Q. Who is
responsible for planting the ivy that adorns the outfield walls at Wrigley
Field?
Hint: He once
said, "I try not to break the rules, but merely to test their
elasticity."
Hint: Repeating a
trite trope of his generation, he said, "Baseball is the only game left
for people. To play basketball now, you
have to be 7'6". To play football you
have to be the same width."
Hint: This stunt
didn’t keep him from being elected to the Hall of Fame: He set up a card table at the owner winter
meetings with an "Open for Business" sign taped to the front.
- His sign was at the
winter meetings in 1975
FCR - Kellen Nielson,
Blanding, Utah
Incorrect guesses: Mike
Ivie, Phil Wrigley
TUESDAY
Q. What Hall of
Fame manager, admitting that he knew where his strengths lay, said,
"Baseball has been good to me since I quit trying to play it."?
Hint: He is the
only manager in the nearly 50 year history of his franchise to lead the team to
a 100-win season.
Hint: As a player,
he was famous for hitting into an all-Cuban triple play.
- In 8 years as a player for 4 MLB
team, had 25 HR, a .257 BA and 3.8 WAR.
In 18 managerial season for 4 different
teams, he amassed 1,281 victories, 3 pennants and a WS championship.
- Triple play on 23-Jul-1960, playing for the A’s
vs. the Senators in DC, Herzog stroke a line drive that
Pedro Ramos, Julio Becquer & Jose Valdivielso turned into 3 quick
outs.
FCR - Frank Workman, Lake Forest Park, Washington
Incorrect guesses: Earl Weaver, A.J. Hinch, Cito Gaston, Mike
Scioscia, Sparky Anderson, Preston Gomez, Casey Stengel, Lou PIniella
WEDNESDAY
Q. What team owner has had two major league
stadiums named for him?
Hint: Known more as a skinflint, he paid the
college tuition of the sons of two of his more notable players.
Hint: Not only does he get credit for the
creation of the American League, his team won that league’s first pennant.
Hint: His team, to this day, has never
undisputedly changed its name or city since its founding over a century
ago. Only the Detroit Tigers can match
that claim.
FCR - Kellen Nielson, Blanding, Utah
Incorrect
guesses: William Wrigley, Henry Killilea,
Connie Mack, Clark Griffith, Ban Johnson, Phil Wrigley, Augie Busch
MIDWEEK BONUS
Q. Who led the majors in pitching victories
for the first five seasons that there was such thing as a major league?
Hint: He also led the National League in the same
category in its first year of
existence.
Hint: He was the first National League pitcher to
throw back-to-back shutouts.
Hint: He helped organize the 1893 Chicago's World
Fair and was a U.S. Commissioner to the Olympic Games in 1901, included, no
doubt, for his good will.
- Pitching for the Chicago White Stockings (Now
the Cubs) in 1876, he shut out Louisville Grays in Louisville 40- & 10-0 on 25-Apr and 27-Apr, during the
National League’s first week of operation.
- That World’s Fair was meant to celebrate the 400th
anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the new world, but several factors
contributed to the on-year delay. By
1901, only two of the modern IOC games had been held, Athens and Paris. His full name is Albert Goodwill Spalding.
FCR - Steve Berman, Bergenfield, New Jersey
Incorrect
guesses: Cy Young, Charles Radbourn,
THURSDAY
Q. Who was deadlocked with Ford Frick to
replace Happy Chandler as MLB Commissioner?
Hint: When he passed away, it cleared the path
for the induction of a Hall of Fame catcher.
Hint: A major postseason trophy is named after
him.
- National League pennant, awarded after Thursday’s
NLCS deciding game, was present by Joe Torre Major League Baseball’s executive vice
president for baseball operations, to the Dodgers.
FCR - Tal Smith, Sugar Land, Texas
Incorrect
guesses: William Harridge, William
Eckert
TGIF SPECIAL
Q. Who discovered Honus Wagner throwing
rocks along the Monongahela river?
Hint: He also hired young Fred Clarke as a paper
boy for the Des Moines Leader.
Hint: He experimented with night baseball more
than 40 years before it became the norm in the majors.
Hint: A major sportswriter later wrote.
“Forceful, outspoken, afraid of nobody, he had been called upon many times to
fight and the record is that nobody ever licked him.”
FCR - Mark Pattison, Washington, DC
Incorrect
guesses: J L Wilkinson, John McGraw,
Branch Rickey, Barnie Dreyfus
FRIDAY
Q. What Hall of Famer not only didn’t play
baseball his entire life, but had never even seen a game until he was 30 years old?
