MONDAY
Q. Which
Yankee legend was further immortalized by Hall of Famers hailing from Queens
and Jersey?
Hint: The
Boones surpassed his clan by having four major-league All-Stars in the family.
Hint: He
was professionally associated with a couple of “professors”.
Hint: He
passed away in Hollywood, Florida in 1999 at age 84. The official cause of death was lung cancer,
but some say he died of a broken heart.
Twint: He
narrowly missed on a potentially lucrative endorsement contract for ballpark condiments.
- Rock
and Roll HOFers Art Garfunkel (born in Forest Hills, Queens, NY) and Paul Simon
(Newark, NJ) sang about our nation turning its lonely eyes to him in the first
rock song to win the Grammy for Record of the Year (1969): Mrs. Robinson.
- Although
all three of the DiMaggio brothers made All-Star teams, four members of the
prolific Boone family (Ray, Bob, Bret and Aaron) were named to Mid-Summer
Classic rosters.
- His
younger brother Dom
was nicknamed "The Little Professor" while his last manager and occasional
drinking buddy Casey
Stengel was dubbed "The Old Perfessor".
- Joe
was devastated by the untimely death of his ex-wife Marilyn
Monroe and was said to have arranged to have a dozen long-stemmed roses
delivered to her crypt 2-3 times a week for twenty years after her death.
- Had
Joltin' Joe's famed hitting streak lasted just one more game past its record 56,
it was rumored that The
H.J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, PA -- makers of ketchup, mustard and
relish -- was prepared to offer him $10,000 to promote its wares. The Heinz's historical advertising slogan was
"57
Varieties" of products, even though at the time of its coinage this
huge conglomerate offered just over 60 different types of food items.
FCR - Ken
Auerbach, Bronxville, NY
Incorrect answers:
TUESDAY
NOTE:
This week’s questions, hints and theme come from relatively new reader
Larry Hayes of San Francisco.
Q. Who
has held the National League's single-season record for putouts for 95 years?
Hint: He
set his record in the 154-game season era.
Hint: He
is the nephew of another famed major leaguer nicknamed after Evangeline: a
little girl saved from drowning by the title character of a literary classic
penned by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Hint: With
his highest single-year HOF voting percentage just 1.9%, he was nevertheless
enshrined in Cooperstown in 1973. His
selection has been panned by historian/analyst Bill James as "the worst
player in the Hall of Fame."
Hint: He
was nicknamed not for any sartorial preference, but for his then unusual
height.
Twint: After
a couple cups of coffee, he was called up to the Bigs for good when his
position's incumbent star (who once led his league in his middle name) was
chased from the major leagues.
- 1,759
POs at 1B in 1920.
- His uncle was pre-1900’s star Bill
"Little Eva" Lange. The
original female "Little Eva" had an "uncle" who saved her
from dying after she accidentally fell into the Mississippi River. "Little Eva" (formal given name
Evangeline) was saved by one of her father's slaves named ... Uncle Tom. Both were characters in the famed
anti-slavery book written by Stowe: Uncle
Tom's Cabin.
- Kelly was inducted in the HOF by its
Veterans Committee, which at that time was chaired by one of Kelly's
ex-teammates and good friends -- Frankie
Frisch. Under the accusation of
cronyism, Frisch
was instrumental in the dubious selections of Kelly
and other former-Frisch fieldmates. James
made his claim in his renowned 2001 book, The
New Bill James Baseball Historical Abstract.
- George "High Pockets"
Kelly was given his moniker because of his above-average height of 6'
4". This distance meant his trouser
pockets were located considerably higher off the ground than those of most men
of his era.
- Kelly took over at 1B for Harold
Homer "Prince Hal" Chase, who was banished from organized
baseball amid a cloud of suspected gambling/game-throwing allegations. Chase
led the Federal League
in round-trippers in 1915 with 17.
FCR - Richard
Tharp, Gaithersburg, MD
Incorrect answers: Phil Rizzuto Pee Wee Reese, Taylor Douthit,
Bill Lange, Rabbit Maranville, Tommy McCarthy, Frank Chance
WEDNESDAY
Q. Which
player, an MVP just two years earlier, when traded to his team's most hated
rivals, mid-season, refused to report and never played for them?
Hint: He
didn't play in the majors for nearly two years, during which time he worked on
his cattle ranch.
Hint: He
finished in the top 25 MVP voting seven times over an eight-year stretch, but
failed to reach that level of support during the only season in which he led
his league in OBP.
