TRIVIA 2020

None of the Williams-Red Sox, Musial-Cardinals, or Mantle/Maris-Yankees teams check out on Baseball Reference.

those were my first two thoughts

the second one is 1961 but not expressly mantle/maris, as hinted

and only one of the 2 teams passes the threshold in rWAR

Okay, now I get it--'61 Tigers.

Going through Fangraphs is too much work; is the other one a Williams or Musial team?

nope!

it's really hard. it would be astounding if you got this (or anyone else).

all three of the players' first names are three letters long.

and the legendary top 10 player was a 42-year old at the beginning of his MLB career

Ah

Joe/Ken/Lou...?

i'd never even heard of ken keltner

Me neither

1) post-war 1940s league champion featuring a top 10 joe posnanski player

That's what threw me: you don't say so, but I mistakenly assumed the Posnanski guy was one of the three players.

Keltner's probably most famous now for Bill James's Keltner HOF test.

http://www.cooperstowncred.com/statistics-glossary/keltner-list/

the satchel paige clue was kind of evil, sorry

i've never really been good with the early 60s.

same here

I know Ken Keltner bcz he made a defensive play said to have ended DiMag's 56-game hitting streak

On August 20, 1938, as part of a publicity stunt by the Come to Cleveland Committee, Indians' catchers Frankie Pytlak and Hank Helf successfully caught baseballs dropped by Keltner from Cleveland's 708-foot-tall (216 m) Terminal Tower.[3] The 708-foot (216 m) drop broke the 555-foot, 30-year-old record set by Washington Senator catcher Gabby Street at the Washington Monument.[2]

I know that story but forgot KK was part of it

the marlins have thrown six no-hitters

wtf

This is probably already a well-known question, and the answer should be obvious because the wrong answer is too obvious: who was the first major leaguer to hit 66 home runs?

you mean the first to hit 66 home runs in a single season? so...there was sammy sosa in 1998 of course. but is it answer mark mcgwire (who hit 70 that year), if he reached 66 home runs first? or is the trick trick question that it was sammy sosa, if he hit 66th before mcgwire did? i don't remember

^posted from my computer while logrolling down stairs^

sosa held onto 66 for 45 minutes before mcgwire caught him

Yes. I'd completely forgotten that--Sosa had the lead for an hour. (Got that from the ESPN documentary.)

I'd estimate that the HR leaders this year will have less than 23 HRs for the season. Trivia: When is the last time that happened? (Hint: it was a tie)

i think i'm wrong, but is it 1919? my reasoning is that 1920 is the year that babe ruth really broke out in a monstrous way (54 HR?) and the rest of baseball hadn't quite caught up yet. but maybe the year before that?

after that. to clarify, I mean in either league

my revised guess is 1981!

Yeah, the AL leaders only had 21 that year. Strike season, yada yada.

Armas OAK 22
Evans BOS 22
Grich CAL 22
Murray BAL 22

Grich did it in the least appearances with only 325 AB

most HR 60 or fewer games

Player Year Games Team HR

Matt Olson 2017 59 OAK 25
Gary Sánchez 2016 53 NYA 20
Aristides Aquino 2019 56 CIN 19
Rhys Hoskins 2017 50 PHI 18
Troy Glaus 2004 58 ANA 18

Matty Olse! I love that

So which uni numbers have seen the most value in MLB history? Uni numbers, ranked.

(wear 13, cowards)

MORE-> https://t.co/TxU2SrJP1j pic.twitter.com/SDtosahjQm

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) July 16, 2020

why are there 2 points at zero? did someone generate 4 WAR with a uni that said 0.1?

0 and 00 are counted as different numbers

I Want To Believe

https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/eddie-gaedel-jersey.jpg

damn you ottovino

Players to homer in consecutive games for the same team with more than two years between them:

1. Hank Greenberg (1941-45)*
2. Joe DiMaggio (1942-46)*
3. Harry Chiti (1952-55)*
4. Yoenis Céspedes (2018-20)

*Gap was due to military service.

Source: STATS, Inc.

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) July 25, 2020

The starting 4 infield of Vlad Guerrero Jr., @doinitBIGgio23, @BoFlows, and @travis_shaw21 consists of all sons of former @MLB players. This is just the 2nd time in big league history this has happened (Van Slyke, Hairston Jr., De Jesus Jr., Gordon on 6/1/12).

h/t: @EliasSports

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) July 25, 2020

just came across ken reitz, a third baseman who hit .260/.290/.359 over 1300+ games, primarily with the cardinals in the 70s. career bWAR: -3.1

best tidbit is that he was the starting 3B for the NL all-stars in 1980 -- a season in which he was worth -0.6 bWAR -- ahead of ray knight and mike schmidt, who hit .286/.380/.624 with 48 homers that year to win the first of his three MVPs. reitz went 0-for-2 and schmidt never got in the game.

i remember Reitz, and possibly ridiculing my Cardinal fan cousin re his abilities

I'm buying some Sports Illustrateds from a friend to fill gaps; who was the first baseball player on the cover in the '80s?

Either Pops or The Cobra...?

You're close in that Stargell shared the last cover of the '70s with Terry Bradshaw (co-Sportsmen of the Year). It was a player who was like turning the page from the previous decade; he would be a name all through the '80s, and provided one of the decade's two or three signature moments.

rickey on his way to stealing 100?

He got his first cover in '82.

Nolan Ryan?

Not Ryan...If you think of the decade's two or three most famous moments, you should get it.

george brett

bill buckner through the legs
the pine tar game
kirk gibson 1988 WS homer

?

ozzie smith's NLCS HR in 1985 ("go crazy folks, go crazy!" call by jack buck) is a famous one in cardinals lore, but i don't think it surpasses any of those in terms of fame

Has to be a rookie Gibson. I can’t imagine Buckner on the cover.

Gibson.

KM's three signature moments are exactly the three I had in mind--so it comes down to Gibson or Brett.

Bizarre thing I found out: in '81, SI used an identical Brett/Schmidt cover twice.

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tAUAAOSwMnJc9b8y/s-l500.jpg

Who threw the first-ever CG shutout against the Jays?

Fergie Jenkins!

i saw that too!

https://cooperstownersincanada.com/2025/04/24/april-24-1977-fergie-jenkins-threw-the-first-shutout-against-the-blue-jays-at-exhibition-stadium-2

Good reader question from Posnanski's column today:

Not counting players who've won an actual (seasonal) Triple Crown, eight others have won a career TC, leading all three categories in different years.

-- four are in the HOF
-- three are PED players who would be in otherwise
-- one is neither; who is it?

He is a post-expansion player everybody knows well.

Andrés Galarraga

The guy with the question missed Albert Pujols--someone else.

i remember seeking out the ]show hidden text[ starting lineup figure just so i could put him sideways in a weird way

He was one and done when he came up for the HOF, which makes sense: good raw totals, but the mitigating factor of Coors during his prime barely had him nudge above 30 WAR.

Who is the only player to hit more than 90 HR for both the Mets and the Yankees?

Maybe this is an easy one for those of you based in NY, but I couldn't come up with it.

Link to the player's BR page when you want the answer.

thought strawberry may have cranked out some more HRs at the end with the yankees but nope!

Curtis Granderson? Haven't checked yet.

Gold star for robot boy!