MONDAY
Q. Who had the highest 20th
century batting average for any shortstop?
Hint: He was North Carolina’s first favorite son
to make it into the Hall of Fame.
Hint: He had aches. He had pains.
Some of them luscious.
- He hit .388 with CHW in 1936.
- Nicknames:
“Old Aches and Pains” & “Luscious”
FCR - Rick Zucker, St. Louis
Incorrect answers: Ernie Banks, Arky Vaughn, Honus Wagner
TUESDAY
Q. Who was the American League’s first
black first baseman?
Hint: He said, "Part of history? I have no notions about that. I just want to play baseball."
Hint: He was the first native of South Carolina
to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Hint: He was the first black player to hit a home
run for the American League in the All-Star game.
FCR - John Rudy, Cooperstown
Incorrect
answers: Luke Easter, Vic Power, Eddie
Murray, Dick Allen
WEDNESDAY
Q. Which pitcher is the only one in the
history of the Pittsburgh Pirates to win more than 20 games in 4 separate
years?
Hint: They were consecutive seasons.
Hint: He still holds the record for most losses
in a season by a starting pitcher and he did it the year before his string of
20’s.
Hint: The state claiming him as a favorite son
was not the state he was born in.
- 23 W in1906, 21 in 1907, 23 in 1908 & 22
in 1909
- Record of 12-29 in 1905
- Born in the NW corner of Maryland and his
family moved to Delaware when he was young.
FCR - Steve Cardella, Sacramento
Incorrect
answers: Doc Ellis, Will White, Wilbur
Cooper, Jack Chesbro, Smoky Joe Wood, Vernon Law, Wilbur Cooper, John Candelaria,
Bob Friend
THURSDAY
Q. Who was elected the American League’s Most
Valuable Player the first year that Ted Williams won the Triple Crown?
Hint: He is the only man to manage 2 different American
League teams in the same city.
Hint: He broke an uncomfortable silent shunning
and was the first teammate to offer to play catch with Larry Doby the day of
Doby’s major league debut.
- 1942 MVP Gordon had 270 MVP
voting points to Williams’ 249 with 12 first-place
votes to Ted’s 9. Williams led the AL (and
the majors) in HR [36], RBI [137] & AVG [.356]. The Kid was also tops in the majors that year
in runs, bases-on-balls, slugging, OBP, OPS, OPS+ and Total Bases. Gordon led the AL in Double plays grounded
into and led the majors in strikeouts
by batters.
FCR - Mark Kanter Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Incorrect
answers: Lou Boudreau, Mickey Vernon, Al
Rosen, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio
IN MEMORIAM
Q. What father of 7 pitched a perfect game
on Fathers’ Day?
Hint: It was the first perfect game in the National
League in the 20th century.
Hint: In his American League no-hitter, six years
earlier, Ted Williams was the final out.
Hint: He was the second pitcher, after Cy Young, to
win 100 pitching decisions, chalk up 1,000 career strikeouts and toss
no-hitters in each league.
Hint: When his career ended in 1971, only Walter
Johnson had more career strikeouts.
Hint: He is the only pitcher to surrender an
inside-the-park home run to Hank Aaron.
Hint: Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1996 by the
Veterans’ Committee, he is the only Hall of Fame player to serve in the U.S.
congress.
Hint: His first major league team, the Detroit
Tigers, allowed him to miss his first three spring trainings so he could finish
his college degree at Xavier and still play pro ball.
Hint: Upon retiring from the U.S. senate, he
remarked, “…being able to throw a curve ball is not a bad ability for a
politician to have.”
- Career K total: 2,855 (W. Johnson’s K total: 3,509)
FCR - Ken Auerbach, Bonita Springs, FL
Incorrect
answers:
FRIDAY
Q. What Red Sox player led the league in
being hit-by-pitch the same season they won their first World Series this
century?
Hint: He spurred his team to gritty excellence,
urging’ “Cowboy up!”
Hint: He hit 131 more home runs in the majors
than his uncle did.
- 17 HBP in 2004
- Uncle Wayne Nordhagen hit 39 HR in his 8-year
MLB career
FCR - Jeff Freedman, Westwood, California
Incorrect
answers: Babe Ruth, Johnny Damon, Dustin
Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis
END-OF-THE-WEEK BONUS
Q. Whose name (and nickname) was comically
mispronounced by his hometown fans?
Hint: After throwing his 2nd career
no-hitter passed on a bottle of champagne offered to him he instead celebrated
with an orange soda.
Hint: It was the first no-hitter broadcast
nation-wide on television.
