TRIVIA 2020

22/30, made some dumb choices

https://www.mlb.com/news/active-home-run-leaders-quiz

27/30

a couple of blind guesses that got lucky w/some of those rebuilding teams

24

lol marlins

24/30. Got the Jays one right, although I had to think about it a bit!

25/30, a few lucky guesses--missed the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Mets, Rays, and Rangers. Yeah, the Jays was hard.

22/30

i got the cardinals question wrong

;(

26... perfect until the marlins and then STL NYM and TEX fucked me up

25/30. I mostly just went with whoever’s been on the team longest.

things i didn't know about macho man randy savage:

Baseball career
Savage was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals organization as a catcher out of high school.[15] He was placed in the minor leagues to develop, where he mostly played as an outfielder[16] in the St. Louis Cardinals, and Cincinnati Reds farm systems.[5] Savage was 18 when he began playing minor league baseball; one of his teammates on the 1971 Gulf Coast League Cardinals was Larry Herndon who was also his roommate.[15] Savage would swing a bat into a hanging car tire as a regular training exercise in order to strengthen his hands and make sure he utilized his legs during swings. The technique was so effective that Herndon adopted it and used it during his own career as a baseball coach.[15] Savage injured his natural (right) throwing shoulder after a collision at home plate, and he learned to throw with his left arm instead. Savage's last season was 1974, when he played for the Tampa Tarpons.[16] He played 289 games in four minor league seasons, batting .254 with 16 home runs and 66 RBIs.[15]

Oooooooooh yeeeeeeeaaahh

Got this from a FB baseball group--I didn't know the answer, but I have a feeling it's a well-known question.

Who played for both the Pilots and the Mariners in their first games?

hint: His son played ~1.5 seasons for the Mariners as well.

You've got it. Also won an ERA title with a not-Seattle team.

I'm trying to remember him in Ball Four, and I think I can just vaguely recall one or two mentions.

The RadioShack (!!!) Trivia Question of the 2001 All-Star Game was: "Who are the 3 players still active from Cal Ripken's first All-Star Game in 1983?"

Can you get it?

— Joe Trezza (@JoeTrezz) April 1, 2020

I guessed 2... but full disclosure I had to check that one of them ever made an all-star game and sure enough that was his only appearance.

No idea on the 3rd, even after scanning the rosters!

rickey, rickey and rickey

Yeah, the other one was my guess as he had a juggernaut career spanning 4 decades.

there have been 4 teams which had 3 different position players put up 7+ fWAR in a single season. what are they?
(hint: obviously one of these teams is the cardinals. sorry. i can also give you the decades for each of these 4 seasons, if wanted)

One of them must be a Gehrig-Ruth team, since there were so many seasons where those two did it.

For the Cardinals, I'll guess it's a Pujols-Rolen-Edmonds team, although I'm not sure if there was a season where they were together.

Man, I'm good.

I don't think the Big Red Machine ever extended beyond Morgan/Bench, although Rose may have edged over 7.0 somewhere in there, so that's my third guess. Fourth would be the 2001 Mariners.

was thinking one would be griffey/a-rod/edgar but gar only put up 7 once, before a-rod debuted

before his first full season, rather

those three did combine for 24.8!!!!!!!!!!!!! in 96 though

didn't happen with the killer b's or bash bros, though biggio and bagwell both had 8+ in 97

Not any of those Reds teams either...I don't think the '98 Yankees; they were deep, but I don't think they had huge star seasons in their everyday lineup. Maybe one of the A's teams from around 1930?

the 27 yankees are incredible for this - ruth/gehrig/combs combined for 32.3........ and combs was still under 7

Oh--then I was wrong about the '27 Yankees. Combs is at 7.0 on Baseball Reference...and I see now the question has to do with Fangraphs.

spoiler alert

it did happen 2 years later - ruth/gehrig/lazzeri did it with exactly 10 fewer WAR than the 27 trio (7.8/7.3/7.2)

what bums

Hey, trivia guy, we need two more answers.

