TRIVIA 2020

I can’t be bothered to frame this as trivia - but I only just now learned that Lonnie Smith once bought a gun with the intention of shooting his ex-manager!

"Besides having a reputation as an erratic, reckless left fielder, how else did Lonnie Smith display erratic and reckless behaviour in his everyday life?"

“Lonnie Smith was never accused of having a gun for an arm in left field - but in what instance did he actually have a gun?”

Very basic question, but I checked all five trivia threads and it's never been asked: the eight father-son combinations who were struck out by Ryan. (I got three, had one wrong, then checked--I probably would have gotten one or two of the remaining five with a little effort.)

That’s an interesting one

i struggle to think of 8 father-son combos, period. all the ones i can think of are the big obvious ones

bonds, griffey, alou...

How did i forget bonds?!

ripken!

or wait...was there no ripken sr? i know his brother, billy (just because of his naughty bat)

I should have mentioned that three I got were really obvious: Bonds, Griffey, and a third HOF'er. Not Alou--not on the list I found; that does seem like it might be wrong--or Ripken. I don't think Cal Sr. ever played in the majors.

Boone?

That was one of my incorrect guesses. Of the remaining six...

One HOF'er (son)
One HOF'er (father)
One future HOF'er, probably (manager)
Two good careers (the two fathers)
One not especially notable combination (both father and son)

Pretty vague, I know. This is all according to a tweet; other sources say there are only seven in total, so this guy may have a mistake on there.

one thing i'll add: one father/son combo consists of two sons. (i gave up and looked it up – three answers i would have never guess as i was not aware of the father son-ness)

ahh ok Tito and Terry Francona for one, then.

Yes--I never would have gotten that in a million years.

I thought for sure the Alous, but Ryan had gone back to the AL by the time Moises broke in.

Here's the link if you want to check: twitter.com/theaceofspaeder/status/1086315158375489537?lang=en (if that embeds, look away, look away!)

i didn't know about several of those father/son combos, and i always forget about the alomar family

here's a fun one. what player was taken off the field on a stretcher ELEVEN TIMES - six times while conscious, five times unconscious?

trivial hint that won't be helpful: he's the #1 player comp for julio rodriguez this year (which means he was very, very, very good)

I don't know how this squares with your clues, but the hardest one to me is the W's even more than the S's. I think W's son is all but forgotten now.

oh, my trivia question is totally separate from the father/son question, sorry! just something i learned earlier this morning and wanted to share.

on the father/son question, i didn't even know that the W, P, or S players had family that also played

Crossed wires, got it...Fred Lynn for your question? Fred was banging into walls daily.

I don’t think there is a “P” in the father/son thing?

according to the tweet clemenza posted a bit upthread, there is

and no on fred lynn! didn't know he was a wallbanger. but you're on the right track - it's an outfielder

There is a 'P' on the tweet, yes--that might be the extra one, as most other sources say there were only seven combinations he struck out.

I checked on the answer to KM's question, and it's a player who Lynn was often compared to; found two or three pieces that mentioned them in tandem.

Oh wow. I hadn’t gone by the tweet - I had googled it after I gave up and landed somewhere else that didn’t have “p”!

even more trivia! was just reading about Jayson Werth and learned that he is the grandson and nephew of one of the father/son combos that ryan struck out!

I was curious about the P combination--may as well say: Tony and Eduardo Perez--so I checked out Ryan's game logs.

On April 27, 1968, in his fifth game ever and fourth start, Ryan struck out Tony Perez the first time he faced him. I assume he struck him out a few times after that. (They usually were in different leagues, but not always.)

On August 10, 1993--more than 25 years and seven presidents later--in his 802nd game, and sixth-last start ever, Ryan struck out Eduardo (in his rookie season) the first time he faced him.

Next bit of trivia: name the seven presidents Nolan Ryan struck out.

joe dimaggio struck out a president

or wait, no he didn't. somehow i was jumbling jfk, jackie, marilyn monroe, and joe dimaggio in my head

More like a president struck out Joe DiMaggio, then, eh?

this is open-ended "trivia", because i only know of a few examples off hand and i'm curious who else did it.

tom seaver, in 1975, requested that his salary be decreased from 173K to 139K, because he didn't feel like he had performed well enough in 1974 to earn it.

stan musial, in 1960, requested that his salary be reduced from 100K to 80K, because he didn't like he had performed well enough in 1959 to justify it.

i'm not sure if seaver intended to or not, but both reductions were 20% pay cuts.

have any other players done this?

Hard to think of any other examples. There was that time Andre Dawson wanted to sign with the Cubs and it was a blank contract situation, where he told them they could just fill in the salary for whatever they felt was appropriate for a one year deal. So they wrote in $500,000.

But that was a weird situation heading into the 1987 season, collusion etc, and he signed a much better deal the year after that.

Swear I read about an example of this just the other day--I just have to get through the clutter in my brain to remember who it was.

from r/baseball, i thought this one was good (should be easy for you lot):

73 Phil Niekro
52 Tim Wakefield
43 Hoyt Wilhelm
38 Charlie Hough
32 Wilbur Wood
30 Joe Niekro
24 Dutch Leonard
24 Tom Candiotti
18 Felix Hernandez
18 R.A. Dickey

Name the stat

hit batsmen?

that's a good guess, and maybe right?

what's throwing me is king felix. did he throw a knuckleball?

well for Niekro i know that's how old he was when he retired but the other guys don't line up with that

I’m out of my depth in this thread but dying to know what Felix has in common with the knuckleball guys!

so is this a top 10 list and the numbers are their career totals? or is this just a random pull of some stat for a bunch of knuckleballers plus king felix?

maybe... most wild pitches in a season?

i think that's one of the mysteries of the trivia question!

dutch leonard's presence is also throwing me a bit, because it means it would have to be some sort of stat that goes back to the old timers era

(if that's a top-10 list)
xpost

maybe... most wild pitches in a season?

thought this might be right, because 18 is the highest number of WP's that Felix threw in a season. but phil niekro topped out at 19 in a season (in 1967)

it's got to be something along those lines

Didn't Felix throw a "slow curve" sometimes? It could be a list of "most pitches thrown under 50 mph in a season"?

its a top ten, yeah. wild pitch is along the right lines