Q. Which Hall
of Fame moundsman still holds the record with nine ERA crowns?
Hint: The first
four of them also led the majors.
Hint: He was the
first pitcher to win the BBWAA Most Valuable Player award.
- AL ERA leader in 1926 (2.51)
1929
(2.81)
1930
(2.54)
1931
(2.06)
1932
(2.84)
1935
(2.70)
1936
(2.81)
1938
(3.08)
1939
(2.54)
- MVP in 1931,
awarded by the same group that has been handling the elections ever since. No fewer than 9 future HOFers finished behind
him in the voting.
FCR - Steve Schwartz,
Chico, California
Incorrect guesses:
Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens, Warren Spahn, Christy Mathewson,
Don Drysdale, Hal Newhouser
TUESDAY – Mar 10
Q. Who was the
first player to win multiple MVP awards as voted on by the BBWAA?
Hint: His earned
his first MVP in a season where he didn’t even make the All-Star team.
Hint: He hit at least
thirty home run in a season an amazing twelve times. Five of those were more than forty.
Hint: No
right-handed batter has a higher career slugging percentage.
- 1st ASG was in 1933. He was at that one! (But did not play. Gehrig was at 1st base.)
- Career SLG = .609. Only Ruth, Gehrig & Williams top that
figure.
FCR - Greg Gits, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Incorrect guesses: Ernie Banks, Hank Greenberg, Henry Aaron,
Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Willie Mays, Roy Campanella
TUESDAY TUE TIMES
Q. When Babe Ruth got his $52,000 contract
in 1922, who was the next-highest-paid Yankee?
Hint: He was the first (eventual) Hall of Fame
player in the modern era to pinch-hit for another (eventual) Hall of Famer in
the World Series.
Hint: Giants’ aces Rube Marquard, Christy
Mathewson are responsible for cementing his famous nickname in baseball history.
- Baker earned $13, 000 that season.
- Received baseball wisdom says that he went
from Frank Baker to Home Run Baker for his 1911 WS HRs on consecutive days: 16-Oct- & 17-Oct- with each famous pitcher respectively. Baker’s A’s won the Series. However!… Read this nice piece of SABR research.
FCR - Steve Klitzner, North Miami Beach
Incorrect
guesses: Waite Hoyt, Everett Scott, Tony
Lazzeri, Miller Huggins, Irish Meusel, Earle Combs
WEDNESDAY – Mar 11
Q. Who, in the modern era, is the only
player to steal six bases in a single game and do it twice within two
weeks of each other?
Hint: Three other players have done it once each.
Hint: No one in major league history has played
more games at second base.
- Career G at 2B = 2,650
*The A’s stole 11 bases
that day against Tigers’ overmatched catcher Brad Kocher.
Equally to blame, Detroit pitcher Joe Lake was on the mound for every one of them.
FCR - Joe Haardt, McLean, Virginia
Incorrect
guesses: Nellie Fox, Roberto Alomar, Joe
Morgan, Otis Nixon, Maury Wills, Clyde Milan
MIDWEEK BONUS
Q. Who has more career pitching wins,
strikeouts, innings pitched, games started, complete games, shutouts, batters
faced than anyone else for a franchise whose first game wasn’t played until
1901?
Hint: He also has the best career WAR for them.
Hint: He never played in the minors.
Hint: He died from a stroke less than ten years
after his playing days.
- Best career pitching WAR for PHA = 74.6. (or
for KCA or OAK). [Next on the A’s career
WAR list? Rickey Henderson w/72.7.]
- In April 1901, Plank did sign with Chester of the Pennsylvania State League promising to
join them after the college season. Never
happened. He was in the majors by
mid-May.
FCR - David Serota, Kalamazoo
Incorrect
guesses: Lefty Grove, Christy Mathewson,
Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander, Cy Young
THURSDAY – Mar 12
Q. Who won the first Gold Glove ever given
to a second baseman?
Hint: He and his double-play partner were the
first such duo to win Gold Gloves in the same season.
Hint: He had more hits than any other American
League batter 1950 through 1959.
Hint: He once hit a bloop double whose trajectory
was aided by the fact that the ball struck his own glove in shallow center
field.
- Gold Gloves first awarded in 1957 and Rawlings
did not yet award GGs in each league.
Fox was the overall ML honoree at 2B
- In 1959 and 1960 Fox and SS Luis Aparicio each
won a GG as the best fielder at the in the middle of the infield.
FCR - David Krassin, Los Angeles
Incorrect
guesses: Louis Aparicio, Bobby Doerr,
Bobby Richardson
FRIDAY – Mar 13
Q. Which third baseman, after having his
jaw broken by a scorching Joe DiMaggio grounder, managed to pick up the carom
and step on third base for a force out before he collapsed?
Hint: He replaced a Hall of Fame player as the
Detroit Tigers broadcaster after the previous broadcaster was killed in a car
crash.
Hint: He served more than ten
years on the Arkansas State Highway Commission (1973–83) and owned a car
dealership.
Hint: His brother played second base in the
majors.
- Replaced Mel Ott as a DET broadcaster following Ott’s death in
an automobile accident in November 1958.
FCR - Art Springsteen, Sunapee, New Hampshire
Incorrect
guesses: , Ken Keltner
SATURDAY – Mar 14
Q. Whose sobriquet inspired Mutt?
Hint: The moniker he was given belies his actual
heritage.
Hint: During various periods over the
latter seasons of his career, he served as his team’s
catcher, its manager and general manager.
Hint: Before accepting those additional
leadership responsibilities, he described being just a major league player as,
“Good money and easy work.”