This gave me much to ponder on my morning walk. Possibility, which I will check after posting--wondering if Bonds/Kent/fluke-season Rich Aurilia were in alignment?

Online version is Thursday night. Register here: https://t.co/HOspy6gXGu pic.twitter.com/lPy66C1Pnp

— Ted Berg (@OGTedBerg) April 19, 2020

see thread for example questions

(xpost) No on Bonds/Kent/Aurilia, at least on Baseball Reference. '29 Yankees, '04 Cardinals...

The St. Louis hint makes me think it's a red-herring, like the Blues or something.

errr Browns

Hey, trivia guy, we need two more answers.

shit, sorry! i thought i had this thread bookmarked, so when it didn't come up i assumed no one cared about the trivia question. OOPS!

you've got 2 of the 4:

1929 Yankees (Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri)
2004 Cardinals (Rolen, Edmonds, Pujols)

the other two are much more difficult. i'll give you two clues, once for each:

1) post-war 1940s league champion featuring a top 10 joe posnanski player
2) while mantle and maris were hogging the attention, this team with a pair of slugging outfielders was...also playing (alex trebek i am not)

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

evil hint, had to figure this one out through blunt force

and i got the last one, mostly through cheating, but i've never really been good with the early 60s.

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.

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

Those aren't alternate covers...okay, duh, I just realized; that was the strike year.

81 strike broke my heart. That is the last run of the Big Red Machine, they somehow had best record in baseball and missed the playoffs. That's so totally Cincy.

You'd think this would be easy, but my first four guesses were wrong: who are the four players who hit HR at 19 and after turning 40? (From a FB group.)

Of the four, only one is obvious.

hmm

guesses:

alex rodriguez

not sure if they played when they were 19:
ted williams
barry bonds

not sure if they played when they were 40:

mel ott

A-Rod is the easy one. (So easy, he wasn't one of my guesses...) The other three, no.

yarg, i missed another kind of obvious one that i almost mentioned (an old schooler)

Bonds went to college (ASU) so nope.

I was thinking Rickey, Hornsby & Cobb but those are way too obvious so I really have no idea.

I had no idea A-Rod was still playing at age 40!

Meaning you checked? Cobb, yes, the only one I got right--I actually don't he's obvious. My joke on FB was that those were the only two homers he hit, spaced 21 years apart.

"don't think"

barry, mel ott?

No to both.

A-Rod, Cobb, two more (neither in the HOF).

wait, neither one in hall of fame?

...oh shit! i was thinking babe ruth was an answer, because he played when he was 19. but he didn't hit a HR that year.

Somewhat misleading--one may end up there. (The other a Veteran's Committee-type guy whose moment has passed.)

ok, I have some time now and I was pretty damn close with my incorrect guesses!:

Rickey: first HR came at age 20, last at 44
Hornsby: first HR came just after his 20th birthday (+17 days), last at age 41

one of my other guesses was close too (KGriffeyJr), but just checked and he had no HRs in his final season as a 40 year old.

I still have no idea who the other ones are.

One of my incorrect guesses, Kaline, was close at the other end: hit his first HR at 18, his last two months shy of 40.

Also guessed Aaron: last HR at 42, first one a little over two months past his 20th birthday.

Beltre, another incorrect guess, wasn't quite as close: first at 19, but his last was seven months shy of his 40th. My fourth, Yaz, wasn't close: 44 (!) when he hit has last, but his first didn't come till he was almost 22.

julio franco?

should have been andruw but alas

Someone else guessed him...no. I'm going out for a bit; let me know if you want the last two (or, it's searchable on Google).

The other two (the only time I will ever use this): Rusty Staub, Gary Sheffield. The second might make you think "Yeah, of course"; I doubt anyone would think of the first.

That was a good question. Had me sifting through my memory banks for sure.