Sunday, May 24, 2015

May 18-24, 2015 Hall of Fame Managers who never managed in the minor leagues

18-May‑2015

MONDAY
Q.         For which player would opposing players remove their belts when coming to bat?
Hint:     His closest friend was a Hall of Fame pitcher with a completely opposite personality.
Hint:     Only Williams and Ruth have better career on-base percentages.
Hint:     Tony could have caught him.
Twint:    He despised his nicknames.
A.         JOHN McGRAW (Playing third McGraw would, often unbeknownst to umpires, hold a runners belt to give the defense an advantage; Friend was the with the gentlest of Giants, Christy Mathewson; OPB .4657; McGraw’s managerial total was 2,763, 2nd all-time, and Tony LaRussa chose to retire after winning the 2011 World Series with 2,728.  Had LaRussa stayed on and been only as successful as his successor, he would have passed McGraw around 14-Jun-2014; Nicknames: Mugsy and Little Napoleon)
FCR -    Peter Cottrell, Gaithersburg, MD
Incorrect answers:  Ty Cobb,

TUESDAY
Q.         Who played in (2,209) and managed (2,072) the most games combined (4,279*) before ever appearing in a World Series?
Hint:     He is the only person to have 2,000 hits, 200 home runs and 1,000 victories as a manager.
Hint:     He was the first person to hit for the cycle at Three Rivers Stadium.
Hint:     Two years before he was a league MVP, he was traded for an MVP and future Hall of Famer, straight up.
Twint:    He tied Hall of Famer Goose Goslin when, on 21-Jul-1975, he grounded into four (4!) double plays in one game.
A.         JOE TORRE (2,342 H, 252 HR, 2,326 W as Mgr.; Cycle 27-Jun-1973; MVP in 1971, traded 17-Mar-1969 for Orlando Cepeda, who had been MVP in 1967; Victor Martinez on 11-Sep-2011 GIDP X 4)
FCR -    Alex Griffel, Great Neck, NY
*Two games as player/mgr
Incorrect answers:  Harvey Kuenn., Mike Easler, Don Baylor, Dusty Baker, Felipe Alou, Bill Virdon, Frank Robinson

WEDNESDAY
Q.         Who, translated, is the Lion from the Boulder?
Hint:     Others have chosen nicknames less patrician for him.
Hint:     Were he slightly less of a showman, he would have borrowed Yogi’s quip: “I never really said everything that I said.”
Hint:     What he DID say was, "I made a game effort to argue but two things were against me:  The umpires and the rules."
Hint:     He was a winner on both sides of town and twice the mystery guest on “What’s My Line?”
Hint:     He was born in the United States, but English was not his native language.
Twint:    A clue to his competitive nature can be found in this quote of his: "What are we at the park for except to win? I'd trip my mother.  I'd help her up, brush her off, tell her I'm sorry.  But mother don't make it to third."
A.         LEO DUROCHER (Leo = Latin for Lion, du = “from the” in French, “rocher” boulder in French; “The Lip” being the most famous; He is forever cited as the source of the saying, “Nice guys finish last.”  Several sources say he admitted to saying it, others have him saying it but denying the meaning and others still have him never having said it at all.  Durocher himself used whichever version was most salutary at the time; Quote snatched from a rare moment  of  humility; Played for the Yankees and managed the Brooklyn Dodgers and the  New York Giants; Spoke French growing up; the quote about his  mother is the sanitized one.)
FCR -    Joshua Murphy, Iowa City, IA
Incorrect answers:  Sal Maglie, Joe Garagiola, Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra

