MONDAY – Feb 24
Q. Who is the
only right-handed pitcher to retire with exactly 300 victories?
Hint: A fellow Cy
Young Award winner claimed he could predict every one of our guy’s
myriad of pitches simply by focusing on his nose.
Hint: In the 1980s
alone, five pitchers matched a significant milestone of his that he thought
would never again be attained.
- 300th W
= 13-July-1963, the
last G of his career. With the
evolution of the game (particularly the change away from a maximum of three
days’ rest between starts for pitchers),
Wynn said he fully expected to be the very last of baseball’s 300-game
winners. However, in just a single
decade, he watched
join him in this exclusive club.
- Bob Turley’s powers of observation were legendary.
Turley (1958) and Wynn (1959) won their only CYAs
in back-to-back seasons.
FCR - Brian
Engelhardt, Reading, Pennsylvania
Incorrect guesses: Phil
Niekro, Mike Mussina
TUESDAY – Feb 25
Q. Who was the
first pitcher to throw a no-hitter in each league since Cy Young did it in
1904?
Hint: On a beautiful
Father's Day, with his wife and oldest child in the grandstands, he pitched the
game of his life.
Hint: After
baseball he ran unsuccessfully for governor of his state.
- Bunning had no-no’s in 1958 for DET & in
1964 for PHI.
- Bunning’s Father’s Day perfecto 21-June-1964. "What a
day," Bunning recalled years later. "Just a perfect day."
He negotiated a $1,000 payment to appear
on the nationally televised Ed Sullivan Show that same night and
used the money to add a pool to his Kentucky home.
- Lost the governor’s race in
Kentucky in 1983
to Democratic nominee Martha Layne Collins, who became the first
female governor of Kentucky
FCR - Vince Guerrieri, Elyria, Ohio
Incorrect guesses: Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry, Tim Hudson, Justin
Verlander, Ron Guidry, Dwight Gooden
WEDNESDAY – Feb 26
Q. Who was the last pitcher to win 25 games
in a season?
Hint: He has World Series rings from teams in
each league.
Hint: He had played for a team that is now the Eagles
before pitching in the majors.
- 27 W in 1990
- Played baseball with the Eastern Michigan
University
(Ypsilanti). They became the Hurons by the time Welch
attended in the 1970s.
FCR - Brett Moore, Vancouver
Incorrect
guesses: Steve Stone
MIDWEEK BONUS – Feb 26
Q. What Texan hurler’s nickname suggests deity?
Hint: He chose professional baseball of the
numerous offers he had to play in college.
Hint: He has won the National League Player
of the Week Award four times.
Hint: His antipathy of the NFL’s
Dallas Cowboys went counter to his family’s feelings.
- His nickname is “Thor” the god of thunder in
Norse mythology. Syndergaard’s lovely
locks, sculpted athletic body and Norse surname make this nickname a perfect
fit.
- He was courted by the University of Nebraska,
Baylor University and the University of Oklahoma, but none of those schools
offered him a scholarship so he signed with Dallas Baptist University because
they did.
- His NL Player of the Week Awards (Weeks’s
calculations end on Sundays)
- He is not alone with that sentiment
FCR - Nobody??
Incorrect guesses:
THURSDAY – Feb 27
Q. About whom did former Milwaukee Braves
outfielder Hank Aaron write, ““I’ve always felt that we would have won some
more championships if we had hung onto [him]. We needed young pitchers to take
over for Spahn, Burdette, and Buhl, and we never came up with them. … I’m not
sure I ever saw a pitcher with more ability than [he] had when he came to us
out of Puerto Rico at the age of nineteen.”?
Hint: In his major league debut, he lost 1-0 to future
Cy Young Award winner Vernon Law.
Hint: In his entire professional career, he won in
excess of 400 games.
Hint: His nickname come from an old comic strip
character.
Hint: He admitted later in his career that he was
two years older than originally listed.
- Aaron’s quote to Lonnie Wheeler in, I
Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story.
- Pizarro went 7 innings in his debut for the
Milwaukee Braves, striking out 6, walking 1 and surrendering the game’s
solitary run. Law went the distance.
- His regular-season count is 392: 197 in the US
(131 in the majors and 66 in the minors), plus 38 more in Mexico in his late
30s and 157 while playing winter ball in his homeland of Puerto Rico.
- His nickname was ‘Terin’ (Pronounced “teh-REEN”)
because he liked “Terry and the Pirates” so much.
- At age 34, he fessed
up and admitted he was 36.
FCR - Joe Liss, Metarie, Louisiana
Incorrect
guesses: Phil Niekro, Satchel Paige
FRIDAY – Feb 28
Q. Which qualifying pitcher owns the modern
record for career winning percentage?
Hint: He had the lowest qualifying ERA in a
season in the 1940s.
Hint: He helped his team to a victory in Chicago
one afternoon with a grand slam, only the second one ever by a pitcher playing
for his franchise.
Hint: To opposing batters, he many have indeed
been “lights out”, but his ancestors were actually in charge of putting the
lights out.
- His .717 pct. set from 1937 to 1947 with NYY
is surpassed only by Hall of Famer Al Spalding’s .795 which he set during
the first 7 years of the existence of major league baseball 1871-1877.
