Baseball trivia from the past
We have a thread for 2014 baseball, and I am enjoying the season with my favorite team being in first place all summer, but being a golden oldie, I do enjoy reflecting on the past.
I thought of this trivia question when I heard RNJ is doing fun facts from 1970.
This event changed baseball forever, so it is still relevant.
What player sat out the 1970 season because he did not want to be traded to the Phillies?
Andy Loigu 
ignatz Yes. That stirred up the legal waters that eventually led to free agency.
Hey, y'all feel free to add your favorite trivia in here, too, y'know.
It's not the same as Family Feud, where you have to be the quickest on the draw, all this can be looked up, but we can have some fun.
What two Dodger pitchers held out from signing with the Dodgers...pending a new contract?
Sam 
DiaHillRes2 Koufax and Drysdale, yes. They finally signed at the end of spring training in 66, Koufax for $125,000 and Drysdale for $110,000. The lack of a spring training didn't hurt Sandy, he won 27 games with a 1.73 E.R.A.
It is pretty well known that Davey Johnson got the last hit off Koufax (who retired after the World Series that year).
I'll tip my cap to whoever gets this one ... who got the last hit off Satchel Paige in an official major league game? The guy is in the Hall of Fame, a great hitter.
Who’s the only person to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers , the New York Rangers and the New York Knicks ?
Clyde Potts The organist? LOL
I don't think anyone else ever played for the Rangers and Knicks (:
The answer to that Satchel Paige question is Carl Yastrzemski, in 1965, when Satch was 58 years old!
Nice to hear from you, Clyde. We've done trivia before.
Words of wisdom to live by, from Ole Satch.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/724397.Leroy_Paige
Who had the highest percentage of votes of the 1936 Baseball HOF? The inaugural class.
Was considered the best player of the class and era. The 4th highest percentage of votes all-time.
And what year was the 1936 class officially inducted?
Mike Corona 
kb2755 
judy What manager was the first to fill a lineup card with nine black players?
Hint: he also beat a Casey Stengel team in the World Series and went on to win a second World Series.
iPhone-imal Mike Corona... I'll fly the Jolly Roger and guess Honus Wagner (even though I suspect it was "the other guy" that looked like Tommy Lee Jones in the movie). I think the actual year they all got inducted was 1939.
Off the top of my head, 1939 was the first induction year.
The Pirates were the first team to start an all-black starting nine, in 1971. Danny Murtaugh was the manager, beat the O's in the 71 series, won both of them in seven games even though his team was outscored in each series. He won the close games that could go either way.
Best thing is, the all-black lineup didn't generate a lot of attention, media almost didn't even notice. If memory serves, it came against the Phillies, interesting irony because the Phils were the slowest team in the NL when it came to integrating.
I found that Pirates' lineup
2b -- Rennie Stennett
cf -- Gene Clines
rf -- THE GREAT Roberto Clemente
lf -- Willie Stargell
c -- Manny Sanguillen
3b -- Dave Cash
1b -- Al Oliver
ss -- Jackie Hernandez
p -- Dock Ellis
The Pirates beat the Phillies 10-7 on Sept. 1 at Three Rivers Stadium. Sanguillen homered the first five guys in the lineup all had two-hit games.
Brooks Robinson set a WS record in game two of the 71 series, getting on base five times (three hits and two walks) in a series game.
The two brothers with the most wins were probably Gaylord and Jim Perry? Each had a pretty long career with a lot of wins.
I am sure that Dizzy and Paul Dean are the only two brothers to win all their team's games in a series, for St. Louis in 34.
Henry and Tom Aaron are the brother combination with the most homers, Henry with 755 and Tom with about 12 or 13 (-:
Who was the only person to pinch hit for Babe Ruth during his career as an outfielder?
The two brothers with the most wins were Cy Young and his brother Carl. Cy had 511 Carl zero. That makes us even for the Gladys Gooding question. LOL
If Carl had no wins, how can the question be what brothers had the most wins? Wouldn't Carl have had to have at least one to be part of the answer? Do you get what I'm asking?
