=> This week’s questions and theme come to us
from reader Barry Sparks of York, Pennsylvania.
Q. Who made his
MLB debut on 09-Sep-1977 then played 20 years for the same team?
Hint: He finished
fourth in the 1978 Rookie-of-the-Year voting, which was won by his teammate.
Hint: He and that
same teammate, his double play partner, teamed up for 19 years.
Hint: He was the
World Series Most Valuable Player in 1984.
FCR - Eric Savage,
New York City
Incorrect guesses: Eddie
Murray, Lou Whitaker
MONDAY MIDNIGHT NIGHTCAP
Q. Who did Babe
Ruth nickname “The All-American Out”?
Hint: Of him [not
Ruth], Branch Rickey said, “He has the ability to take a bad situation and make
it immediately worse.”
Hint: He [not
Rickey] was a broadcaster for NBC’s Game
of the Week in the 1950’s.
Hint: Christopher
Meloni played him in a 2013 movie.
- Lou hit .257 during
his time w/NYY, so the Babe’s criticism seems a bit harsh. Durocher played another 14 seasons in the
majors with quite similar numbers, managing to make 3 All-Star teams and
received MVP votes in 3 separate seasons.
- As did Ruth’s,
Rickey’s critique appears to be constructed more for headlines than accuracy.
FCR - Jeff Kallman,
Las Vegas
Incorrect guesses: Buddy
Blattner, Joe Garagiola, Dizzy Dean
TUESDAY
Q. Who tied former
teammate Jimmie Foxx when he hit his 17th career grand slam?
Hint: He preached,
“Hitting is 50% above the shoulders.”
Hint: He like
facing ace Virgil Trucks. He homered off
him 12 times over his career.
Hint: In the
history of the American League, no one led in on-base percentage more seasons than
he did.
- Nobody homered more off Trucks than Williams and Williams was not that rough
on any other pitcher.
FCR - Mike Sparks, Sarasota
Incorrect guesses: Al Simmons, Max Bishop, George Sisler, Mickey
Cochrane
TUESDAY TWIN BILL
Q. Who hit a game-winning inside-the-park
home run in the 1923 World Series?
Hint: He said, “I broke in with four hits and the
writers promptly declared they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that
impression.”
Hint: In 1958, he testified before an United
States Senate committee which was investigating baseball’s anti-trust
exemption.
Hint: His career World Series batting average was
.393 (33 plate appearances over 3 World Series).
FCR - Jeff Cohen, Wantagh, New York
Incorrect
guesses: Tony Lazzeri, Hank Gowdy, Bob
Meusel
WEDNESDAY
Q. Who collected five hits on Opening Day
in 1936?
Hint: He once drove in 100 runs in a season where
he hit just two homers.
Hint: Leo Durocher said, “He was an absolute
master at hitting behind the runner.”
Hint: Although he missed the inaugural All-Star
Game, he was named to the next 10 consecutive All-Star Games and had a combined
.433 batting average in them.
- 1943 = 100 RBI; 2 HR (193 hits of which 41
were doubles certainly helped.)
- ASG’s 1934-1943, 13 for 30
FCR - Anthony Zydlewski, Virginia Beach
Incorrect
guesses: Luke Appling, Frankie Frisch, Charlie
Gehringer, Joe Medwick, Hank Greenberg, Eddie Stanky, Lou Boudreau
MIDWEEK BONUS
Q. Who made his major league debut on Sept.
11 with the Washington Nationals?
Hint: Honus Wagner said he used to walk or
hitchhike 14 miles just to see him play.
Hint: The American Amateur Baseball Congress sponsors
a World Series named for him.
Hint: His grandson and great-grandson served in
the United States House of Representatives.
FCR - Michael Green, Las Vegas
Incorrect
guesses: Walter Johnson, Clark Griffith
THURSDAY
Q. Who devised the Williams Shift?
Hint: He did radio play-by-play for the NBA
Chicago Bulls.
Hint: Sports writer Stanley Frank said, “He is
easily the slowest player since Ernie Lombardi got thrown out trying to stretch
a double into a single.”
Hint: His daughter, Sharyn, married pitcher Denny
McLain.
- He was one of the first to place defensive
players considerably far from their traditional positions to accommodate a
batter’s hitting tendencies, in this case specifically, those of Ted Williams. [I think we can agree that a better verb
might have been “implemented”. ~ dbb]
- Radio gig 1966-68
- Played MLB on arthritic ankles.
FCR - Mark Pattison, Washington, DC
Incorrect
guesses: Paul Richards
THURSDAY ONCE MORE
Q. Who said, “The day I got a hit off Sandy
Koufax was when he knew it was all over.”?
Hint: He refused to step into the Baseball Hall
of Fame and Museum until he was inducted because he felt unworthy.
Hint: He played six of his 10 minor league
seasons north of the border and was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of
Fame in 2007.
Hint: He never homered during his major league
career.
Hint: No other native of his home state is in the
Hall of Fame.
- Doubled off Koufax 24-Aug-1959 (2-for-8 career). Despite Sparky’s legendary optimism, Koufax
managed to hang on a few more seasons.
Legend has it that Sparky actually, seriously thought he had ended
Koufax' career.