- “Mick” or “Mickey”, the frequent nickname
given to men and boys, was to acknowledge or mock their Irish descent. Although Cochrane’s father was born in
Ireland he and Cochrane’s mother’s people were proudly Scottish. He was also called “Black Mike” in reference
to his fiery demeanor during competition.
- He was player-manager for DET 1934-37 and
their GM 1936-38.
FCR - Vince Guerrieri, Elyria, Ohio
Incorrect
guesses: Wilbert Robinson, Birdie
Tebbetts, George Stallings, Connie Mack, Joe Cronin, Herman Franks, Yogi
Berra, Charlie Gehringer, Rickey Henderson, Connie Mack
WEEKEND BONUS– Mar 14
Q. Who was the first player to win an American
League batting championship for the team that won World Series that same
season?
Hint: He was the first American Leaguer to amass
200 hits in each of five consecutive seasons.
Hint: His nickname was based on his unusual, not
to say quirky, batting stance.
Hint: His was the only picture of a former player
manager/owner Connie Mack kept in office.
- He hit .381 in 1930 for the WS-winning A’s. The
next to do it was Joe DiMaggio with the same average in 1939 for NYY.
- 200+ H 1929-33
- Right-handed batting “Bucketfoot Al” took a
stance in the box with his left (front) foot pointed toward third base, just
outside the batter’s box, “in the bucket” in baseball lingo. He elucidates: “I’ve studied movies of myself batting. Although my left foot stabbed out toward third
base, the rest of me, from the belt up, especially my wrists, arms, and
shoulders, was swinging in a proper line over the plate.”
- Asked which player could provide the most
value to a team, Mack sighed, “If I could only have nine players named Al
Simmons.”
FCR - Dr. John Rickert, Terre Haute
Incorrect
guesses: Eddie Collins, Willie Keeler, Ty
Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Candy Cummings, Rube Marquard
SUNDAY – The Ides
Q. Who, while pitching a no-hitter, is said
to have created the pitch we now call the slider?
Hint: Manager Connie Mack, a man not known to be
effusive with player evaluations, once said, "If I had all the men I've
ever handled & they were in their prime & there was 1 game I wanted to
win above all others, [he] would be my man."?
Hint: He hit half of his career six home runs in
a four-day period, including two in one game.
Hint: He was the first player born in the 32nd
state to receive a Hall of Fame vote.
Hint: He was not the most famous athlete who
attended his high school.
- 3 HR = 05-May- & 08-May-1906, all 3 IPHR. Of the final 3 he hit in his career, 2 were
bounce-HR, but during his dalliance in the Federal League, he put one over the fence in Kansas City.
- Born 05-May-1884 in Crow Wing County, Minnesota. Minnesota entered the Union on 11-May-1858 (just
after California and just before Oregon).
His 1st HOF vote = 1936.
Inducted finally in 1953, a year before his death, by the Veterans
Committee and thus also the first player inducted from Minnesota.
- He attended the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, PA about
a decade before Jim
Thorpe. It wasn’t a high school in the traditional
sense but was dedicated to helping educate you native American who showed
promise.
FCR - Jesse
Asbury, Norman, Oklahoma
Incorrect guesses: Lefty Grove, Eddie Plank, George
Blaeholder, Waite Hoyt
WEEKLY THEME – Hall of
Fame players whose careers began with the Philadelphia A’s, but were traded,
released or sold by Connie Mack to play elsewhere.
Player A’s years WAR
w/PHA WAR elsewhere
Baker a........... 1908-14.............. 42.2.............. 20.5
Bender b......... 1903-15.............. 41.4............... -0.9
Cochrane c..... 1925-33.............. 48.5.............. 11.8
Collins d......... 1906-14.............. 57.3.............. 66.7
Fox e............... 1947-49................ 0.7............... 48.3
Foxx f.............. 1925-35.............. 62.6.............. 33.2
Grove g........... 1925-33.............. 68.4.............. 44.9
Kell h............... 1943-46................ 3.2............... 34.2
Plank i............. 1901-14.............. 74.6.............. 13.2
Simmons j...... 1924-32
........................ 1940-41
........... 1944...................... .................. 50.8 15.4
f10-Dec-1935 – Traded by the PHA w/ Johnny
Marcum to BOS
for George Savino (minors), Gordon
Rhodes & $150,000.
g12-Dec-1933 – Traded by the PHA w/ Max
Bishop & Rube Walberg
to BOS for
Bob
Kline, Rabbit
Warstler & $125,000.
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – Anderson Adams, Peachtree Corners,
Georgia (After Foxx)
NOTE: Hall of Famer Herb Pennock would have also qualified under this week's theme.
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Tuesday - Triple
crown winners from Maryland
- Something to
do with playing for the A’s and Red Sox
- HOFers
from MD
- Players
from Maryland
- Hall
of Famers with back-to-back rings while playing for the A's/under Connie Mack
- Hall
of Famers from Maryland who played for Connie Mack
- Hall-of-famers
managed by Connie Mack
- Hall
of Famers that played for the Philadelphia A’s and either the Red Sox or
Yankees
Wed - HOF'ers
from Maryland
- All
time leaders of the Philadelphia Athletics
- Players
to win two or more World Series with the Philadelphia Athletics.
- Hall
of Famers born in Maryland
- Top
players, by WAR, of the Philadelphia Athletics
- All
Philadelphia A’s HOFers
Thurs - Hall
of Fame members who debuted with the Athletics and were inducted by the
Veteran’s Committee
- Philadelphia
Athletics HoF players or HoF members that broke in with Philadelphia A’s.
Fri - Hall
of Fame members who debuted with the Athletics and were inducted by the
Veteran’s Committee
Sat - Hall
of Fame Tiger
- Hall
of Famers who played for Connie Mack & managed at least 1 game in MLB
Sunday - Hall
of Famers who played for Connie Mack
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