MONDAY — 21-Sep-2026
Q. Who
was the first player to win the MVP for an All-Star Game played indoors?
Hint: #1
In the words of Ted Williams, “They invented the All-Star game for _______.”
Hint: #2
He (not Williams) holds the record for the longest span between sequential
MVP seasons.
A. WILLIE MAYS [SABR
Bio]
-
Ans. Mays was the MVP of the 1968 ASG, played in Houston’s Astrodome.
-
#1 Williams also said, “If there
was a guy born to play baseball, it was Willie Mays.”
-
#2 Mays was NL MVP in his 2nd
full year, 1954. In the following
10 seasons, he received MVP votes every year, twice coming in 2nd. Then in 1965, he received the NL MVP again.
FCR - Jeff
Papas, White Bear Lake, Minnesota
Incorrect guesses: Cal Ripken
EQUINOX
EXTRA — 22-Sep-2026
Q. Who was Ted William talking about when he
said, “…with all those muscles, hitting drives that sounded like gunfire. Crraack. A hell of a lot louder than mine sounded.”?
Hint:
#1 He (not Williams) was the first major
leaguer to be voted league Most Valuable Player in consecutive seasons.
Hint:
#2 He hit fifty home runs one season,
but that total was the reason he did not win the Triple Crown that year.
A. JIMMIE FOXX [SABR Bio]
- Ans. Foxx
and Williams were teammates on the Red Sox 1939-1942.
- #1 Foxx
was AL MVP with PHA in 1932 & 1933.
- #2 He
hit 50 HR for BOS in 1938 to go with his 175
RBI and .349 BA. However,
that same year Detroit’s Hank Greenberg hit 58 HR to lead the
majors, which was both Greenberg’s career high in homers and tied Foxx’s career
high set in 1932.. Foxx did win a Triple
Crown in 1933.
FCR - Dan McLaughlin, Floral Park,, New York
Incorrect
guesses: Mickey Mantle
TUESDAY — 22-Sep-2026
Q. Who fell one batting title short of the
National League tie held by Honus Wagner and Tony Gwynn?
Hint:
#1 One season he led the league in walks
WAR, Slugging, On-base percentage, OPS, OPS+ but only managed thirteenth place
when MVP votes were counted at the end of that year.
Hint:
#2 He once tagged out Babe Ruth to end a
World Series, but was traded away shortly thereafter.
A. ROGERS HORNSBY [SABR Bio]
- Ans. Hornsby
won the NL batting average title 7 times, including 6 straight:
1. 1920 .370
2. 1921 .397
3. 1922 .401
4. 1923 .384
5. 1924 .424
– Only year he led the majors
6. 1925 .403 all
for the St. Louis Cardinals
7. 1928 .387 for
the 7th-place Boston Braves
- #1 In 1928, the one year he
played in Boston, Hornsby led the NL in
BB (107)
BA (.387)
OBP (.498)
SLG (.632)
OPS (1.130)
OPS+ (202)
WAR (8.9) best that season
for non-pitchers
- #2 Hornsby
tagged out the Babe as he tried to steal 2nd base with 2 outs in the
9th inning of the 7th game of the 1926 WS. Cardinals owner Sam Breadon made Hornsby an
offer he hoped would be refused because, as one writer put it, “Hornsby knew
more about baseball and less about diplomacy than anyone I ever knew.” After contract talks acrimoniously broke down,
Beardon traded the “Rajah” to NYG for Frankie Frisch & Jimmy Ring.
FCR - Steve Charnick, Ocean, New Jersey
Incorrect
guesses: Henry Aaron
WEDNESDAY
— 23-Sep-2026
Q. Who is the only player to hit Opening Day home
runs for each of four different major league teams?
Hint:
#1 No Texas-born player was an All-Star
more times than he was.
Hint:
#2 He was the first black manager of a
team in the National League.
A. FRANK ROBINSON [SABR Bio]
- Ans. Robinson
hit Opening Day HRs for the -
Cincinnati
Reds: 1959, 1961 &, 1963;
Baltimore
Orioles: 1966, 1969 & 1970;
California
Angels: 1973; and
Cleveland
Indians: 1975.
- #1 Robinson
and Ernie Banks lead all Texas-born players, being All-Stars 14 times each. Among combined American & National League
players, 122 Texans have been selected as major-league All-Stars at least once.