FCR - Daniel Wilson, St. Paul
Incorrect
guesses: Ferguson Jenkins, Tommy Lasorda,
Hoy Wilhelm, Tony LaRussa, Lou Boudreau, Bob Uecker
FRIDAY
Q. Whose nickname was the single word he
was heard to say when he witnessed a remarkable display of baseball prowess on
the field?
Hint: He broke Rabbit Maranville’s record for
shortstop assists in a season.
Hint: The first MVP votes he got were when he was
on Braves teams that finished 5th and 7th in the 8-team
National League.
Hint: A switch-hitter, gifted with quick hands,
he still believed that “…the business of batting and fielding is a contention
between minds.”
- “Beauty!”
- His 598 in 1920 eclipsed Maranville’s 574 from
6 years earlier.
- He finished 6th in MVP voting in
1925 and 9th in 1926, leading those team in WAR by a comfortable
margin.
FCR - Adam Balutis, Arlington, Virginia
Incorrect
guesses: Hughie Jennings, Ozzie Smith,
Whitey Wietelmann
DEEP INTO FRIDAY
EVENING
Q. Who was inducted in the Baseball Hall of
Fame 116 years after his major league debut?
Hint: He’s buried in the same cemetery as Hall of
Famers John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson and Joe Kelley.
Hint: Connie Mack summed him up this way, “I
don't think any man ever lived who knew as much baseball as he did.”
Hint: He finished his major league career with a
team just before they became great. He,
however, was one of the main reasons for their success.
- Played last (as player/manager) for the 1892 Baltimore Orioles of the National League. He then managed them to 3 straight league
titles 1894-96 with Oriole team containing as many as six
(6!) Hall of Famers.
FCR - Mark DeLodovico, Rockville, Maryland
Incorrect
guesses: Casey Stengel, Rube Walker,
Branch Rickey, Deacon White, Pete Alexander, Nolan Ryan, Jack Quinn
SATURDAY
Q. Who played 25 seasons without appearing
in a World Series?
Hint: He began his career as a pitcher in the
same rotation with Cy Young.
Hint: He later moved to the outfield and then to
the infield, playing 1,823 games at shortstop.
Hint: He was an American League umpire in 1917
before ending his playing days in 1918.
- Played 1894-1918; 10 yrs in the NL, 15 in the
AL
- Played with Young on the 1894 Cleveland Spiders although “with” might
be a stretch since Young appeared in 52 games that year, Wallace only 4.
FCR - Barry Nelson, Guilderland, New York
Incorrect
guesses: Joe Wood, Alvin Dark
WEEKEND BONUS
Q. Who is the only Hall of Fame pitcher to
surrender more walks than strikeouts?
Hint: Yankees manager Joe McCarthy said, “If he
pitched for the New York Yankees, he would have won more than 400 games.”
Hint: At age 41, he completed each of his twenty
starts.
Hint: He pitched a no-hitter that only required an
hour and forty-five minutes.
- 1,121 BB; 1,073 K
- 1942 = 20 GS & 20 CG [The 2.10 ERA was nice
too and led the AL, the only time he did.]
FCR - Roger Kathmann, Cincinnati
Incorrect
guesses: Warren Spahn, Lefty Grove, Early
Wynn
SUNDAY
Q. Who managed Milwaukee’s first American
League team?
Hint: Legendary Hall of Fame manager Cap Anson
said of him, “[He] plays the outfield carrying a crystal ball. He is always there to make the catch.” Even though earlier, Anson had rejected him
because he, “… looked more like a batboy than a ballplayer.”
Hint: He had the most total hits of any player in
the Players League in 1890 then continued that lead to claim more hits than ANY
major leaguer in the 1890’s.
Hint: He was Ted Williams’ first major league
batting coach. Williams knew that his
coach’s credentials for that assignment were beyond impeccable.
- Always appeared
younger than his actual age.
- Coach with the Red Sox in 1939, Williams’
rookie season. Duffy still hold the all-time,
single-season batting average record with the .440 he hit in 1894 with the Beaneaters. At the time, though, it was held that he had
hit .438. Subsequent research added the
2 extra points (as if they were needed).
FCR - Adam Balutis,
Arlington, Virginia
Incorrect
guesses: Bing Miller, Jack Chapman, Willie
Keeler
WEEKLY THEME – Theme:
Hall of Famers who managed teams for a complete
season that lost 100 or more games in a season. (Frank
Robinson managed the 1988
Orioles who lost 101 games, but he replaced Cal Ripken,
Sr. after 6 games.)
Manager Team Won-Lost
Record
*First year managing the team.
**Last year managing that team.
First Correct
Respondent to Identify Theme – Mike Sparks,
Sarasota (After Stengel)
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Monday - 2018
HOF inductees
- Members
of this year’s Hall of Fame group
- '18
HOF class
Tuesday - Hall
of Fame shortstops who had 100-loss seasons as managers
- HOF All-Stars who became MLB managers by age 50
- Played
in 1000+ games and in the World Series and managed 400+ games
- Voted
by SABR as the most colorful characters
Wed. - Managers
whose teams lost 100 games in a season
- Managers
whose teams lost the most games ever by the franchise.
- 100
or more losses in their first season managing the team
Sat - Hall
of Famers who have managed teams they also played for.
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