Anyway, looked it up, Cobb had the highest percentage of the vote with 98.23 ... that first class was Cobb, Walter Johnson, Mathewson, Ruth, and Wagner. Wow, what a group.
I'd guess the only pinch runner for the Babe as an outfielder would have been Papa Bear George Halas, the legendary football coach ... he and Ruth were Yankees about the same time.
By the way, Alex Ochoa pinch ran for Junior Griffey about a dozen times with the Reds ... don't think too many guys ever ran for Griffey, he wasn't exactly slow, but he did have some hamstring problems while he was at Cincinnati.
Ochoa used to pinch run for Garrett Anderson with the Angels for the same reason.
I thought Joe and Phil Niekro had the most wins as brothers.
They were around a long time. Threw knuckleballs.
Phil and Joe Niekro had 539 wins (318 for Phil and 221 for Joe and his emery board (-;
Gaylord and Jim Perry had 529 wins (314 for Gaylord and 215 for Jim).
I guess, like Snoopy going after the Red Baron, I shot down that Cy Young question ... a lot of Cy's wins were before the turn of the century anyway.
Cy Young's brother never played baseball, but he was still his brother. Trick question I guess.
Cy also pitched both ends of a double header many times, today 100 pitches and your done. No arm problems like todays pitchers.
Minor leaguer That's an easy one for this guy who grew up rooting for that team ... Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson and Jim Palmer.
Bold prediction, really sticking my neck out ... the O's will not hit any homers tonight, they got rained out.
Here ya go, what former Miami Marlin won three Cy Young awards, what former Miami Marlin hit 500 homers and got 3,000 hits and what former Miami Marlin played in over 2,000 consecutive games? All are in the Hall of Fame.
Before you go racking your brains, I'll tell you they are Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken. They all played for the Marlins when it was a minor league club for the O's, before Miami got a major league franchise.
There's a tricky question for y'all.
With no O's game tonight, it's memory lane time.
Even though I was at Game 7 of the World Series in 71 (I remember the newspaper headline that Earl Weaver was down to his last 20-game winner) ... my favorite Memorial Stadium memories that year were Paul Blair's hit to beat Vida Blue in the playoffs (Vida won the AL Cy Young and MVP that year) and Frank Robinson's 500th homer.
The Orioles had rainouts on two straight days due to Hurricane Doria and since Detroit was "only" about six games out, they played a makeup doubleheader the next night. First inning of game one, Frank hits number 499 and suddenly the place fills up, the fans are coming in, in droves ... they must have been listening on their car radios coming home from work.
Frank has one bad at bat after another trying for number 500 but the O's at least win the game. Then, they are getting bombed in game two (something that did not happen very often that year) ... after Frank made the final out in the eighth, everybody starts heading for the exits, since it is after midnight on a weeknight.
I was staying over with family friends, so I didn't have to worry about getting up for work ... I hung around.
Ninth inning, O's bat around, with most of the crowd in the parking lot by now (I can see all the red tail-lights beyond center field) ... Frank comes up and BOOOM ... NUMBER 500.
What a crazy night.
Trivia question ... who were the players who had reached 500 homers before Frank got there in 1971? ... it was a small number.
Roberto Clemente and Manny Sanguillen were both Latino's and although dark skinned were not black.
True, but it still was the first totally non-white starting lineup ever fielded in the majors.
I saw that team in Game 7 of the WS (believe I've already mentioned that a few times). Two Caucasians started that one for Pittsburgh, pitcher Steve Blass (he was the key to the series on the mound) and first baseman Bob Robertson.
Richie Hebner platooned at third, but since lefty Mike Cuellar started for the O's, Hebner did not start.
