MONDAY
Q. Who, out of deference, even reverence,
for Stan Musial will not allow fans or media to refer to him as “The Man” or
even “El Hombre”?
Hint: Ten players have won 3 or more league
MVP’s. Among them, only he had won the
Rookie of the Year Award.
Hint: He won it in spite of hitting into more
than 20 double plays that year.
Hint: He has amassed in excess of 300 more since
then.
- Is tied for 2nd all-time with Ivan Rodriguez and needing only 14
more to pass Cal Ripken for the all-time lead.
*Won unanimously
FCR - Charlie Riordan, Chevy chase, Maryland
Incorrect answers: Luis Pujols, Ted Williams, Miguel Cabrera
TUESDAY
Q. What New Jersey Native was named Rookie
of the Year and in his 5 complete major league seasons has never finished lower
than 2nd (not a typo) in league MVP voting, but, alas, has played in
only 3 postseason games—all losses?
Hint: He has already tied Willie Mays, Cal
Ripken, Gary Carter and Steve Garvey for All-Star Game honors.
Hint: Only Ty Cobb stole 40+ bases in a season at
a younger age.
Hint: As a pitcher in his junior year of high
school, he threw a 7-inning no-hitter in a regular season game. Eighteen of the
21 outs came via strikeout.
- Those 4 plus Trout have twice won the All-Star
Game MVP. Only he has done it in consecutive
years.
- Ty Cobb in 1907 stole 53 bases at the age of
20. Trout swiped 49 bases in 2012 at 21.
- No-hitter was against Egg Harbor Township in a Cape Atlantic
League. Trout attended and played for Millville Senior High
School.
FCR - Tony Hughes, Woodbridge, Virginia
Incorrect
answers:
TUESDAY TWICE
Q. Perhaps even more than Mike Trout, this
is another former MVP stuck on a team picked to finish last. Who is he?
Hint: Only Larry Walker has won Tip O'Neill Award more times.
Hint: He is the only native of his country to win
the Hank Aaron award.
Hint: Also in his trophy room are the Lou Marsh
Trophy and the Ernie Lombardi Award, the latter won by unanimous vote.
Hint: While still in high school, switched from
aluminum bats to maple wood, confident one day he would be a professional
baseball player.
- Languishes with CIN. Do not be fooled by their 5-2 record or his
.193 batting average. Both will change
dramatically.
- Tip O’Neill Award is given to the
outstanding Canadian baseball player each year.
Walker won it 9 times. Votto has
already won it 6 times.
- Hank Aaron Award has been awarded since 1999.
The Ernie Lombardi Trophy is awarded by the
Cincinnati Reds organization and the Lou Marsh Memorial Trophy is a trophy awarded
annually to Canada's top athlete, professional or amateur. (Wayne Gretzky won it 4 times.)
FCR - Jeff Kallman
Incorrect
answers: Joe Mauer, Ivan Rodriguez,
Andre Dawson, Ryan Braun, Buster Posey, Paul Goldschmidt, Larry Walker
WEDNESDAY
Q. Who was the first teenager to steal home
in the playoff era (1969-)?
Hint: Had Bozo himself asked this, it still
wouldn’t be a clown question.
Hint: ESPN The Magazine refers to his swing as,
“…a broken dam, a convulsion.” The
magazine then describes his training routine, saying that, “…[he] goes about
his work with forensic vigor.”
- Steal of home 06-May-2012 . He was on base because of being intentionally
HBP by wise (?), old (?) baseball guru (?) Cole Hamels. [19 yrs. 191 days]
- Dismissing a blatantly obvious question from a
reporter after a game in Toronto, Harper quipped, “That’s a clown question, Bro!” and thus it entered
the popular baseball lexicon.
FCR - Tim Phares, Laurel, Maryland
Incorrect
answers:
THURSDAY
Q. Who is the only player in history to
have a 50+ home run season while playing for his 5th major league
team?
Hint: He topped that performance with 1.000+ OPS
the following season.
Hint: He is the reason that so many Canadian
tweens sport five-o’clock shadows.