Hint: On the advice of friends, started using a
5-lb. stainless steel ball during his warm-ups just before throwing that 2nd
career no-hitter.
Hint: Partly because the no-hitter was against
his cross-town rivals, the team’s owner promptly awarded him with a nice
monetary bonus.
- It came out as “Oisk”, a pronunciation
routinely mocked by people outside of Brooklyn.
FCR - Jeff Kallman, Las Vegas
Incorrect
answers: Charlie Hough
SATURDAY
Q. What Padres pitcher, in his pennant-winning
year, had a record of 9 wins, 8 losses and 8 saves?
Hint: He returned to the majors after major arm
surgery, though not as successfully as did Tommy John.
Hint: Tim Raines was at the plate when he threw
his last pitch.
Hint: He won the highly-respected Hutch Award
later that year.
FCR - Jeff Kallman, Las Vegas
Incorrect
answers: Trevor Hoffman, Rich Gossage,
Stirling Hitchcock, Doug Jones
SUNDAY
Q. Whose tied Hall of Famer Rogers
Hornsby’s record for home runs in a season by a second baseman?
Hint: He never had another year with even half
that total in the 12 other years of his major league playing career and is not
even in the top 20 for career home runs by a second baseman.
Hint: The last major league hit ever given up by
Sandy Koufax was his.
Hint: He was a teammate of both home run kings
Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh. (Not at the
same time. That would be a record.)
- 42 HR in 1973, tying Hornsby’s 1922 total
- 136 career HR
FCR - Rich Lerner, Silver Spring, Maryland
Incorrect
answers: Jeff Kent, Felix Mantilla, Jim
LeFebvre
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND BONUS
#1
Q. Which Detroit Tigers reliever once
traded 4 autographed baseballs for a fan's slice of pizza while waiting in the
bullpen?
Hint: That same year, he led the league in saves,
was voted on to the All-Star team and finished in the top 5 in Cy Young Award
voting.
Hint: He got to the World Series just once in his
16-year MLB career, but did managed to add a save to his résumé there.
Hint: In 2014, he represented the Tigers in the
Hall of Fame Classic in Cooperstown.
FCR - Larry Lamb, Oakwood, Ohio
Incorrect
answers: John Hiller, Guillermo
Hernandez, Jose Valverde, Aurelio Lopez, Terry Forster
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
BONUS #2
Q. Who cooled down the red-hot Red Sox in
2016 by leading the team in strikeouts?
Hint: His impressive 5.3 WAR, however, trailed
only Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia.
Hint: He was the Most Outstanding Player of the
College World Series the first time his school won the tournament.
Hint: He encourages the use of a pleonastic
honorific.
Hint: He was named for his father who was named
for a certain American soul singer-songwriter and performer nicknamed "Mr.
Excitement".
- 143 K
- Played for U. of So. Carolina in 2010
- The use of “Jr.” as part of his name
unnecessary since no one else has ever used that name in the majors.
FCR - Barry Nelson, Guilderland, New York
Incorrect
answers: David Price
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
BONUS #3
Q. What pitcher with an 11-year MLB career
had the thrill of seeing his son make the majors in 2016?
Hint: He also has two brothers who played
professional baseball, one of which made it to the majors.
Hint: He (the dad) led the league in several
categories during his time with 8 different teams. He also threw for 8 minor league teams.
Hint: As a member of the Giants, he won the
Willie Mac Award honoring his spirit and leadership.
Hint: He started well, making the Topps All-Star
Rookie Team.
- Brother Al Leiter had a 16-year career in the majors and was
3 times on teams that won the World Series.
Brother Kurt Leiter played 4 years in the
minors.
- Unfortunately, the categories he led in were
what you might call negative categories.
His 17 losses led the NL in 1997, as did his 115 earned runs allowed
that year. He also led his league in hit
batsmen three straight seasons, from 1994 to 1996, and in 1996, the 37 homers
he gave up were tops in the NL.
- Shared the 1995 Willie Mac Award with teammate
Mark Carreon.
FCR - Ralph Fessler, Ellicott City, Maryland
Incorrect
answers: Steve Bedrosian, Bengie Molina,
Lance McCullers, Clay Bellinger, Derek Law
WEEKLY THEME – Alumni
from colleges whose mascots are (were) BIRDS, but not birds of prey. [No
eagles, hawks, falcons, etc.)
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – No one
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Tue - Players
with the nickname "Luscious"
Sun - All
had played or coached for a World Series champion Whose franchise had not won a
World Series ever before or in over 20 years.
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