Due to the ubiquity of slavery in the history of the Western Hemisphere and in the Caribbean islands, there are plenty of "Latinos" with varying degrees of African heritage. Clemente's mother's maiden name was Walker, so there's a good chance that he was in fact partially African American as well. Not that it matters, but like Andy said, irrespective of that, it was the first time there was an all non-white lineup which made it a watershed moment in sports history.
Who is the only player to play for the 3 original NY Teams - kind of a trick question but there is a guy & think he homered for all of them.
Hint - he played for the Mets but they are not 1 of the teams.
RU Trivia question ... who were the players who had reached 500 homers before Frank got there in 1971? ... it was a small number.
Off the top of my head - Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle maybe Willie Mays - think he go his 500th with the Mets maybe 1971.
Stu Here are the guys who had 500 homers as of summer 1971, Ruth, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Foxx, Ted Williams, Eddie Matthews, Ernie Banks, Mel Ott and Harmon Killebrew, who hit number 500 a month before Frank did, oddly enough, off the Orioles' Mike Cuellar (one of the 20-game foursome). I missed that one, was playing in a summer basketball league.
Frank was the 11th player to reach 500 home runs. By then, Mays and Aaron were over 600.
4 balls, hit by pitch, strike out, catcher drops ball and batter reaches first base, catcher interference
Good job, Judy.
As for the other question, the three original New York teams would be Yankees, and, before 1958, Giants and "dem Bums," the Dodgers.
This one will take some research.
Meanwhile, that reminds me that Gino Cimoli was the first batter in the first regular season major league game played on the West Coast in 1958, Dodgers at Giants. Too bad Jackie Robinson was retired by then, that would have been a nice thing to add to his lustrous resume. Pee Wee Reese went to LA with the Dodgers but he was just a utility guy then, only played 22 games at SS that year.
Sal "The Barber" Maglie pitched for the Giants from 50 to 55, the Dodgers in 56 and 57 (he was the losing pitcher in Larsen's perfect game) and the Yankees in 1957 after a trade, he was 2-0 with the pinstripes.
He never was a Met, though, so you must be thinking of a position player.
By the way, McCovey's 500th came in 1978 ... I reported it on WCVH in Flemington ... that's the Hunterdon Central student radio station. I talked Dave Kelber (the faculty person who ran it) into letting me do on-air sports reports after I heard a girl who was a great newsperson but knew NOTHING about baseball, say Pete ROSS got his 3,000th base hit.
I told Dave, you can't have someone who would say Pete ROSS doing sports.
Oh, there are some things you just never forget over the years.
Easy one here: Who was the FIRST DH in baseball? What was the situation when he came to bat? The result of his at bat?
Bonus: The opposing Pitcher?
Asking me questions about the 70s in baseball is throwing it in my "wheelhouse."
Ron "Boomer" Blomberg (just one o) was "the first dh" ... he batted sixth for the Yankees behind Graig Nettles. Boomer drove in Matty Alou with a first-inning single, as the Yankees took a 3-0 lead in the first against Luis Tiant.
By virtue of the sixth batter getting up in the top of the first, Blomberg got to bat earlier than the DHs in the other AL openers.
I'm pretty sure Boomer came up with two outs, but not positive.
Despite the rocky start, Tiant pitched a nine-inning complete game 15-5 win for Boston.
Andy, Blomberg is correct. Tiant is also correct, BUT, he walked with the bases loaded
Well, two out of three ain't bad (-;
Reminds me of the time a player said to Earl Weaver that he needs to walk with the Lord.
Weaver came back with, "you need to walk with the bases loaded."
Kenny Singleton told that story during a Yankees telecast.
Who is the only player to hit for the cycle in the major leagues of both North America and Japan?
It is not Ichiro.
Hint: he played in the same outfield with Michael Jordan in the Arizona Fall League and with Deion Sanders with the Cincinnati Reds. In Japan he played centerfield behind a pitcher named Kuroda, who the Yankees fans know.
