TRIVIA 2020

59? I know Howard hit 58, not sure about Stanton or Greenberg.

Stanton and the Babe hit 59

51

johnny mize hit 51 HRs. for some reason i always remember that.

55 HRs?

plus Cecil Fielder, Andruw Jones, Willie Mays, and Ralph Kiner!

55 is correct

53 wasn't landed on til Chris David did it (and Pete Alonso did a bit later), and 57 was first landed on by sluggin' Luis Gonzalez

*Davis

A-Rod also hit 57

Judge was the first to hit 62

FB wall this morning--surprised me. Team with the longest stretch since they had a 40-HR guy (I've lost the post now, but I think it was almost 10 years longer than anyone else).

(Should a true trivia question have a fixed answer? The answer to that one will change when this team gets their next 40-HR guy.)

Are we talking 20+ years?

Believe it or not, coming up on 50.

I guess this team moved into the #1 slot when Soler finally hit 40 for the Royals.

Is it the Pirates or am I blanking on one of their guys who hit 40?

Very good--Stargell in '73 (also hit 40 doubles that year, the first 40/40 guy, I think).

for some reason i was thinking pedro alvarez hit 40 at some point for the pirates, but not quite. josh bell also came quite close in recent years

some specific-ass trivia, but here we go

of pitchers with more than 100 PAs in a season since 1900, who was the only pitcher to hit .400 or better?

even more specific: who were the only two pitchers since 1950 to hit .350 or better (again, at least 100 PAs in the season)

hint: you've heard of all three

I got nothin'...While you mull over KM's question, try this: most career HRs by first letter of first name. I'll hide the answers here: twitter.com/CodifyBaseball/status/1622077683575422983. Don't bother with Ruth; he's counted as Babe rather than George, so he's not on the list. Home run range of answers: 27 (U) to 762 (B).

i ran across that one the other day, so i'll stay mum.

here are the answers to my silly question:

walter johnson, 1925, .433 in 107 PAs
don newcombe, 1955, .359 in 125 PAs
catfish hunter, 1971, .350 in 109 PAs

I should have had the middle one; first and third, no chance. (Thinking the third is an anomaly? I don't recall him ever being mentioned as a great hitter.)

Minus his big season, .204 lifetime--still pretty decent for a pitcher.

i didn't realize don was such a good hitter! he put together some excellent seasons in 58 and 59 as well, hitting well above league average

Somehow I did know he was really good. .268/.336/.361 for his career, hit .300 or better six times. Sent up to pinch-hit 88 times.

Sent up to pinch-hit 88 times

damn, that's impressive. now i want to know the record for THAT, heh

i saw a mention of jim abbott's no-hitter today and took a look at the arc of his career. i didn't realize quite how good he was at his peak (1991: 18-11 with 2.89 ERA and 5.5 fWAR, 243 IP, and very good in 1992 as well), but also how bad things got in the late 90s. his ERA was 7.48 in 1996 (he went 2-18 for the angels) over 142 IP. i checked, and yes - that is the highest ERA for a pitcher who has thrown 140+ innings in a season since integration

and he was 28 during that season! he retired, took 1997 off to listen to ok computer, and then came back for 2 more seasons before retiring for good at age 31. what happened to him?

there was no coming back again after Kid A

jim abbott listened to treefingers for the first time and, honestly, he hated it. he didn't understand what was even going on and why it was taking so long. but on the third and fourth listen, something changed, and so he retired again

The best he could was good enough

Turned up on my FB feed (from MLB's FB page): the 15 African American pitchers to win 20 games. Here's the link if you want to check yourself (I glanced at the post before trying it myself): https://www.facebook.com/mlb/posts/pfbid02vFMJgGhradC5fUcMLfcen5cSSYQ7TrjdnT5tAwD3SK1C4tH6Kq7PefRAaN8Bi6w4l.

Stealing this from FB: of the 33 players with 3,000 hits, which five never had a 200-hit season?

Answer: Anson, Yaz, Murray, Winfield, Henderson.

ted williams?

still seems crazy tho

oh shit ted didn't even get to 3000 hits; he sucked

Nice question, I only got two right (the first and fourth you listed).

Impressed that you got the first one, one I never would have gotten. I saw the answers concurrent with the question, so didn't get to try it. I think I might have gotten the last three with enough thought--last two for sure--but never would have guessed Yaz, who I would have just assumed got 200 hits in '67. Pretty sure I knew Williams wasn't a 3,000 hit guy because of the two Ws, walks and wars.

Who made the last out in Johnny Vander Meer's second no-hitter? (One or two of you may have seen my FB comment--don't answer.)

(Needless to say, someone famous.)

BR Walk-off asking the real questions

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_pxCAwXAAA-uUr?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_pxCAYXgAAseEK?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_pxCAyXYAACB3J?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_pxCAWXoAAtK8o?format=jpg&name=medium

I must have known this long ago and forgot: Randy Moffitt, first-round pick of the Giants in 1970 who went on to have a decent career splitting the closer job with Gary Lavelle for a few years (both played for the Jays, too), is Billy Jean King's brother. Still alive.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this--lifted from FB--but: who was the only player to play alongside Vlad Guerrero Sr., Craig Biggio, and Dante Bichette?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/v/veresda01.shtml

Only one MLB player who started his career before baseball was integrated is still living: Tommy Brown, who was 16 when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944 and is now 96.

Source: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/Oldest_Living_Baseball_Players.php

Monthly pub trivia tonight. My teams always finishes second to the same team (we've beaten them once). Had a chance to win tonight if we'd gotten the final question right (they didn't either but still won). Category was "Unbrekaable Records": Joe DiMaggio's hit streak happened during which three months?

We guessed June/July/August; it was May/June/July. Great question.

teams = team

Not a question. The Grid led me to look up Mike Bordick today. He finished his career with 1,500 hits, 500 walks, and 800 strikeouts.

Is there a general thread for posting odd or interesting stat-related stuff from the past?

Fluke of the calendar, but caught my attention:

MLB Hits Leaders - Past 10 Decades

2010-2019: Robinson Cano - 2,624 hits
2000-2009: Ichiro Suzuki - 2,244 hits
1990-1999: Wade Boggs - 1,999 hits
1980-1989: Wade Boggs - 1,821 hits
1970-1979: Pete Rose - 2,251 hits
1960-1969: Pete Rose - 2,090 hits
1950-1959: Willie Mays - 1,805 hits
1940-1949: Stan Musial - 1,589 hits
1930-1939: Paul Waner - 1,814 hits
1920-1929: Rogers Hornsby - 2,043 hits

Jesus, that's obviously wrong...averaged 262 hits per season! Sorry, don't shoot the messenger.

Looking at the comments, apparently that's not the only error in there.

MLB.com features Sporacle along with Immaculate Grid...I rarely open it up, but this one's interesting (I got 19/25):

https://www.mlb.com/fans/trivia/name-that-baseball-player

I got 8. But that was also from having terrible luck with my guesses (which was most of them)