"Useless" Trivia 2007

Damn. they couldn'ta brought back Johnson a day earlier for this prestigious milestone?

well, Rogers was rained out, so the record is still 6.

Here's one of the 6 (out of 54) SABR convention prelim trivia questions I got right:

What player had the longest gap between 100-RBI seasons?

WELL?

I am terrible at trivia. :(

Fisk?

Probably not even close.

i thought ripken maybe but checked and it aint him.

Gordie Howe

Whoever it is, the record will be shattered by Steve Shasta.

WELL?

lenny nails dykstra?

Harold Baines is the answer.

Here's one I missed... Who has the highest single-season batting average by a pinch hitter (minimum 30 AB)?

Rusty Staub? Gates Brown? Lenny Harris? John Vander Wal?

good guesses, no. It is in the post-expansion era.

TONY CLARK?

Ed Kranepool, 1974 Mets, .486

Who's the only pitcher who gave up a homer to Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds?

Rick Reuschel

(a question during a recent televised game, can't recall which one)

That's funny, the answer I had was Frank Tanana, and quick research indicates they are the only two.

http://www.armchairgm.com/index.php?title=The_Legend_of_Frank_Tanana_and_Rick_Reuschel

That's also funny because I thought it was Frank Tanana before the (incomplete) answer was given.

Field of Dreams chapter Trivia Quiz – April 14, 2007 - 44 points

1. (1 pt.) Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major league debut. How many writers did not vote for him for the Hall of Fame in 1962? +/- 5 will be considered correct. __________

2. (5 pts.) 5 players batted over .400 in the inflated National League season of 1894. Name them. ________________, ________________, ________________, _______________, ______________

3. (3 pts.) Name the three active players who have won multiple batting titles. ________________, __________________, _____________________

Special Home Run Section

4. (1 pt.) If you watched ESPN’s Opening Day coverage, you’ll know this one. Who has hit the most Opening Day home runs? _____________________

5. (1 pt.) Who holds the MLB record for most home runs while still a teenager? _________________

6. (4 pts.) Name the 4 players to hit 200 homers for each of 2 clubs. _________________ __________________, ____________________, ____________________

7. (5 pts.) If there are multiple answers for a given year, only list 1. You’ll only get 1 point for eachseason. Who led MLB in homers in 1982? ________________ 1957? ________________ 1932? __________________ 1907? ____________________ 1882? ___________________

Back to the General Trivia

8. (1 pt.) What stadium hosted the first night game in the American League? ____________________

9. (1 pt.) Who won the most games as Cleveland manager? ______________________

10. (1 pt.) Name the player who has represented the most teams as an All-Star. __________________

11. (1 pt.) Who was the last pitcher to win a major league MVP award? _______________________

12. (7 pts.) Give me the real first names of Pants Rowland _____________, Cool Papa Bell ______________, Boog Powell _____________, Peekaboo Veach __________, Ginger Beaumont ___________, Happy Chandler _____________, and Spud Chandler __________.

13. (2 pts.) Among eligible players, which 2 players were selected to the most All-Star teams but are not in the Hall of Fame?__________________________, _________________________
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14. (1 pt.) We all know Big Ed Walsh was the last pitcher to win 40 games in a season, back in 1908, and Walter Johnson was the last to win at least 35, posting 36 wins in 1913, and Denny McLain was the last to win 30, with 31 back in 1968. Who was the last to win at least 25 games in a season?_______________________

15. (1 pt.) Which batter holds the Yankees’ single-season record for hits? ____________________

Special World Series Section

16. (1 pt.) Who was the MVP of last year’s World Series? __________________

17. (2 pts.) The Yankees and Dodgers have met 11 times in the World Series. Which pairing of non-Yankee teams have met the most times in the World Series? There are 2 different pairs. For the purpose of this question I’m talking about the entire existence of the franchise. The Braves, for instance, have gone from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta. It all counts as one team. _________________vs___________________, ____________________vs__________________

18. (4 pts.) Only 4 players have won the League Championship MVP and the World Series MVP in the same season. Name them. ________________________, _______________________ ___________________________, __________________________

19. (1 pt.) Whitey Ford threw the most World Series innings with 146. Who is the only other pitcher to throw more than 100 innings? _________________________

20. (1 pt.) Among active pitchers who has struck out the most batters in World Series play? Clemens is neither active nor the correct answer if he were active. _______________________

Does anyone need more time?

i guess this is as good a thread as any for this nice, full recounting of one of minor league baseball's more notorious moments:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-bresnahanpotato083107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

14 catchers have caught at least 3 no-hitters:

Silver Flint
Ed McFarland
Bill Carrigan
Ray Schalk
Val Picinich
Luke Sewell
Jim Hegan
Roy Campanella
Del Crandall
Johnny Edwards
Jeff Torborg
Alan Ashby
Charles Johnson
Jason Varitek

Texas, Washington, and Florida all had NO ONE on their pitching staff throw a complete game this year, which hadn't happened before.