Meister, Ianimal and Metsman will accuse me of "man-love" for asking this question, but I don't care -- a cycle is a cycle. I started this thread and I'll post whatever trivia I want, not bowing to any bullying.
20-20-20 club
5 players hit 20 triples , 20 HRs and stole 20 bases or more in one season.
How many can you name?
CBGB Quick, somebody dial whine-one-one... Andy's playing the victim card again, essentially pissing in the faces of the true victims of bullying everywhere.
You sure know how to kill an interesting thread, lol.
The only guy to hit for the cycle in an MLB game and NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball) game is Alex Ochoa.
His American cycle, as a member of the Mets, was the only one by a visiting player in the 33-year history of Veterans' Stadium in Philadelphia.
Willie Mays in 1957 would be one of those 20-20-20 guys ... 20 is a lot of triples.
Willie's first professional team was the Chattanooga Choo-Choos.
TOOT TOOT.
Jimmy Rollins in 2007 is another one. He had some kind of a season that year.
J-Roll.
20-20-20 club - not sure about the 20 triples
Barry Bonds
Howard Johnson
Bobby Bonds
Kenny Griffey Jr.
Brady Anderson
As a long-time O's fan, I can tell you Brady Anderson never had 20 triples in a season.
Bobby Veach was the only player to pinch hit for Babe Ruth once Ruth became an outfielder. The previous answer answer was for a pinch runner.
I'm still looking for players who have hit 20 triples in a season, some of the guys I thought would have done it, have not.
Super question, CBGB.
The much maligned Curtis Granderson shows up as a guy on your list. Did it with the Tigers.
Ah, the Grandy Man can, sing it John Sterling.
O's win. O's win. Keepin those hits and homers comin. ALL RIGHT.
So, now that the O's are 19 games over .500, that list of 20 homers, 20 triples and 20 steals guys is Mays in 57, Rollins and Grandy both in 2007. Two to go.
Frank Schulte of the 1911 CUBS had 21 triples, 21 homers and 23 steals.
I didn't know guys hit over 20 homers in those days!
That's going back, back, W-A-A-A-A-Y BACK.
His nickname was Wildfire ... hey, learned something today. That and the O's win makes it a good day.
Big knock, Adam Jones, big knock!
Alex Ochoa? He's so 90s. I'm a Jonathan Schoop fan now. He played in the WBC for the Netherlands.
When I get up at 4 am to go to the bathroom, maybe I'll find that fifth guy. Good night.
Andy got 4 so far, Willie Mays , Granderson , Rollins and Frank Schulte
nobody got the 5th
Workin on it, though. Burning the midnight oil. Ha ha, actually just got up to go to the bathroom, now I'm going back to bed.
New Jersey's own Willie Wilson. 21 Triples in 1985. Led the league several times in triples and had many inside the park home runs throughout his career.
kcroyalWillie Wilson did not have the homers for this particular list, but I'm not one to criticize someone for not being a home run hitter.
I saw Wilson play in the high school state playoffs for Summit and I've been told he was a marvelous football player there, also.
Glad he got a World Series championship ring in 85 with KC, because he had a rough WS in 80 against Philly.
Like Brooks Robinson used to say (may I apologize in advance if someone thinks I refer to him too much) ... "you never know what can happen in a short series."
Never read Under the Bleachers.
If you're recommending it, I'll take it under advisement and try to locate a copy. I've always enjoyed reading well written books about baseball.
Ha ha, see that was a joke.
If you read Ball Four by Jim Bouton you'll get a kick out of reading about what players allegedly used to do in the dugout while the national anthem was being played. Some of the players were not too fond of the book, though. I remember Curt Blefary, as easy going a guy as you'd ever meet, really getting upset when that book became the conversation topic.
I calmed him down by saying that since he was mentioned in it, it was my job as a reporter to ask. The quote I got out of him was, "he never should have written what he did about Mickey Mantle."
