20-Aug-17
Q. What
Cleveland Indians shortstop died 100 years ago today, less than two months
before his team won their first ever World Series?
Hint: He still holds
the major league record for sacrifices in one season.
Hint: His stolen
base total one year was his franchise's record for 63 seasons.
Hint: His best
friend, Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, had been the Best Man at his wedding.
Hint: He was the
second player to homer off Babe Ruth.
- Chapman is still
the only player to die from an injury sustained during a major league game. Virtually everyone in attendance at that game
does NOT blame Yankee side-arm pitcher Carl Mays for the incident. The fateful pitch was thrown in the darkening
afternoon hours on 16-Aug-1920
on NYY’s home field, The Polo Grounds.
The Indians won their first AL pennant and then defeated the Brooklyn
Robins 5-2 in the 1920 WS.
- 67
sacrifices in 1917; 334 in his career (6th all-time).
- Franchise-best 52
SB in 1917 for CLE until surpassed by Miguel Dilone’s 61 in 1980. Current
record holder is Kenny Lofton w/75 SB in 1996.
- Tris Speaker was so overcome by the grief at the passing of Chapman
that he collapsed from exhaustion prior to Chapman’s public funeral and was ordered to bed by doctors. Speaker was unable to act as pallbearer or
deliver a eulogy at the services for his friend. He is the only person who continued
- Chapman was the
second player to hit a HR against the young BOS pitching prodigy. Only 8 ever
did. Chapman’s 13-July-1915 feat was mostly done with his feet, an inside-the-park job. Incidentally, Ruth was playing RF the
moment Chapman was hit.
FCR - Preston
Salisbury, Starkville, Mississippi
Incorrect guesses: Carl
Mays, Bill Wambsganss, Roger Peckinpaugh, Sam Crawford, Sam Chapman
Recommended reading:
- The Pitch That Killed: The Story of Carl Mays, Ray Chapman,
and the Pennant Race of 1920 by Mike Sowell
TUESDAY — 18-Aug
Q. Which Rookie
of the Year-to-be second baseman and Hall of Famer-to-be outfielder Lou Brock
each made his major league debut in the same game for the Chicago Cubs?
Hint: By a single
vote did he missed being unanimously voted Rookie of the Year.
Hint: In his first
full year, he won the Gold Glove for National League second basemen.
- Hubbs and Brock each collected their first
major league hits off of future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts on 10-Sept-1961, helping to knock him
out of the game in B5 and stake CHI to a 6-1 lead. However, their heroics weren’t enough as the
Cubs committed seven errors in the game (including 2 by Brock) and surrendered 13
unanswered runs in the 7th & 8th innings to fall to PHI.
- Hubbs’s GG win in 1962 interrupted a string of
GGs won by PIT’s Bill Mazeroski.
FCR - Kevin Mix, Chicago
Incorrect guesses: Glen Beckert, Glen Hubbard, Ryne Sandberg
TUESDAY BONUS — 18-Aug
Q. Who is the only player to strike out
four times in a single All-Star game?
Hint: He was the reigning MVP at the time.
Hint: No other player has led the National League
in assists by an outfielder for more seasons than he did.
Hint: No other outfielder won a Gold Glove more
times.
- AS Ks = 11-Jul-1967. The Great One was sat down by Dean Chance, Gary Peters, Al Downing
and Catfish Hunter— all MLB 20-game winners.
- Led the NL OF A in 5 seasons (1958, 1960,
1961, 1966 and 1967)
It begs the question, “How uninformed were NL
3rd-base coaches in that era?”
- Has 12 OF GG, tied w/Willie Mays.
FCR - Eric Savage, Short Hills, New Jersey
Incorrect guesses: Willie Mays, Andruw Jones, Larry Walker,
Ichiro Suzuki
WEDNESDAY — 19-Aug
Q. Who is the only player to lead his
league, at one point or another in his career, in hits, doubles, triples, home
runs, runs-batted-in, batting average, stolen bases, total bases AND hit
four home runs in one game.