Ready for some more useless trivia Morbsy:

The only reason your beloved NYMets aren't on that same list is because of two rain-aided/"Act Of God" CG/SO gifts for Glavine (6IP) and Maine (5IP). But I'm sure both of those were more impressive than all of Beckett's postseason gems.

I had forgotten that. Didn't you used to like Maine?

And I wasn't putting down Beckett, these all-time "postseason" lists are just misleading.

Maine is a mystery 2 me.

you did see that he had a bad hip the second half?

I believe you referred to that as "regression"...

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, with Tuesday's twin bill against Joe Torre and the Dodgers, the Mets became the first team in major league history to face four straight teams with skippers who own at least 1,500 career victories.

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/8/3/2342986/impossible-trivia-time

According to Tracy Ringsolsby (and via Bob Brenly), 426 players have worn a Colorado Rockies uniform ... and Todd Helton has been teammates with 361 of them.

So here's the Impossible Trivia Question ... Which major-league player has had the most teammates?

Not guys who played on the team in the same year, but actual teammates. To answer this question, you would need daily transaction logs going back a few decades. But only a few decades, because teams use a lot more players (especially pitchers) than they used to.

I suspect the answer is Pete Rose or Rickey Henderson. The real trick would be nailing down the number.

Rudy Seanez

I think the answer is more likely to be someone who played on a lot of mediocre teams. Rose and Rickey played for too many good teams, and good teams use less players than bad ones (e.g. the Rockies during most of Helton's career). It wouldn't surprise me if the answer was someone like Matt Stairs.

Is it Matt Stairs?

Whoa, I swear I didn't see your post

I just remember hearing that he's played with 10 or 12 major league teams. So that's at least 24 for each team + whoever comes and goes during the season, plus the expanded September rosters?

Not guys who played on the team in the same year, but actual teammates.

i dont get what this means

It means if Player A was on a team until June 15, then another guy was on it from Sept 1 on, they weren't teammates.

Quick, possibly inaccurate look...

Seanez:
CLE
SDP
LAD
ATL
SDP
TEX
BOS
KCR
FLA
SDP
BOS
LAD
PHI

Stairs:
MON
BOS
OAK
CHC
MIL
PIT
KCR
TEX
DET
TOR
PHI
SDP
WSN

Stairs' cause might be hurt by the five years he spent in Oakland. Seanez never spent more than three years with one team, though he has two less years total than Stairs.

How about Mike Morgan? He's played with 12 teams over 22 years (IIRC)

How many pitchers have had three or more seasons with an ERA+ greater than 200?

Surprisingly (at least to me) there have only been ten. It's an interesting list, six of them are closers (there's also a fairly long list of closers who managed it in only seasons), and three of them are starters (Clemens, Pedro, and Walter Johnson). You'll never guess who #10 is (if you can, you're a trivia god).

Answer here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/13556

meh, ERA questions about relievers = not so hot.

Haven't looked--my guess would be Maddux. He must have at least a couple mid-'90s.

Okay, I checked...I hadn't read your description closely enough.

xpost the fact that this is so common among closers does devalue it quite a lot, but a) guy #10 wasn't a closer, b) he did it three times with three different teams, c) his period of "dominance" stretched over eight years, which is rare even for a starter!

I hijacked this from Baseball Reference: Who's the only guy to have played on all four AL playoff teams, and who are the three who've played for all four NL teams. It's not really clear to me whether the implication is that these players are on one of the playoff-team rosters right now. I haven't clicked on the answers yet.

well, none of em are Matt Stairs.

Who has the most hits, games played, and RBI in a single park? (All the same guy.) And who has the most HR? (Think friendly pre-expansion homefield.) Answers here:

http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/retro_fun2.htm#A110924

Musial for the first part? HR I'll guess Mantle.

Nope and nope--close on the first, though.

Without checking: what three very straightforward things did the three pitchers who beat Guidry in 1978 (25-3) have in common? (All three were starters--that doesn't count.)

(The place where I lifted this from said it's a famous question, so maybe it'll be relatively easy.)

ex-Yankees?

All were Confederate generals.

They all pitched shutouts?