- #2 He
was named manager of the NL San Francisco Giants before the 1981 season
& managed them until 1984. He also
managed the NL’s Montreal Expos/Washington, DC Nationals from 2002 to 2006.
FCR - Richard, Nicholson, Richmond, Virginia
Incorrect
guesses: Don Baylor, Dusty Baker,
THURSDAY
24-Sep-2026
Q. Which nine-time All-Star donated a half
million dollars to his local communities during the Covid-19 pandemic?
Hint:
#1 One spring, he was voted the most
overrated player by fellow major leaguers.
He answered with a season when he led the majors in WAR, OBP, Slugging, OPS
and OPS+.
Hint:
#2 In seven of his fifteen seasons in
the majors, he has had double-figure intentional walks.
A. BRYCE HARPER [B-R Bio]
- Ans. Bryce
& Kayla Harper donated $500,000 in April 2020. Half went to Philabundance in Philadelphia,
the other half to Direct Relief & Three Square in Las Vegas. (True, he had only been an All-Star six times
at that point.)
- #1 In
the ESPN The Magazine poll, published 19-Mar-2015, his peers didn’t
think he was worth all the ink. He then
up a year with a 9.7 WAR, a .460 OBP, SLG of .649,
an OPS of 1.109 & an OPS+ of 198. He also led the NL in HR (42) & R
(118) that same season.
- #2 From
2015 through 2024, Harper was walked intentionally more than 10 times in seven
years, twice leading the NL, once (2016) leading the majors w/20.
FCR - Jason Winston, Riverside, California
Incorrect
guesses: Robinson Cano, Jeff Bagwell, Freddie
Freeman
FRIDAY — 25-Sep-2026
Q. Who was the first member of the career 340/340
Club?
Hint:
#1 He broke Willie McCovey’s one-season record
of forty-five intentional bases-on-balls.
Hint:
#2 His (Not McCovey’s) career records of
On-Base Percentage, Slugging and OPS in Modern Era World Series play,
still stand.
A. BARRY BONDS [SABR Bio]
- Ans. Bonds
hit 762 HR & stole 514 bases in his 22-year career. He is the only person to reach the 340-home-run
& 340-stolen-base career totals.
- #1 McCovey
received 45 free passes to first base in his MVP season of 1969, easily
surpassing the MLB mark of 33 set by Ted Williams in 1957. Bonds established the new mark of 68
IBB in 2002 w/SFG. In 2004, Bonds’s final
MVP season, he was walked (on purpose!) an eye-watering 120 times. In the list of top IBB seasons
in MLB,
Bonds appears 17 times, including 5 of the first 6 places.
- #2 Though
these are career WS marks, they were all set in the 2002 WS w/30 PA, per BB-Ref.com: OBP .700,
OPS 1.994 & SLG 1.294.
FCR - Eric Savage, New York City
Incorrect
guesses: Willie Mays, Andre Dawson
AUTUMNAL
ADDITION — 25-Sep-2026
Q. Who hit a pitched ball through the Tokyo Dome
roof during an exhibition game with the Netherlands preparing for the 2017 World
Baseball Classic?
Hint:
#1 He is estimated to make a seven-digit
income annually from his endorsements alone.
Hint:
#2 Part of his training regimen includes
swimming.
A. SHOHEI OTANI [B-R Bio]
- Ans. On
13-Nov-2016, Ohtani, pinch-hit for Japan in the seventh inning of an exhibition
against the Dutch team at the Tokyo Dome and rocketed a fly ball into a gap
between panels of the Dome’s roof.
Although it never descended, it was recovered & displayed at Japan’s
Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Hideki
Matsui had originally done it in 2002. They
were each credited with a double.
- #1 If accurate,
that be more than the annual endorsements of Ronald Acuña Jr., Mookie Betts,
Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Clayton Kershaw & Mike Trout…
combined.
- #2 Ohtani’s
high school baseball coach Hiroshi Sasaki instructed his players to swim as
part of their workouts. Ohtani’s
swimming coach at Hanamaki Higashi High School was confident that Ohtani could
have been an Olympic-level swimmer.
FCR - James Ryan, Campbell, California
Incorrect
guesses: Deion Sanders, Mike Trout
SATURDAY — 26-Sep-2026
Q. Which SS was a SS seven times and then
another three times at another position?
