (not including Negro league players) (Bruce Sutter)

9. The Mets and Yankees have had many famous managers over the years. Name the manager with the most regular season wins for the Mets and the same for the Yankees. (Davey Johnson, Joe McCarthy)

10. Name the only player in baseball history to have a 50 homerun season, and also have a 50 steal season (Brady Anderson)

11. What player has hit the most post season homeruns against the Yankees (Duke Snider)

12. Name the two hall of famers to pitch for the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants. (Burleigh Grimes, Waite Hoyt)

13. A catcher is considered the backbone of any successful team. Name the players who caught the most games for each of the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, and Giants. (SF and LA included for Dodgers and Giants). Hint: three of the four later became major league managers. (Dickey, Grote, Scioscia, Westrum).

14. In addition to having the highest batting average in history, Ty Cobb had a 48 game hitting steak at which New York ballpark? (Polo Grounds)

15. The same player who hit the first walkoff homer on opening day also hit the first World Series walkoff homerun. Name him. Hint: he accomplished these feats in the same season. (Tommy Henrich, 1949)

16. The Mets have never had an MVP. In the first 5 years of their existence, only two Mets received any MVP votes. Name them. (Ron Hunt – 1964, Bob Shaw – 1966).

17. Hideki Matsui won the World Series MVP award despite batting only 13 times in the World Series. Name the two players who won the World Series MVP award despite never coming to bat in the Fall Classic in which they won the award. (John Wetteland, Mariano Rivera)

Haha after I posted my answers I started looking stuff up and realized how RONG I was on a lot of them. I really should have gotten #17 (Fingers was the MVP in '74 but it's not the right answer) and #9 (hedged between McCarthy and Stengel, picked the wrong one). For #3, Killebrew was correct before the 2009 season (small consolation). #5 is a *great* trivia question (I felt really confident about my answer too).

I got the Burleigh Grimes half of #12, yet missed Wright on #1!

I had no idea that Wright had a 30-30 season! I'm surprised that Beltran hasn't done it as a member of the Mets, I thought that was a no-brainer.

The hardest question is #16, obv nobody other than hardcore Mets fans are supposed to know that one.

Ron Hunt I knew; Bob Shaw didn't even play all of '66 w/ Mets

He was the Shannon Stewart of his day?

who is the only pitcher to win a World Series game in 3 different decades?

Clemens?

OK, that guess is wrong (he didn't win a game in the '86 WS)

He was my first thought too. I cheated and googled it.

I only guessed right cuz it was asked during Mets-Orioles game

40/50. I probably got about half of my 10 guesses. Most embarrassing misses: #2 (Doubleday instead of Cartwright), #11 (Grove instead of Plank), #24 (Mathewson instead of Young), and #28 (Matthews instead of Foxx). I also got the perfect-game question wrong, not realizing the quiz was four years old (which helped me on the Yankees-World-Series-wins question, so it evened out).

oh btw Jim Palmer xp

Two good recent quizzes on sporcle:

Can you name the players who won the last Cy Young for each franchise listed?

http://www.sporcle.com/games/Ben/last_cy

Can you name the total wins leaders from 2000-2009 for each MLB team?

http://www.sporcle.com/games/caramba/WinLeaders

There's some overlap between the two quizzes, so it's worth doing them one after the other.

(I got 25/25 on the first, 18/30 on the second)

If you don't want to bother with the quizzes, then here's a nice trivia question: who won the most games in the 00's for a single team?

(that doesn't necessarily mean that he pitched only for one team in the 00's, IOW, the question is asking: out of all the franchise leaders for total wins in the 00's, who is #1?)

check out the second quiz if you want to know the answer

Kind of embarrased at getting 32/42 (everybody I missed was 1990 or later):

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/5610924/can-name-every-50-homer-season

i got 35, got all the recent ones except andruw

I got 39, I also missed Andruw and somehow couldn't remember Junior.

didnt even think of A-Rod

39, with the advantage of having read your posts first. Everybody you miss is an easy one; for me, Howard, Ortiz, and Prince Fielder.

am I the only one who got Johnny Mize?

No--I got all the old guys (but may not have without the dates to jog my memory). I blanked out on the really recent ones.

I got all the old guys too. I would have never remembered Andruw, his 2005 season already feels like a hallucination, like it couldn't possibly have happened.

Of the three I didn't get, I wasn't surprised at all that I missed Prince Fielder. Ortiz, so-so; missing Ryan Howard was embarrassing. Of the rest, I was surprised I was able to remember Greg Vaughn and Albert Belle (50/50--how did he lose MVP to Mo Vaughn?!). I don't know how Greg V. stacks up against Bautista right now, but surely he was the worst player ever to hit 50 heading into this season.

What player, in 2010, set a record by getting at least 175 hits in a season for his fifth team?

Got it on my second guess (first guess was Garret Anderson. Somehow I thought he'd played for more teams.)

yeah, but G.A. didn't get 175 AB this year.

40/42. Dumbly missed D. Ortiz and A. Jones.

Has ESPN done other Sporcle quizzes like this?

Morbius's quiz: Johnny Damon? Problem is, I'm missing a team--Royals, Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers...there must have been another one in there.

he's not the answer. Played for the A's too, but only had 175+ for Boston and KC.

