Let’s talk baseball trivia.
Sports fans love obscure facts, figures and history, and summer is a great time to sit with family and friends and talk about the events or nuances of sports that interest us. Trivia is a funny thing. All of us know things that others don’t, and some of what we think is a fact that only we know is shared knowledge. One person’s trivia is another person’s “I knew that,” or another’s “I didn’t know that.”
But questioning others on sports knowledge can be as much fun to many as engaging in the sport itself.
So, let’s talk trivia! And since it is baseball season, let’s have some fun with baseball facts and see how you do. We will cover current players as well as past, and mix fastballs with curves and change-ups. These 20 questions are a drop in the bucket and can be replaced by 20 others or 20,000 others. We will visit baseball and other sports trivia again, but for today, you’re up … here’s this game’s first pitch.
1. Shohei Ohtani is arguably the best player on the planet, and he joined a small group of hurlers last week when he struck out 10 batters and hit two home runs in the same game. Who did he join?
Answer: Since 1900, five other pitchers accomplished the feat. Babe Ruth is NOT on the list. Milt Pappas in 1961, Rick Wise in 1963, Madison Bumgarner in 2017 and Zack Grienke in 2017.
2. Isaiah Kiner-Falefa also joined a short list. Last week, he became the first Yankee since 1921 to record a strikeout on the mound as a pitcher, a steal of home as a runner and hit a triple and a home run in the same season. Who did he join?
Answer: This one was Babe Ruth.
3. What MLB players have hit a home run from each side of the plate in the same inning?
Answer: Carlos Baerga (1993), Mark Bellhorn (2002), Kendrys Morales (2012).
4. Who has hit switch-hit home runs in the same game the most times?
Answer: Mark Texeira and Nick Swisher, each with 14.
5. Who has the career record for most doubles?
Answer: Tris Speaker with 792.
6. Who has the career record for most triples?
Answer: “Wahoo” Sam Crawford with 309.
7. Which double play duo made the most double plays together in their career?
Answer: Over 19 seasons, Detroit’s "Sweet" Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell turned more than 1,100 double plays. Gene Alley and Bill Mazeroski of Pittsburgh turned 161 DPs in 1966.
8. In the poem “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” penned by Franklin Pierce Adams in 1910, the famous line went, “Tinker to Evers to Chance. Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance.” That was in reference to the Chicago Cubs double play combination of shortstop Johnny Evers, second baseman Joe Tinker and first baseman Frank Chance. But who was the Cubs' third baseman?
Answer: Harry Steinfeldt.
9. From the Abbott and Costello comedy bit, we know Who was on first, What was on second and I Don’t Know played third. Do you know the centerfielder?
Answer: Because.
10. What player made the most errors in a game? A season? A career?
Answer: The most errors by a player in a game are nine by second baseman Andy Leonard of the Boston Red Caps in 1876. Herman Long made 1,096 miscues in his career as shortstop for many teams from 1890-1902. Long made 122 errors in 1889 for Kansas City, and Billy Shindle (third baseman/shortstop for Philadelphia) tied him in 1890. Yankee Tommy John made three errors on one play in 1988. The Dodgers made 12 errors in one game as a team in 1883.
11. Which player made the most outfield assists in a career?
Answer: Tris Speaker made 449 assists as an outfielder for four teams, and Hardy Richardson threw out 45 runners from the outfield for Buffalo in 1881.
12. Who was the first African-American to play Major League Baseball?
Answer: While Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier” in 1947, Moses Fleetwood Walker debuted in the league on May 1, 1884, with the Toledo Blue Stockings.
13. Most fans know that Cy Young holds the record for most career wins as a pitcher, with 511. Who has the most losses?
Answer: Cy Young, with 316.
14. Johnny Van Der Meer of Cincinnati threw two consecutive no-hitters in 1938. Who threw a back-to-back one-hitter-no hitter combo?
Answer: Dazzy Vance in 1925 for Brooklyn. Whitey Ford is among those who threw back-to-back one hitters, doing so for the Yankees in 1955. The Mets’ R.A, Dickey joined that group in 2012.
15. Which pitcher hit the most batters in his career?
Answer: Gus Wehing hit 277 batters in his career from 1887 to 1901. Walter Johnson hit 205 for the modern-day record.
16. What is the record for most walks allowed in a game?
Answer: Bruno Haas walked 16 batters in a 1915 game between his Philadelphia A’s and the New York Yankees. Jimmie Foxx drew six walks in one game for the Red Sox in 1938.
17. Who stole the most bases in a game?
Answer: Eddie Collins of the Philadelphia Athletics stole six against the Detroit Tigers on Sept. 11, 1912. He did it again 11 days later against the St. Louis Browns. The Atlanta Braves’ Otis Nixon (1991), Colorado Rockies’ Eric Young (1996) and Tampa Bay Rays’ Carl Crawford (2009) also went into the record books with six steals in a game.
18. What is the first team to wear numbers on their uniforms?
Answer: The Yankees wore numbers in 1929, but the Cleveland Indians beat them to it by a day. The Indians in 1916, and the Cardinals in 1923, wore numbers for a short time, but were laughed at and retired the idea.
19. Who owns the world’s largest publicly available collection of baseball cards?
Answer: The Metropolitan Museum of Art at more than 31,000.
20. Who was on the first cover of Sports Illustrated, June 9, 1954?
Answer: Eddie Matthews of the Milwaukee Braves, swinging at the plate against the New York Giants at Milwaukee County Stadium.
Reader Feedback: Bats
Two weeks ago, Let’s Talk Sports focused on bats and the piles of sawdust created by breaking clubs. Reader Perry Miller, Jr. wrote us to set the record straight that yellow birch is the No.2-most popular bat, behind maple and ahead of hickory.
Miller, who said he is a fan and not an expert, is a long-time friend of Jack Hillerich, owner of Hillerich & Bradsby, makers of Louisville Slugger bats. Miller suggested three major reasons for bat breakage.
1. Thinner handles/bigger barrels
2. Maple wood breaks easier than ash as it is not as strong in terms of handle strength, but it is stronger in surface hardness and delaminates less than ash. Unfortunately, maple shears when it breaks into a missile shard of wood vs. ash which tends to stay in one piece.
3. Lighter bats require lighter billets, the wooden rods from which bats are made, with less dense wood, which is weaker than heavier and more dense billets. Billets may be lighter, in general, due to being dried to a lighter moisture content than in the past. Today's billets are often kiln dried in weeks versus being air seasoned over years as in the past. So, you have the lightest of the light being used for MLB bats.
Great info, Perry, thanks for reaching out. If any other readers have any comments on the column or anything sports related, contact me at mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com.