Hint: Like a laggard, though, he never once led
in runs scored.
Hint: Amazingly, he never finished even as high
as second in MVP voting.
- Delahanty led his league in H 1 X, 2B 5 X, 3B 1
X, HR 2 X, RBI 3 X, SB 1 X, BA 2 X & TB 2 X in addition to being
only 1 of 18 players In major league history w/4 HRs in a single major league game. To put the last rarity into perspective, 23
men have pitched perfect games. 2 of
Delahanty’s HRs were ITP.
- His 145 R in 1893 were the closest he came to leading
a league in R. He was 3rd, just
4 behind former Cowboy Herman Long’s career-high 149.
FCR - Elliott Frankfother, Rock Falls, Illinois
Incorrect
guesses: Mike Schmidt, Bob Horner, Shawn
Green, Josh Hamilton, Lou Gehrig, Frank Robinson, Mike Cameron
MIDWEEK BONUS —
19-Aug
Q. Who was the first pitcher to win a major
league Opening Day game played outside the U.S. or Canada?
Hint: The customary five-year waiting period for
Hall of Fame election was waived for him.
Hint: In addition to his pitching prowess he was
universally regarded as a solid citizen and teammate, so much so that an award
in his honor is bestowed on a member of two of the team he played for.
- The game played on 04-Apr-1999 was the first major
league game played in Mexico and took place at the Estadio de Beisbol in Monterrey.
- In addition to waiving the HOF waiting period for
Kile (2002) it was also waived for Roberto Clemente (1973) and Thurman Munson
(1981). Unfortunately, with just 7 HOF
votes, Kile was eliminated from future BBWAA ballot consideration.
- The Darryl Kile Award, also called the
Darryl Kile Good Guy Award, is given to a player on each of the Cardinals and
Astros. Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell was
one of the initial recipients. An additional 33 players have since been thus
recognized.
FCR - Joe O’Neill, London, Ontario
Incorrect
guesses: Roy Halladay, Roberto Clemente,
Sandy Koufax, Addie Joss, Sandy Koufax
THURSDAY — 20-Aug
Q. Whose career win/loss percentage is the
best of any pitcher born in the state of Maryland?
Hint: He was honored by the NBA’s Los Angeles
Lakers.
Hint: Before coming up to the majors, the
respected publication Baseball America described his curveball as “devastating”.
Hint: Having to undergo Tommy John surgery saw
him drop in the drop in the draft, but the signing bonus received was higher
than any ever given to a player drafted that low in the draft.
- Career win-loss% = a perfect 1.000, based on
his 1-0 record (no minimum was specified.) Born in Silver Spring. That mark is actually a tie. Four other Marylanders, including HOF Jimmie
Foxx, also posted a 1-0, 1.000 W-L% pitching record.
- MLB, particularly his team the Angels, held
ceremonies following his tragic, fatal car crash. The Lakers had a moment of silence in his
remembrance before their next game.
- Drafted in the 14th round of the 2004 June Amateur
Draft (413th overall), he received more than $700,000 to sign with the
Angels. His signing record didn’t last
long as Dexter Fowler, drafted in the same round, received a $925,000 bonus
when he inked his deal with the Rockies just three weeks after Adenhart’s.
FCR - Mark DeLodovico, Rockville, Maryland
Incorrect
guesses: Lefty Grove, Babe Ruth, Geoff
Zahn
THURSDAY BONUS — 20-Aug
Q. Who was the first player to get two hits
in the same inning of World Series competition?
Hint: His team was the first in modern times to
play in the World Series in four straight years.
Hint: He was the first player in the Live Ball
Era to hit three triples in a single game.
FCR - David Serota, Kalamazoo
Incorrect
guesses: Joe DiMaggio, Al Simmons, Denny
Neagle, Joe DiMaggio, George Burns, Frankie Frisch, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson,
Miller Huggins, Hugh Jennings, Phil Rizzuto
FRIDAY — 21-Aug
Q. Which Dodger first baseman hit .300+ for
a franchise-record six consecutive seasons?