BB, to check your guesses did you just look at this year's hit leaders and start eliminating them?

jmc, I think so.

xpost

No, I actually tried to think of players who get a lot of hits but aren't very good :)

Which meant it was someone who hits for a decent average but with a low OBP (i.e. gets enough AB to pile up the hits), and the first two names I thought of were Anderson and the other guy.

There were also 2 guys this year who had historic HR/RBI numbers with a sub-.200 BA, but I don't have a specific question for em.

surely Kurkijan had a column on this kinda stuff.

I'm trying to do this without checking...Juan Pierre?

Woo-hoo.

"Lucky" Pierre

that was a good Q, though. took me a while to get

It was a good question. I tried to approach it from a "who bounces around" a lot angle, rather than who usually gets a lot of hits. So I, uh, mentally eliminated Ichiro right away.

This year, a player tied a Hall of Famer for most consecutive seasons playing 150 or more games: 13. Name the pair.

(The HOFer is neither Ripken nor Gehrig.)

I'll guess Billy Williams for the old guy--I think he held, or approached, the NL record, and he dodged strikes, except the short one in '72. Currently, I'm drawing a blank. I thought of Vizquel, but that must be way wrong.

Got it, but I had to look it up.

Te salute...I was close on Williams: 146 games in '61, then 12 straight. Vizquel, not so close.

jjjjjjvyyvrrrrrrrr zzzzzzznlffffffff oooooooboollllllll nnnnnnnnoerhhhhhhhh

rot13'ed, wanted to get my answers in on the record but don't want to just post them since I "cheated."

took a handful of guesses, but 4br3u ? no idea on the older one

I couldn't get this -- had to look up the answers. I never would have guessed the new guy. I was surprised that Pete Rose didn't hold this record (although he does hold the record for the most seasons with 150+ games played).

yep, Abreu & Willie Mays.

My first thought: "If Mays, why not Aaron?" So I checked, and he almost had 16 straight seasons ('55-'70) but came up a little short in '64 (145 games) and '69 (147 games). I don't think I ever would have guessed Abreu, as such as streak would seem to imply stability.

I haven't even had time to try these:

http://convention.sabr.org/archive/sabr40/meetings/288-trivia-questions-and-answers-from-sabr-40

I took a look at the individual prelim questions ... managed to get all of #5, 4/8 of #3, 5/8 of #7 (I'm surprised that Clemens wasn't one of them), 6/8 of #9. I didn't really try on the others, I knew I had no shot (probably should have known #10 though, and #4 and #8 are those kinds of questions with some really obvious answers and some that are completely impossible ... so frustrating).

I tried #2 (6/8--just the names, though, not the years), #5 (4/6--embarrassed by the two errors), and #9 (7/8--the one I missed is the one that I bet most people would miss, for an obvious reason). I didn't even try the money question--past A-Rod, I just don't pay that much attention to contracts.

sort of easy? bur see if you can beat my time of 1:11 elapsed.

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/5732702/most-recent-world-series-shutouts

:28

I thought it would be much harder, but the clues are dead giveaways. It also helped that all of them were superstar pitchers -- no obscure names.

Can you name the MLB Hall of Famers who played their entire careers with one team?

http://www.sporcle.com/games/puckett86/one_team_mlb_hof

I got 34/46. I completely blanked on a couple of teams.

35 for me! I'm proudest of getting Ted Lyons. I couldn't remember Amos Rusie's name.

30/46. Got everybody after 1950 or so very quickly, but did terrible on the older guys.

I typed Amos Rusie when I meant Addie Joss.

I didn't pay close enough attention to the freebie you'd posted, so I'm bumping my score to 31/46.

sometime this weekend I'm sure I'll take the all-encompassing HOF Sporcle quiz, if the power stays on.

Jeter, Rivera, and presumably Biggio will add to the list--anybody else in waiting?

Helton's a possibility too. The guy who plays his whole career with one team is a little like the 300 game winner: you always hear that such-and-such will be the last one ever, and he never is.

Bagwell, assuming the entirely speculative 'cloud' lifts eventually.

Barry Larkin too.

I somehow remembered Addie Joss, but couldn't remember any of the Giants and White Sox old timers.

I did this quiz the other day. I think I had 34. Rizzuto was the most-guessed player that I missed (d'oh), and Appling was the least-guessed player that I got.

cool site

http://www.richburk.com/index/baseballtrivia

Who was the last pitcher to have 300 IP in a season (incl. playoffs)? I'm not sure of the answer, but I *think* it was Curt Schilling in 2001 (256.2 + 48.1).

R Johnson?

Johnson came close the same year (290 or so), but scanning the yearly IP leaders, Schilling does seem to be the right answer. Either Verlander last year, or Halladay in 2010, might have done it if their teams had gone to the Series.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/IP_leagues.shtml

What active player is about to join this group, and why?

Barry and Bobby Bonds, Andre Dawson, Steve Finley, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, Reggie Sanders

http://baseballhell.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/carlos-beltran_5.jpg

I'll go for the "why?"--300/300?

Rickey missed by three home runs. (Had a few extra SB.)

i feel bad for carlos beltran -- a tremendous ballplayer with a fucking insane postseason in 2005 who got saddled with the mets' failures

and one memorable postseason Mets failure moment of his own

(I know it was a tough pitch)

gotta swing the bat tho

not trivia, but a rules quiz

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/quiz/_/id/4979/do-know-mlb-rules

Not entirely a fit, but Tom Ruane burrowed into the oldest and youngest MLB lineups ever:

http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/retro_fun4.htm#A140505