I'll give you guys the answer, now see if you can guess the pitchers: he got beat by three left-handed Mikes out of the AL East. (Two should be easy, the other you'll never get.)

My first two guesses were Marshall (in the AL West in '78) and Cuellar (retired after the '77 season). Looked it up, and I don't recognize any of the names, though I wasn't alive at the time.

I guessed one Mike, not sure about the other two...

I was very much alive, and I wouldn't remember how Marshall and Cuellar threw without checking. Surprised you haven't heard of the most famous of the three, jaymc--I agree the second guy probably isn't as well known as I initially indicated. If you guessed the hometown guy, Thermo, I'm most impressed. (Seven lifetime wins...)

http://valueoverreplacementgrit.com/2013/02/10/vorg-crossword-puzzle-3/

Just to close out the other question: Mike Flanagan, Mike Caldwell, Mike Willis (7-21 lifetime, but his teammates used to razz him by saying "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" and that caught on all across the nation.)

I was looking at Baseball Reference's Triple Crown page this morning:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/triple_crowns.shtml

1) The reason the batting TC is treated as a bigger deal: twice as rare.
2) I found it surprising that Clemens didn't get one in 1986. Turns out he finished seven strikeouts behind the league leader--who was it?

My guess (before looking up the answer) was Teddy Higuera ... wrong. Great question. I'd forgotten what an interesting career this guy had.

Much more impressive than I'd remembered: WARs of 8.2, 7.0, and another four seasons of 4.0+. (Surprising that with a start of 20 in there, Clemens only--"only"--struck out 238. He was under 7.0 per game for his other 32 starts.)

Came up in tonight's Jays broadcast: which three players are working on eight-year streaks of 20+ HR? When you lower the bar to 20, I don't think the names are obvious--don't think I would have gotten any of the three.

uggla? konerko? pujols?

idk, v off the top of my head, prob all wrong

Miggy in place of Uggla?

Konerko's one of them. One was playing last night--that should narrow it down. The other is also American League.

question is a lil dumb cuz pujols is obv working on 8+ yrs

looked at his #s, uggla was close!

holliday

Of course, Pujols obviously--sorry, missed that. Either I misheard the question, and they specified American Leaguers exclusively, or they somehow overlooked Pujols. I checked Holliday, and he's working on a seven-year streak.

i think they meant exactly 8? cuz like teixiera also qualifies, is working on 10

Geez...surely they wouldn't throw out such a meaningless question, i.e. exactly eight. So: apologies, and I'm blaming them. Please address all complaints to Buck Martinez, c/o Sportsnet.

By the way, the answers as supplied by Buck were Konerko, Swisher, and Ortiz. So instead of useless trivia, let's make it a Jeopardy thing: what the hell was the question?

If you haven't been watching the Yankees game on TV: Felix and Halladay are the two active pitchers with a Cy Young and a perfect game--which four retired pitchers have both? I thought of three right away, missed the fourth. (Promise that this is more concise than my question two months ago. I know both the question and the correct answer this time.)

Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter, David Cone

Yeah, not bad. It seemed like a really easy question at first, but it's not.

Well done--I missed Cone.

Sometimes I forget that there were league awards handed out in '94, for obvious reasons. Also I think Hunter's perfect game is never really talked about.

There would have been five pitchers if Pedro's non-CG "perfect game" counted.

(which it would have going by earlier sets of rules)

What is the record for most amount of hits recorded by a team that got shut out?

I had no idea the Home Run Derby went all the way back to 1985--thought it started in the early '90s. Name the first 10 participants--no real surprises, a mix of HOF'ers and second-tier stars, no one with fewer than 250 career HR.

it used to be during the day i remember. no idea on this q tho

If you listed 10 big-name hitters with power who were active in 1985, you'd get at least half.

ok~ didnt put a lot of thought into this

jim rice
winfield
dave henderson
ed murray
dawson
george bell
strawberry
glenn davis
mike schmidt
dale murphy

Rice, Murray, and Murphy were there. I can maybe see passing over Bell and Strawberry because they were still relatively new; you would think Schmidt, Winfield, and Dawson would have been part of it--maybe they declined.

i almost left winfield off just cuz he doesnt seem like the type of guy who'd do it

Here's the list if you want to check:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Home_run_derby#1985

One guy does stick out as kind of a silly choice--career high of 33, 20+ only six times, near the end of his career.

never in my life heard of tom brunansky

He was part of the core '87 WS team (viewed as one of the weakest ever--there's a poll here somewhere). He looked to have a decent shot at 500 HR through age 27 (before the deluge of 500 HR guys), but declined after that.

