Q. Who ranks
third all-time in career W.A.R.?
Hint: He was
elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
Hint: An artist
discovered how difficult it was to represent his legendary pitching motion.
- It’s probably best Johnson
didn’t live to see this statue by Omri Amrany outside
of Nationals Park.
FCR - Morris Buenemann,
Florissant, Missouri
Incorrect guesses: Juan
Marichal, Christy Mathewson, Sandy Koufax, Warren Spahn, Pete Alexander, Nolan
Ryan
TUESDAY
Q. Who led the
American League an astounding eight (8!) times in earned run average?
Hint: Yet he ranks
behind Chris Sale on the all-time ERA list.
Hint: He was a
credit to his handedness.
- For good measure, he also led it a 9th
time! AL ERA leader 1926, 1929-32, 1935-36,
& 1938-39. [That’s dominance
Holmes!]
- “Lefty” is a handy, obvious, organic moniker.
FCR - Philip Fickling, San Diego
Incorrect guesses: Lefty Gomez, Cy Young, Jim Abbot, Ed Walsh
WEDNESDAY
Q. What pitcher did baseball’s winningest
manager say he would start if, “… I had one game I had to win.”?
Hint: Baseball lore has it that he invented the
slider (during a ho-hitter, no less), even though his name is the nickname of a
different pitch.
Hint: He was the first, and for half a
century—only, native of his state in the Hall of Fame.
- Bender pitched for Connie Mack on the
Philadelphia A’s for 86% of the innings he logged in his 16-year MLB career. Half of the remainder were thrown for the
team across town.
- His no-hitter was 12-May-1910 vs. CLE. “Bender” is the descriptive sobriquet of a well-thrown
curve ball.
- HOF 1953, born in Crow Wing County, Minnesota (where the
movie “Fargo” was filmed). Dave Winfield joined him in 2001 and
Paul Molitor in 2004.
FCR - Arieh Siegal, Austin
Incorrect
guesses: Christy Mathewson, Bob Feller,
Eddie Plank, Walter Johnson, Connie Mack, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Cy
Young, Waite Hoyt, Carl Hubbell, Lefty Grove
THURSDAY
Q. What World-Series-MVP-winning pitcher
had career offense totals of 1 plate appearance, 1 at-bat, 0 hits, 0 walks and
4 runs scored?
Hint: He once surrendered a home run on the VERY
FIRST PITCH of the season!
Hint: Commenting on his yet-to-bloom control, his
high school baseball coach said, “He could throw hard enough to knock down the
backstop. He just couldn’t hit the backstop!”
Hint: No other pitcher in the history of the
American League has ever accumulated more career putouts.
- 1991 WS MVP.
He managers noted his speed an occasionally put him in to pinch-run.
- Dwight Evans led off the 1986 season by taking
Morris deep on the first pitch thrown 07-Apr at home in Detroit.
- Highland Park High School baseball coach Bill
Lorenz had that observation.
FCR - Doug Greenwald, San Francisco
Incorrect
guesses: Eddie Plank, Rex Barney, Ron
Guidry, Sandy Koufax, Roger Clemens
FRIDAY
Q. Whose scowl caused the earth to rumble?
(Or at least so say the ancients.)
Hint: In a four-year period, a little over
half-way through his 16-year major league career, he finished 3rd, 4th,
2nd & 3rd in Cy Young Award voting.
Hint: He once had 6 pitching victories in a
single month of April.
Hint: He also won his first 2 decisions in May
that year.
- His piercing scowl of his eyes under his cap,
dark as he peered in for his sign, may not have intended to intimidate, but few
batters say that it didn’t. No one can
say for sure whether this caused the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but the
timing is very suspicious.
- CYA finishes 19878-90 respectively.
- 6-0 April 1988. He won on the 4th, 9th, 14th, 19th, 23rd & 28th of April. 2 @ home. 4 on the road.
FCR - Rick Tharp, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Incorrect
guesses: Bob Gibson, Rich Gossage, Mitch
Williams, Randy Johnson
SATURDAY
Q. What pitcher’s major league debut failed
to impress his Hall of Fame manager, since he surrendered 10 runs in a single
inning pitched?
Hint: The local newspaper called him, “…the
thinnest pitcher in captivity,” saying further that “He reported yesterday from
college in North Carolina. His front
elevation is 6 feet 3 inches, and he looks as if he weighed about 110 pounds.”
Hint: He found success elsewhere, however, with
double-digits in wins in each of the next 4 seasons, two of them World Series
Championship seasons.
Hint: His chance for a third World Series ring
was thwarted by his military service.
Hint: In his career, he played for managers who
took their teams to the modern World Series a total of 18 times, including winning
it 8 times.
- In fairness, only 3 of the runs were earned on
20-Jun-1912, hurling in mop-up relief of a lop-sided game for the Giants and
manager John
McGraw.
- Quote was from The New York Times. SABR
reports that his actual weight then was 180 pounds on a 6’4” frame.
- He was a mainstay of the Red Sox staff
1914-1917, including championship years 1915 & 1916, he enlisted in the Naval
Reserves as the U.S. joined the effort in The
Great War.
- Played for McGraw
(10/3), Bill
Carrigan (2/2) & Miller
Huggins (6/3).
FCR - Gary Moore, Walker Michigan
Incorrect
guesses: Ken Holtzman, Clyde King,
Warren Spahn
SUNDAY
Q. Who was the first player to hit a home
in the World Series without a single plate appearance during the regular season
that year?
Hint: He once threw a no-hitter while striking
out no one. (Not perfect: he did walk 3!)
Hint: He received a base-on-balls in a major
league game shortly after the advent of the designated hitter. It would be a quarter century before a
pitcher on that same team got one again.
Hint: Curtis Granderson could tie him in 2018.
- WS HR 16-Oct-1974
- Zero-K no-no 19-Sug-1969
- Bill Hands of MIN walked
him on 24-Sep-1973. (Holtzman was pinch-hitting for Joe Rudi!) A’s Jimmy
Haynes on 25‑Jun‑1998
was the next pitcher to receive such largesse at the hand of Shawn
Estes of SFG.
- Granderson
and Holtzman are both alumni of the University
of Illinois at Chicago. Holtzman
played 15
years in the majors. The Grandy Man just
finished his 14th. (He’s not on the LAD WS roster.)
FCR - Ralph Fessler, Ellicott City, Maryland
Incorrect
guesses: Catfish Hunter, Mike Cuellar,
Dave McNally, Don Gullet
WEEKLY THEME – American
League pitchers who started the opening games of consecutive non-Yankee World
Series.
Bender........ 1910-11..... PHA
Grove.......... 1930-31..... PHA
Holtzman..... 1972-74..... OAK
Johnson...... 1924-25..... WAS
Shore.......... 1915-16..... BOS
Stewart........ 1988-90..... OAK
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – ~
Incorrect theme guesses:
Wed. - Left-handed
Hall of Fame pitchers who started Game 1 of the World Series
- Hall
of Fame pitchers who pitched in the World Series, who either are from, lived in
or who played for teams from Maryland
Thur - American
League starting pitchers with at least 2 world series decisions in consecutive
years,
- World
Series pitchers who pitched in both the starting game and in the World Series
Clinchers.
- AL
Strikeout Leaders who pitched in multiple World Series games, and won the
Clinching Game.
Sun - AL
pitchers that won clinching games of the WS
Questions archived here: http://horsehidetriviA.blogspot.com/
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