The Major League All-Star game will be played on Tuesday in Arlington, Texas. It will mark the first time a reigning World Series champion hosted the Midsummer Classic since 1939, when the American League defeated the NL, 3-1, at Yankee Stadium.
Joe DiMaggio homered for the AL off loser Bill Lee (not the Spaceman, the righty who was the Cubs’ ace back then). Tommy Bridges got the win in relief of Yankee Red Ruffing and Bob Feller got the save.
Sounds like it’s time for my annual baseball trivia quiz, which I’ve been doing in some form for 35 years. The first installment was in 1990, when there were still four divisions and no wild cards. The Red Sox and Cubs were still mired in long World Series droughts and Hank Aaron held the career home run record.
To tell you how much the game has changed, in 1990 the average MLB team hit 128 home runs and struck out 5.6 times a game over a full season. Both figures were up more than 50 percent in 2023 — to 196 homers per season and 8.6 strikeouts per team per game.
Even the record book has changed, now that MLB has made the controversial decision to incorporate some of the Negro Leagues statistics into the official records. The records aren’t complete, as baseball continues to search for missing box scores from the Negro Leagues.
For now, Josh Gibson is the career batting leader at .372, ahead of Ty Cobb’s .367. Satchel Paige has the third-best ERA in a single year with the 1.01 mark he had in 1944.
Anyway, trivia remains a passion for dedicated baseball nuts. This year’s quiz has 30 possible answers. If you get half, consider yourself an expert. The stats go back to 1901, the year the American League was founded. Current stats are through July 12.
1. To honor this year’s host, we’ll start with a Texas question. Who holds the Rangers’ career records for games, hits, runs, doubles and triples? He had 200 hits five times early in this century and holds the Texas records for hits (221) and doubles (52) in a season. But he never finished higher than eighth for MVP.
2. In May of 1947, he hit a home run to lift the New York Cubans over the Cleveland Buckeyes in a Negro Leagues game at Offermann Stadium in Buffalo. He went on to have a Hall of Fame career in MLB, finishing fourth in the MVP voting four times and appearing in five different decades — twice playing briefly in his 50s for the White Sox in a publicity stunt.
3. He won the MVP in 1942, edging out Ted Williams, who won the Triple Crown that season but was was no darling with the baseball writers. He was the Royals’ first manager in 1969 and was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee 40 years later.
4. Who was the oldest pitcher to win 20 games in a season for the first time? He holds the American League record with 17 straight seasons of 11 or more wins. He finally won 20 in his last MLB season and was voted into the Hall in 2009.
5. He won 14 or more for five different teams over five seasons from 1974-78, but is best remembered for one fateful pitch. He won the World Series clincher one year, but was overshadowed by an epic hitting performance that night.
6. Short-term memory check: Who hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning in Game One of the World Series last year in Arlington?7. Alphabet Trivia: Five players whose last name begins with ‘A’ have won an MVP award. One should be fairly obvious. They all occurred in my lifetime.
8. Who is the only player in MLB history with at least 500 home runs and fewer than 2,000 hits?
9. Who was the first left-handed pitcher to save 40 games in a season?
10. This Toronto native suffered a heart attack and missed the 1971 season, then came back in the second half of 1972 to help the Tigers win the AL East. In 1973, he broke the MLB saves record with 38, went 10-5 and had a 1.44 ERA in 125 innings. In 1974, he went 17-14, all in relief, a record for relief wins in a season by a lefty.
11. Back to the host Rangers. Texas began as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961(the original Senators became the Twins). Who is the only Senator on the Rangers’ franchise Top 10 list in home runs?
12. He started 10 World Series games from 1905-14 and completed them all. An MLB Hall of Famer, he attended the same school as legend Jim Thorpe.
13. This Yankee won two pitching triple crowns (first in wins, ERA and strikeouts) in the 1930s. He started five All-Star Games and won the first one. He was also 6-0 in the World Series and was elected to the Hall of Fame.
14. Ronald Acuna of the Braves scored 149 runs last season. Who is the only man since 1950 to score 150 runs in a season?
15. Who was the last player with 50 doubles and 40 home runs in a season?
16. In 2018, the Indians became the first team ever with four pitchers who struck out 200 batters. It’s only six years ago, but it’s a tough one.
17. Luis Arraez had a .323 career batting average as of July 12. Who were the three players in the last 50 years to retire with a BA of .320 or better?18. This will tell you about offense in the steroid era: In 2002, he had 102 runs, 50 doubles, 20 homers, 31 steals, 104 walks and a .308 batting average — and didn’t finish in the top 20 in National League MVP voting.
19. Who are the two players who had at least 150 hits in 17 consecutive seasons? Not surprisingly, they both finished with more than 3,000.
20. Who is the active MLB leader in hits? Miguel Cabrera retired after last season with 3,174. No one active has as many as 2,500.
Comentários