Hint: When a famous American League president
attempted to fire him for disloyalty, the league’s owners stepped in and protected
him.
Hint: He played an important part in the creation
of the All-Star Game.
Hint: He later called the 1941 All-Star Game in
Detroit, won by a Ted Williams home run in the 9th, as his greatest
thrill in baseball. In the winners’
dressing room postgame, he hugged Williams.
Quoth he, “I’d have kissed him if there had not been so many people
around.”
- Ban Johnson had hired Harridge as his personal
secretary away from his job as a railway ticket clerk 1911.
- Johnson loved him, then turned on him when
Harridge sided with the league in a dispute.
The owners, looking for the kind of stability Johnson lacked, eventually
made Harridge President of the AL.
- The ASG was the brainchild of Arch Ward, the sports editor of
the Chicago Tribune. He
mentioned his idea to Harridge over dinner in the winter of 1932. Harridge
got the AL owners to agree to a one-time event.
- [Horsehide Trivia wishes indeed it had access
to a picture of that hug!]
FCR - Bob Flynn, Chandler, Arizona (from Facebook)
Incorrect
guesses: Curt Gowdy, Arch Ward, Tom Yawkey, Red Barber,
K, Mountain Landis
SATURDAY
Q. What Ivy League alumnus is documented as
the youngest umpire ever to officiate a major league game?
Hint: He wrote extensively on his craft, in
books, magazines and newspapers.
Hint: He once confessed that Walter Johnson’s
fastballs sometimes came to the plate so fast that he would close his eyes
before making the call.
FCR - Mark Pattison, Washington, DC
Incorrect
guesses: Bill Klem, Ron Luciano
WEEKEND BONUS
Q. Which umpire kicked Leo Durocher in the
shin during a game?
Hint: He once allowed Hall of Famer Richie
Ashburn to call his own pitches in one at-bat.
Hint: His major league debut as an umpire (He had
already played in the majors.) came because umpire Red Ormsby was felled by a
bout of sun stroke after working the first game of a double-header.
- Leo attempted to kick
dirt on Conlan's shoes, but slipped & kicked Conlan’ shin. Before ejecting Durocher,
however, Conlan kicked him back!
- On 25-Apr-1958…
Excerpted here from p. 36 of Frank Zimniuch’s book, Richie
Ashburn Remembered,
“After griping
on a couple of calls in Milwaukee, Jocko said to me while I was at bat, ‘You
little blankety-blank, I’m getting tired of hearing you bitch. Let’s see how good you can call ‘em. You call your own pitches in this at-bat.’
“The Braves catcher,
Del Crandall, said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
“I said, I know
I can do a better job than you’re doing, Jocko.’
“Jocko said, ‘Play
ball.’
‘Now I had a problem. I had to worry about getting a hit and
calling pitches. And, most important, I
wanted to show Jocko I knew the strikes from the balls. The first pitch was probably low, but not
wanting to take advantage of the situation, I called it a strike. The second pitch, I flat-out blew. The ball bounced into Crandall’s mitt and I
called it strike two.
“I looked back
and Crandall was laughing. So was Jocko.
“You are
probably the first hitter in the history of the major leagues to have the opportunity
to call his own pitches and you missed ‘em both,’ Jocko said with haughty
grandeur. I may be horsebleep, but you’re
worse than I am. I’ll call the pitches.’”
- Debut as an umpire 28-Jul-1935. He would ump again the next day, but then not
again in the majors for another 6 years.
He had played for CHW 1934-35.
FCR - Larry
Hayes, San Francisco
Incorrect
guesses: Lon Warneke, George Magerkurth,
Bill Kunkle, Nestor Shylock, Tom Gorman
SUNDAY
Q. Which former battery mate ejected manager
Connie Mack from a game?
Hint: It was in Mack’s first full year as a
manager and second of 53. It was the only time he was ever ejected from a
game.
Hint: It was the umpire’s first of the 215 ejections
he issued over his 35-year MLB umpiring career.
Hint: Christy Mathewson said that arguing with him
was like “… using a lit match to see how much gasoline was in a fuel tank.”
- Mack ejection 06-Sep-1895
-
FCR - Mark Vatavuk,
Erie, Pennsylvania
Incorrect
guesses: Bill Klem, Charlie Moran
WEEKLY THEME – Hall of
Fame, non-player natives of the state of Illinois.
Name Born HoF
Yr Elected for
*Also
played in the majors
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – Larry
Hayes, San Francisco
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Thursday - Baseball
players with ballparks named after them
Sunday - World
Series umps
- Illinois-born
BB HOF members who distinguished themselves for accomplishments outside of
baseball.
- Umps
who played in the MLB
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