I agree that writers often go over the top and invade people's privacy too much. Of course, there is a lot of gray area and room for disagreement there.
http://mistupid.com/jokes/page037.htm
Back to the trivia questions. Not a real hard one, but it goes back a lot of years ...
who was the first player to hit a walk-off homer that ended a World Series?
BONUS --- who was the pitcher who gave it up and the left fielder who watched it sail on by over his head?
Bill Mazeroski of the Pirates hit it off of Ralph Terry of the Yankees at Forbes Field to end the 1960 World Series... I believe Yogi Berra was playing left field in that game.
The Bucs scored 5 in the bottom of the eighth to take a 9-7 lead, the Yankees tied it in the top of the 9th and Mazeroski ended it in the bottom of the inning.
The Pirates won the series despite being outscored 55-27 in the 7 games.
I'll give you a hint that will be of no use at all ... he once hit a homer that landed on the fly in a box car, of a train that rolled past the right field fence. When the train reached its destination and cargo was unloaded, because the time the homer was hit was the same time the train passed the stadium ... it was confirmed ...
that the ball had traveled 127 miles.
The longest homer in baseball history (-:
The only player to score 150 runs for my fantasy baseball team was Jeff Bagwell... late '90s or early 'aughts'. Not sure if anyone's done it since.
He did it in 2000 ... ding, ding, ding. Correct answer.
That train story goes back to his Double-A days in New England.
What American League Rookie of the Year award winner served a year as a platoon leader in Vietnam? That should narrow down the time period.
Another interesting thing about him, he was a scholarship basketball player and did not take up baseball until his senior year of college!
He was 26 years old as a major league rookie.
On this date 50 years ago Ed Kranepool hits two homers at brand spankin new Shea Stadium, but the first place Phillies beat the Mets 6-4.
Yes, Al Bumbry.
He was at a baseball clinic in P'burg this spring, wonderful fellow.
But, not all my trivia questions are Orioles related. Bumbry is simply a guy who I feel is worthy of being remembered.
Everyone is welcome to submit their questions, and many of you already have. Just don't rely entirely on your memory. Confirm your answer on one of the many internet baseball tools that are available, before you ask. I really hope to simply generate a lot of baseball memories and discussion by putting up this thread.
Here's a good one, who stole home to give Cincinnati a 1-0 win that started the 1964 Phillies on their fatal 10-game September slide that cost them the pennant?
Since there are no takers on that question, it was Chico Ruiz.
A name that lives in infamy in the annals of Phillies baseball.
And he stole home with Frank Robinson at the plate, which made the play even more unexpected.
OK, when Sandy Koufax was called up to the majors by the Brooklyn Dodgers, who got sent down?
It's somebody I'm sure you've heard of.
My question about Mike Trout is ...
why does he have to break windows to order a sub?
Couldn't he just send a text message?
For the legions of Mets fans out there ...
Jim Marshall was the first Met to be batting over .300 and get traded in mid-season (to the Pirates).
Who was the first Met, with over 300 at bats, to hit over.300 for a full season?
Lasorda is the guy who was sent down when Koufax came up.
Richie Ashburn was the Mets' first .300 hitter over a full season.
Felix Millan joined the Mets in 1973.
Who was the first guy to hit into four double plays in the same game?
Hint -- Millan was on base all four times.
Name a future major leaguer from each of these former Negro League teams:
Baltimore Elite-Giants
Birmingham Black Barons
Chattanooga Choo-Choos
Indianapolis Clowns
Kansas City Monarchs
Memphis Red Sox
Newark Eagles
OK, you want big names?
Roy Campanella -- Baltimore Elite-Giants
Willie Mays -- Chattanooga Choo-Choos and Birmingham Black Barons
Hank Aaron -- Indianapolis Clowns
Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, Elston Howard and Satchel Paige -- Kansas City
Bob Boyd -- Memphis Red Sox
Larry Doby, Monte Irvin and Don Newcombe -- Newark Eagles
Commenting is no longer available.