Hint:
#1 He is the last player to have a
season with 140+ runs and 150+ RBI.
Hint:
#2 He holds the career slugging record
for separate franchises.
A. ALEX RODRIGUEZ [SABR Bio]
- Ans. Shortstop
A-Rod won the Silver Slugger 7 times. He
added 3 more as a third baseman.
- #1 Playing
for NYY in 2007, Rodriguez had 143 R & 156 RBI.
- #2 His
.561 SLG is the best in Seattle Mariners history. He played there for 7 years. He finished his 3 years with the Texas
Rangers with a .615 SLG mark, still the best since that franchise was created
in 1961. His career SLG average for the
Yankees is .523 after 12 years of service.
Impressive, but only 7th on their top career SLG percentages. NYY’s top 2 ranks 1st & 3rd
on the all-time list. (A-Rod is 30th there.)
FCR - Dave Williams, Glastonbury, Connecticut
Incorrect
guesses: Vern Stephens, Miguel Tejada, Ernie
Banks
SUNDAY — 27-Sep-2026
Q. Which Hall of Famer played football, boxed
and played the saxophone in college?
Hint:
#1 He bought and operated a dude ranch following
his baseball career.
Hint: #2 His nickname had nothing to do with his complexion.
Hint: #3 He was the first Modern Era catcher to hit
forty doubles in a season.
A. MICKEY
COCHRANE [SABR Bio]
- Ans. Cochrane
attended Boston University.
- #1 During
1935–36, Cochrane vacationed/convalesced at a Wyoming ranch near Cody. However, 1937 onward: Cochrane owned the 4-K
Ranch near Dean, Stillwater
County, Montana, roughly 50 miles southwest of Billings.
- #2 Cochrane
disliked being called “Mickey” since at the time, it was a common nickname
given to men of Irish descent and was often a derogatory term. His Scottish heritage made the Irish-derived
nickname particularly ironic, and people close to him just called him Mike, even
though Cochrane’s first name was Gordon. Teammates & sportswriters used “Black Mike”
to describe his dark moods, nervous intensity & unyielding demand for
excellence on the field.
- #3 Cochrane
hit 42 doubles in 1930, his personal best.
FCR - Terry Walters, Wabasha, Minnesota
Incorrect
guesses: Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Bench,
Ivan Rodriguez, Larry Doby
THEME: Players who won MLB season (league) MVPs in
different cities
MVP Lg/Yr/Tm Lg/Yr/Tm
Bonds........................ NL 1991, ’92 PIT.................... NL 1992, 2002*, et
seq. SFG
Cochrane.................. AL 1928 PHA......................... AL 1934 DET
Foxx........................... AL1932, AL ’33 PHA............. AL 1938 BOS
Harper....................... NL 2015*................................ NL 2021 PHI
Hornsby.................... NL 1925 STL.......................... NL 1929 CHC
Mays.......................... NL 1954 NYG........................ NL 1965 SFG
Ohtani........................ AL 2021*, AL ’23* LAA.......... NL 2024*, NL ’25* LAD
Robinson................... NL 1961v CIN........................ AL 1966* BAL
Rodriguez................. AL 2003 TEX......................... 2005, ’07 NYY
*Unanimous
vote (100% of 1st-place votes)
N.B.
Robinson in ’61 & Bonds in ’90 would have also been unanimous except for a
single vote captured by a teammate.
Postseason
MVPs in different cities
Orel
Hershiser............ 1988 LAD............................... 1995 CLE
Reggie
Jackson......... 1973 OAK.............................. 1977 NYY
Corey
Seager............. 2020 LAD............................... 2023 TEX
First
Correct Respondent identifying theme – James Farrell, Massapequa, New
York (after Robinson)
Incorrect
theme guesses:
Tues - Hall
of Fame Center Fielders
-
MVP
winners with four letter last names
-
Players
with the highest offensive WAR in a season
-
Players
who won the MVP in non-consecutive years
-
Multiple
time MVPs
Wed - Players
on Ted William's top 20 batters of all time
-
HOF
Triple Crown Winners
-
Triple
Crown winners
-
Players
to win MVPs for 2 teams
-
Right-handed
batters who captured multiple MVP honors and are Hall of Famers
-
Players
who won the MVP for two different teams
Thu - players
won multiple MVPs and lead the league in OPS in their MVP season
Sun - Players
who won MVP with two franchises
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