THURSDAY
Q.         Who was honored with the first-ever monument in Yankee Stadium?
Hint:     He holds the strange record of having the most career home runs with all of them being inside-the-park.
Hint:     His logical, law-school approach did not work with his big star.
Hint:     A future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court advised him to continue with baseball instead of worrying ab out a career in law.
Hint:     He got his law degree anyway.
Twint:    Babe Ruth once dangled him by the ankles over the railing of a moving train car.
Twint:    He made a practice of visiting roller skating rinks in each road town his team visited, making mental notes about how he would operate his own.
Twint:    He’s a double-unique.
A.         MILLER HUGGINS (9 IPHR; Was often at odds with G. Ruth; William Howard Taft was one of his law professors at U. of Cincinnati)
FCR -    Neil Cohen, Brooklyn, NY
Incorrect answers:  Tony LaRussa, Joe McCarthy, Lou Gehrig, Casey Stengel, Branch Rickey

FRIDAY
Q.         Who was the last out in the first perfect game ever pitched?
Hint:     He is the only Cleveland Blue to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Hint:     He managed his team to all four Temple Cup series games.
Hint:     He twice managed the Superbas to first place finishes – the only manager to achieve the feat even once.
Twint:    He may not have been the best manager as his team would say to him, “For Krissake!, Just keep quiet and leave us alone.  We'll win this ball game if you only shut up.”
Twint:    He was a principal investor in the Baltimore Terrapins of the upstart Federal League.
A.         NED HANLON (He debuted in the major leagues in 1880 with the Blues – the only year he played for the short-lived franchise (1879-84); lost in 1894-5, but 1896 and 1897 winner with Baltimore, the last two years of the NL series where the top two teams met to decide a “champion”; 1899-1900 finished 1st in the NL; Superbas name stuck from 1899-1910; Quote from SABR BIO)
FCR -    Bob Flynn, Chandler, AZ
Incorrect answers:  Wilbert Robinson

WEEKEND
Q.         Who, though he never played in the Major Leagues, was called by Honus Wagner “one of the greatest pitchers of all-time…smartest pitcher I’ve ever seen”?
Hint:     It‘s said that he got his nickname by beating a future Hall of Fame pitcher.
Hint:     John McGraw asked him to “tutor” Giant’s pitchers.
Twint:    He was a “Giant” in nearly every sense of the word.
A.         RUBE FOSTER (Other top players in the majors raved about him, including Frank Chance who called him “the most finished product I’ve ever seen in the pitcher’s box; Reported to have beaten Rube Waddell in a 1902 exhibition game; McGraw couldn’t bring him on as a player due to the racial policies of the era, so he brought him in as a pitching coach where he supposedly taught Christy Mathewson his “fadeaway” pitch; He was a highly successfulChicago American Giant pitcher, a highly successful manager, owner and Commission in the Negro Leagues as well as sporting a 6-4 200pound frame)
FCR -    CJ Pentland, Delta, BC
Incorrect answers:  Cy Williams, Smokey Joe Williams


WEEKLY THEME – Hall of Fame Managers who never managed in the minor leagues

Manager       Managing stints
Durocher      BRO 1939-46, 48; NYG 1948-55; CHC 1966-72; HOU 1972-73
Huggins       STL 1913-17; NYY 1918-29
McGraw        BLN 1899; BLA 1901-02; NYG 1902-32
Torre            NYM 1977-81; ATL 1982-84; STL 1990-95; NYY 1995-2007; LAD 2008-10
Hanlon         PIT 1899; PBB 1990; PIT 1891; BLN 1892-98; BRO 1988-1905; CIN 1906-07
Foster          American Giants (NNL) 1920-26


First Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – No one

Incorrect theme guesses:

Tuesday   -  People who were multiple-time WS champions as both players and managers

Thursday  -  Yankee managers
               -  Managers who managed more than 1 New York team to a league pennant
               -  Hall of Fame managers who managed in New York

Friday      -  New York born managers who won a World Series for a New York team.
               -  Hall of Famer managers who played for the Cardinals and whose resumes include time as a player-manager
               -  Players who made the Hall of Fame as managers

Weekend -  One-time player managers who got in the hall through veteran's committee voting
               -  HoF player/managers


Questions archived here:  http://horsehidetrivia.blogspot.com/


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