Vic Wertz, Hal McRae, Moose Solters, George Bell, Dale Alexander, Jay Buhner, Jim Gentile, Preston Wilson, Bret Boone: they all drove in more runs in a season than Hank Aaron. (Got the list from somewhere else.)

You could probably turn that into a good game. Make similar lists for HR, hits, wins, etc., and include one name that doesn't belong.

Mickey Lolich, Wilbur Wood, Joe Coleman, Ron Bryant, Randy Jones, Steve Stone, Mike Flanagan, John Denny, Denny Neagle, Matt Morris, Russ Ortiz: which one didn't win more games in a season than Greg Maddux?

HHH has some lists up (most HR, RBI, etc.) based on batting-order position. A few where the correct answer dates to 2000 and after:

1. Most RBI out of the lead-off spot (100): ?
2. Most HR out of the lead-off spot (39): ?
3. Most XBH out of the lead-off spot (92): ?

(#1-3 all have different answers.)

4. Most HR (39) and runs (102) out of the #6 spot: ?

Same guy, same season. 102 seems low...

A couple that go back to the '80s and '90s:

5. Most SB out of the clean-up spot (58): ?

6. Most RBI (92), HR (21), runs (72), and XBH (53) out of the #9 spot: ?

Same guy, same season.

Answers nobody asked for:

1. Darin Erstad (2000)
2. Alfonso Soriano (2006)
3. Grady Sizemore (2006)
4. Troy Glaus (2000)
5. Eric Davis (1986)
6. Kevin Elster (1996)

(Apparently there's some myth that Butch Hobson hit 30 HR out of the #9 spot one year. Not even close to being true.)

New one: who's the only player (recently retired) to have batted against both Jerry Reuss and Yu Darvish?

Previous answer, because I know you're too shy to ask: Omar Vizquel.

Got this from HHH too. Some of their trivia questions are multi-category and quite convoluted, but I like this one--clean and simple. What World Series accomplishment is shared by the following players (they're only ones who've done it since '73):

Willie McGee
Joe Rudi
Kurt Bevacqua
Rick Cerone
Scott Leius
Jim Dwyer
Albert Belle
Chili Davis
Bob Watson
Bill Buckner

I won't pose this as a question, but I love it (HHH, as always): Al Kaline is the only player ever to strike out against both Satchel Paige and David Clyde.

I can't even remember what my previous question was all about.

Found the answer to the question I posted four months ago: "the only players since 1973 to hit a World Series home run off a pitcher who won that season’s Cy Young Award."

I guess the obvious follow-up would be to name the pitchers.

I'm going to try my own question. Moderators--please change thread title to "Clemenza talks to himself."

Willie McGee -- easy to narrow it down to Pete Vukovich of Bret Saberhagen. Not sure which.
Joe Rudi -- Ditto: Seaver or Mike Marshall. Not sure which.
Kurt Bevacqua -- Last guy to get a hit off Jim Bouton, so this doesn't seem right, but I think he was still playing for the '84 Padres. So Willie Hernandez.
Rick Cerone -- Fernando?
Scott Leius -- So many Yankee teams...Randy Johnson?
Jim Dwyer -- I associate him with the Orioles, which would mean '79 or '83. Not '79, and I'm blanking out on the '83 NL winner. But I don't think it was a Phillie, so no idea.
Albert Belle -- Maddux or Glavine or Smoltz. I think the Indians made it to the Series after Maddux's run, so one of the last two.
Chili Davis -- Twins...must be Glavine in '91.
Bob Watson -- Yankees...Fernando?
Bill Buckner -- Mike Scott won in '86, so he must have been a Dodger. Catfish or Guidry.

there have been 11 major leaguers born on february 29

the most accomplished, 1953 al mvp al rosen, turns 90-ish today/tomorrow, sort of

the most recent was terrence long, who last played in 2006

Dan Uggla struck out more times in one week last April (15) than Joe DiMaggio did in all of 1941 (13).

Glenallen Hill:

- suffers from an intense condition of arachnophobia. On one occasion, Hill sustained cuts and scrapes on his feet, knees and arm during a violent nightmare about spiders. Hill jumped out of bed, bumped into a glass table and plunged down a staircase, all occurring when he was asleep. Hill ended up being placed on the 15-day disabled list. This led to him being nicknamed 'Spiderman'

- new Reds manager Bryan Price once described Glenallen's defense as 'akin to watching a gaffed haddock surface for air'

- hit this ungodly home run: http://m.mlb.com/video/v25549985/milchc-hills-blast-hits-wrigleyville-rooftop