- Chandler led the AL with an ERA in 1943 of 1.64.
- Lights in days of yore were handled by a
person called a chandler, both the manufacturing and managing thereof.
FCR - Jeff Epstein, Dallas
Incorrect
guesses: Preacher Roe, Whitey Ford,
Lefty Grove, Pedro Martinez, Bob Feller, Mort Cooper
IN MEMORIAM
Q. What pitcher defeated the Brooklyn
Dodgers in three different ballparks in one season?
Hint: He, along with teammates Warren Spahn,
Normie Roy and Bob Hal combined for a unique accomplishment.
Hint: He was the last pitcher to start a game for
the home team in the Polo Grounds before expansion.
Hint: He was traded TO the Giants for Bobby
Thomson and FROM the Giants for Harvey Kuenn.
Hint: He played for two franchises in two
different cities for each.
Hint: As a National League pitcher he was twenty
games over .500. As an American league
pitcher, he was four games under .500 and winless.
Hint: He was undefeated with an ERA of 0.84, with
future Hall of Fame pitchers taking the loss every time he pitched in
postseason play.
Hint: In a high school exhibition game arranged
by his father, he threw a no-hitter while out striking out 17.
Hint: In retirement, he was a successful Firestone/Michelin
tire distributor in his hometown.
> In Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey on 15-Aug. To read the story of this game, written by
Dr. John Burbridge, click here. (Dr.
B. adds this codicil to that story:
Another sidebar to that game. In 2010 the San Francisco Giants brought
the World Series trophy to NYC. I was a member of the New York Giants
Historical Association and the Giants invited the group for breakfast at a hotel.
Willie Mays was at a table and was available to autographs. I told him I had seen him hit a long home run
in Jersey City. Without looking up, he said “Off of Don Newcombe.”)
- On 31-Aug-1950, these 4 Braves
pitchers surrendered a home run each to Dodger first baseman Gil Hodges. This was the 1st time anyone had
homered 4 X in a G off 4 different pitchers.
- Last Polo Grounds G before expansion: 29-Sep-1957. The real last home starter there was Craig Anderson.
- Went to NYG from MLN for Thomson 01-Feb-1954. Other players were involved. Went to CLE from SFG w/Willie Kirkland for Kuenn 03-Dec-1960.
- Played for the Braves
in Boston and Milwaukee and for the Giants in New York ad San Francisco.
- 126-106 for Giants & Braves; 0-4 for the Tribe.
- Won G 2 of the 1954 WS w/CG
and earned a (not yet official) save to end the Series sweep. Early Wynn was the loser in G 2
and Bob Lemon was the loser in G 4.
- The HS win was his ticket to the pros as many
scout were watching that game.
FCR - Jeff Kallman, Las Vegas
Incorrect
guesses: Sal Maglie, Bob Buhl
SATURDAY – Feb 29
Q. Which pitcher was wired for 20-20 during
the brief sojourn of the Federal League?
Hint: In one game in the National League against
the Phillies, he surrendered twelve runs but was not the losing pitcher.
Hint: He was once the subject of a newspaper
headline that read, “[He] Breaks World's Record”
- Packard won 20 G each year 1914 & 1915 and
although he didn’t lead the league in victories either year, his 40 W are the second-most
in FL history behind Claude Hendrix who had 45.
- 12-R G = 03-Aug-1918. In 8⅓ innings, he gave up 12 runs, all
earned. How did he not lose you
ask? His own team, STL, scored 16.
- The Independence (MO) Daily Reporter
on 10-Aug-1908 was referring a perfect game he had pitched against the team
from Bartlesville, Oklahoma 2 days prior.
It was a year before Packard began his professional career.
FCR - Ed Baranoski, Vienna, Virginia
Incorrect
guesses: Jack Quinn, Eddie Plank, Mordecai
Brown, Mel Stotlemyre
SUNDAY –
Mar 01
Q. Whose 261 career complete games are
almost 90 more than any other Yankee pitcher?
Hint: He was the first Yankee pitcher to rack up
1,500 strikeouts for them.
Hint: He is the only Yankee pitcher with 30 home
runs.
Hint: He is the only Yankee pitcher with 200 RBI.
- Had 74 additional CGs for Sox teams. Lefty Gomez is 2nd on
the NYY CG list with 173. Current active
leader was CC Sabathia w/12 and now is Masahiro Tanaka w/7.
- 1,526 Ks for NYY, 1930-42, 1945 9
- 31 NYY HR (36 for his career) 1 of his NYY HRs was as a pinch-hitter.
- 213 NYY RBI (273 for his career)
FCR - Randall Chandler, Germantown, Tennessee
Incorrect
guesses: Jack Chesbro, Johnny Lindell
WEEKLY THEME – .
Major-league pitchers who threw a complete-game shutout and hit a solo homer
for that game’s only run.
Pitcher Team Boxscore
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – Randall Chandler, Germantown,
Tennessee (after Welch)
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Monday - Pitchers
with the most appearances between their penultimate and final victories
Tues - HOF
pitchers who started All Star games for the American League between 1950 and
1970
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