- 54 HR in 2010; 1.056 OPS in 2011
FCR - Walt Cherniak, Woodbine, Maryland
Incorrect
answers: Larry Walker, Greg Vaughn, Jim
Thome, Luis Gonzalez, Edwin Encarnacion, Brady Anderson
FRIDAY
Q. What star slugger owns a 900+ OPS, has a
career OPS+ north of 150 and has twice been second in MVP voting, but has only ever
played in one postseason series?
Hint: His team lost.
Hint: In his full seasons in the majors, he has
never had an OPS under .850 or an OPS+ under 125.
Hint: He would have fit last week’s theme nicely.
FCR - Gary Hoffman, Moon Township, Pennsylvania
Incorrect
answers: Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera
FRIDAY FINALE
Q. What All-Star toiled for a team based
just across an international border from his relatives?
Hint: He was born in the U.S., but regularly
visited his aunts, uncles and cousins across the border until it was no longer
safe to do so.
Hint: No one was drafted ahead of him the year
the Marlins took him.
Hint: He has played in the World Baseball Classic
every year it has been held.
Hint: He homered in his first at-bat for his
current team.
- Regular travel to Tijuana, Mexico was no
longer deemed safe by U.S. authorities.
Gonzalez played for SDP at the time.
FCR - Kellen Nielson, Blanding, Utah
Incorrect
answers: Miguel Cabrera, Giancarlo
Stanton, Alex Gonzalez
SATURDAY
Q. What Cleveland Indians hopeful received
the Lou Boudreau Award in 2009?
Hint: In his MLB debut, he batted 3rd
in the batting order that day, making him the first rookie to do so in over 30
years.
Hint: His rookie season as ended by a collision with the Boston’s Ryan Kalish at home plate in
Fenway Park.
Hint: He recorded the final out of the 2016 American League
Championship Series
by catching Troy Tulowitzki’s pop-up in foul
territory, sending the Tribe to the World Series.
FCR - John Michael Pierobon, Ft. Lauderdale
Incorrect
answers: Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis
WEEKEND BONUS
Q. Who was the first Cincinnati Reds
outfielder to lead the National League in being hit-by-pitch since Frank
Robinson did it?
Hint: Also on his baseball résumé was being
selected as the Most Valuable Player and Best Pitcher of the World Junior
Baseball Championship.
Hint: Alex Gordon and Grady Sizemore are the
closest in Similarity Scores.
Hint: The cycle he hit was the first of its kind.
- 26 HBP in 2013. F. Robinson’s 6th time
to lead the NL was w/18 in 1965. Reds 1st-baseman
Dan Driessen tied for the lead in 1980.
FCR - Timothy Kearns, Washington, DC
Incorrect
answers: Jay Bruce, Eric Davis, Brandon
Phillips, Paul O’Neill
SUNDAY (Please ignore the “NT” e-mail. It was merely some technical housekeeping.)
Q. What journeyman Oakland A’s first
baseman is still playing professional baseball, but played his last game in the
majors in May 2014?
Hint: Now he’s a Steeler.
Hint: In his 4th season in the majors,
he was one of only two players in MLB to have more walks than strikeouts that
year. The other player was the reigning
MVP.
Hint: And with that stat, he is the final
qualifier for this week’s theme.
- Played for the A’s from 2007 to 2014. In only 2 of those could he be considered
full-time: 2008 & 2010.
- In 2010 he tallied 110 BB’s to 102 K’s. Albert Pujols, the (unanimous) 2009 NL MVP had a more dramatic
delta: 103 to 76. It was Barton’s only time to do it. Pujols has done it in 10 of his 16 full major
league seasons.
- Our theme this week concerns a statistical
accomplishment achieved this century.
FCR - Alex Remington, Washington, DC
Incorrect
answers: Matt Stairs, Jack Cust
WEEKLY THEME – Active
players with a season of 110 bases on balls.
Barton 110* 2010
Bautista 132** 2011
Choo 112 2013
Goldschmidt 118 2015
" 110* 2016
Gonzalez 119** 2009
Harper 124 2015
Pujols 115 2009
Santana 113** 2014
Trout 110* 2013
" 116** 2016
Votto 110* 2011
" 135** 2013
" 143** 2015
*Led
league **Led majors
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – Mike
McCroskey, Sugar Land, Texas
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Tue - Active
players who've won an MVP
Sat - WAR
leader for the decade by position
No comments:
Post a Comment