Twint: His
brother died following a bout with a one-time Heavyweight Champion of the
World.
- While
playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers Camilli developed a deep hatred for the
cross-town Giants and their fans. When
he was traded to the last-place Giants in
July 1943, he refused to report and stayed home at his ranch in Northern
California. Camilli said: “I hated the
Giants. This was real serious; this was no put-on stuff. Their fans hated us,
and our fans hated them. I said nuts to them, and I quit." Camilli was signed as a free agent in June
1945 by the Boston
Red Sox where he played his last 63 major league games.
- Dolph's brother Francisco
-- who boxed under the name Frankie
Campbell -- died of cerebral hemorrhaging 12 hours after losing to Max Baer
in 1930.
- In 1937, despite playing a full
season, leading the NL with a superb .446 OBP and posting a career-best batting
average of .339, Camilli failed to garner even a single MVP vote. His Phils finished in 7th place
with just 61 wins, 5 games out of the NL cellar.
FCR - Jim
Turner, Tallahassee, FL
Incorrect answers: Jackie Robinson, Coot Veal, Phil Rizzuto,
Jackie Jensen, Bobby Doerr, Dick Allen, Arky Vaughan, Rogers Hornsby, Curt
Flood
THURSDAY
Q. Which
five-tool superstar voluntarily abandoned his major league career at the
pinnacle of his success at the age of 28?
Hint: A
lifetime .330 hitter, he rapped 1,056 hits in 813 games during his seven-year
career.
Hint: Hall
of Famer Clark Griffith, noted major league player, manager and club owner,
once said of him, “I have seen all the other great outfielders – Speaker, Cobb,
DiMaggio – in action, and I consider ___ _____ the equal of, if not better
than, all outfielders of all-time. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.”
Hint: His
early retirement decision was unrelated to his prowess on the field.
Twint: He
played for the Colts and the Orphans, but never the Cubs.
- The baseball career of Griffith -- a
teammate of Lange's in the 1890s -- spanned 64 years and vastly different eras. His accolades for Lange thus merit serious
consideration.
- Over the winter of 1899, Lange fell
in love with Grace Anna Giselman. Her
father was a wealthy and socially-connected San Franciscan who did not take
well to Lange's affection for his only daughter. Only after Lange agreed to forsake his
baseball career and enter the family's lucrative insurance business did the father
consent to the marriage. Many attempted
to lure him back onto the playing field after his marriage. Lange resisted them all and never played
baseball again.
- 1893-1897: Chicago Colts (NL); 1888-89: Chicago Orphans (NL) same team that became
the Cubs
in 1903.
FCR - Bill
Deane, Cooperstown, NY
Incorrect answers: Ross Youngs, Jackie Jensen, Joe Jackson, Bo
Jackson, Pete Reiser, Mike Donlin, Hank Greenberg, Billy Sunday, Rogers
Hornsby, Richie Ashburn, Tony Conigliaro
FRIDAY
Q. Who
owns World Series rings won 30 years apart?
Hint: In
his position as third base coach for Seattle, he waved outfielder Billy
Williams around third to score on a base hit to right field by former All-Star
Tommy Davis. It was the last run
Williams ever scored in his major league career.
Twint: He
wore the uniform numbers of:
A) a current HOFer,
B) a storied manager and
C) a player who will be inducted into
Cooperstown in July 2020.
- Crosetti,
nicknamed "The Crow", won rings in 1932 (as a player) and 1962 (as a
coach), both for the Yankees, with a combined career total is more than anyone
else in the history of the game. Crosetti
earned eight rings as a player and nine more as their 3B coach. Yogi Berra, with 15 total World Series rings,
came closest to matching Crosetti's 17.
- Third
base coach of the 1969 Seattle Pilots,
on 16-Aug-1969,
Crosetti sent rookie outfielder Billy
Williams (10 MLB ABs) home on the single to score his first and only run in
the Big Leagues on . )The long-time Cubs
HOFer outfielder of the same name scored the last of his 1,410 major league
runs in 1976 while finishing out his career with the Oakland
Athletics.)
- Crosetti
wore uni number 5 (immediately before Joe
DiMaggio) from 1932-1936, number 1 (Billy
Martin's #) from 1936-1944 and number 2 (Derek
Jeter's number) from 1945-1968.
FCR - Frank
Workman, Lake Forest Park, WA
Incorrect answers: Bob Lemon, Joe DiMaggio
SATURDAY
Q. Who
was the first major leaguer to hit three home runs off the same pitcher in two separate
games?
Hint: He
slugged one of the longest home runs in All-Star game history off of the same
pitcher.
Hint: Even
though he only became a major league regular at the age of 31, he
didn’t literally run in quicksand.
Twint: He
was the first league MVP on a second-division team.
- Phillies' southpaw standout Curt
Simmons was thrice victimized by Sauer on 28‑Aug‑1950
and 11‑Jun‑1952.
- For good measure, Sauer connected
for yet another notable homer versus Simmons, blasting a
ball completely over the leftfield roof at Shibe Park during 1952's
Mid-Summer Classic. (Oops! Sauer hit
that AS HR off HOF’er Bob
Lemon, not Simmons.)
- Although Sauer broke into the Bigs
in 1941 at the age of 24, he spent the next seven years between the minors and
serving his country in World War II.
Noticeably slower afoot than the average major league outfielder, Sauer
mostly played RF in 1953-54 when deliberate-paced Ralph
Kiner was the Cubs’ left fielder. Frank
Baumholtz was the fast one in center which led Chicago newspaper man Mike
Royko to dub the trio “Frankie Baumholtz and the Quicksand Kids”.
- During the post-1900
eight- (and ten- ) team single league era without divisions, teams which
finished with records among the upper half of the standings (i.e. in the
top four until 1959 or top five starting in 1960) were said to have finished in
the "first division". Teams finishing in the bottom half of the
league were described as being in the "second division". In 1952 Sauer’s
5th place Cubs
didn’t keep him from winning the NL's
Most Valuable Player Award with one of the closest votes in history.
FCR - Richard
Marston, Newport Beach, CA
Incorrect answers: Reggie Jackson, Ernie Lombardi, Willie
McCovey, Orlando Cepeda
SUNDAY
Q. Who
had 309 hits in professional baseball in 1925?
Hint: He
had 226 the next season in the same league.
Hint: In
the majors, he had three ”cup of coffee” seasons on the mound, then pitched his
first major league victory.
Twint: In
an area already renowned for its bridges, his home city named one after him.
Twint: Just
prior to Horace Smith's induction in 2003, he was the very first American named
to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.
- In
1925, he played 198 games for the Salt Lake City Bees
of the AA Pacific Coast League.
- In
1926, he played 180 games for the PCL’s Hollywood Stars.
- His
victory over the World-Series-Champions-to-be Yankees 23-Apr-1923
was actually the only one of his major league career. Arm problems forced him to turn full-time to
batting, obviously with tremendous results.
Built in 1933 by Joseph Strauss,
the same engineer who designed San Francisco's world-famous Golden
Gate Bridge, the Third
Street Bridge is now adjacent to AT&T Park. It was re-christened the Francis
"Lefty" O'Doul Bridge in 1969.
- Horace
Smith, a Civil War veteran, introduced baseball to Japan in
1872-73. O'Doul served as the sport's quasi-official goodwill ambassador
to Japan before and after World War II. Lefty is credited with spreading the
popularity of professional baseball throughout the Land
of the Rising Sun and was enshrined in their Yakyu Taiiku Hakubutsukan in 2002
("Yakyu" is the Japanese word for baseball.)
FCR - Peter
Cottrell, Gaithersburg, MD
Incorrect answers: Tony Lazzeri, Joe Dugan, Bucky Walters,
Sailor Stroud
WEEKLY THEME – All of these major
leaguers are buried in Colma,
California, the small town that is San Francisco's southern city border. It is famous for its cemeteries with nearly
2,000,000 people laid to rest within its city limits. By the 2010 Census, the living population of Colma
counted just 1,792 souls. Colma's city
motto: "It's Great to be Alive in Colma."
First Correct Respondent
to Identify Theme – Fred Worth,
Arkadelphia, AR
Incorrect theme guesses:
Tuesday - HOF
born in San Francisco or Bay Area
- Hall of Famers
buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma, CA
- Hall of Famers
who hail from the San Francisco area
- Hall of Famers
born in the Bay Area
Wed - SF natives and led
the league in rbis
- Bay area
products who played in New York and were part of baseball families
- Players from
San Francisco who played for a New York team and had a family member who played
in the big leagues
Thursday: - Hitters
born in the SF Bay Area with career WAR over 20
Saturday - Players
born in San Francisco
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