Hint: He was named seven times to the National
League All-Star team.
Hint: Three times he finished in the top ten of
MVP ballots and even a fourth, but outside of the Top Ten.
Hint: He was born and grew up just an hour from
the childhood home of Hall of Famer Mike Mussina.
- Strung together seasons of .307, .308, .350,
.329, .301 & .316 from 1911 to 1916.
- Pre-dating the playing of MLB’s first official
All-Star Game in 1933, The Baseball Magazine, a popular monthly
national publication chose all-star teams for both the N.L. & A.L. annually
from 1908 through 1950. Daubert was
selected as the preeminent N.L. first baseman seven (7!) times.
- Born and grew up near Shamokin,
Pennsylvania. Mussina was from
Williamsport, Just an hour distant as the crow flies.
FCR - Vince Guerrieri, Elyria, Ohio
Incorrect guesses: Dolph Camilli, Steve Garvey, Gil Hodges, Eric
Karros, Pedro Guerrero
T.G.I.F. BONUS —
21-Aug
Q. Who said, “Baseball breaks your
heart. It is designed to break your
heart.”?
Hint: He delivered an even more famous sentence.
Hint: He was one of the youngest presidents of
Yale University in its history.
- The complete quote is, “[Baseball] breaks your
heart. It is designed to break your
heart. The game begins in the spring,
when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the
afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and
leaves you to face the fall all alone.
You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the
memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all
twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”
Taken from The Green Fields of the Mind, which itself is an essay
in “A Great and
Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti” (1975)
- Was appointed president of Yale at age 38 in
1976.
FCR - Sarah Grynpas, Toronto
Incorrect guesses: Paul Giamatti, Nappy Chandler
END-OF-THE-WEEK BONUS —
21-Aug
Q. What double Unique Hall of Famer was
told by his law school professor that, “Ahem…, baseball might be a more
productive choice.”
Hint: His law school professor became Chief Justice
of the United States.
Hint: As a Cardinals and Reds second baseman, he
led the National League in walk four times in his thirteen-year playing career.
Hint: He received some votes the first two
seasons that type of MVP award existed.
- Attended Law School at the University of
Cincinnati and his law professor with the good career advice was none other
than William Howard Taft. Huggins had sought his professor’s advice. The actual quote, as best as researchers can
determine is, "You can become a pleader or a player, not both. Try baseball. You seem to like it better." Given how many major league games Taft
attended as president, it’s probably safe to assume that he had already known
something of the game when speaking to his young charge.
- Huggins graduated with his degree in 1902, was
admitted to the bar, but heeding Taft’s advice, never actually practiced law.
- Led in BB for CIN in 1905 & 1907; led for
STL in 1910 & 1914
- Ranked 6th in NL voting in 1911
& 16th (tie) in 1912 when the game’s highest individual player
honor was known as The Chalmers Award after the automobile company that sponsored
it
FCR - Sarah Grynpas, Toronto
Incorrect
guesses: Branch Rickey, Dal Maxvill,
Frankie Frisch
SATURDAY — 22-Aug
Q. Whose auriferous nickname was given him while
still in high school?
Hint: He and Henry Aaron played their first major
league games on the same day. He for a
team based in Boston against a team that was about to move. Aaron debuted one state away for a team that
had just moved from Boston.
Hint: He had received scholarship offers from as
many as 75 colleges but chose to stay local.
He was the quarterback and star of his local college football team,
leading it to 17 victories in his career and was honored as
the best collegiate football player in his region his junior year.
Hint: Serving in the U.S. Marine
Corps during the Korea conflict he played football and baseball
with his fellow troops. His mighty USMC baseball team
reached the national semi-pro tournament where he excelled.
- He had already received his nickname, “The
Golden Greek” in high school, but it described him so well because of his charismatic
personality and athletic performance in baseball, basketball and
football, that the audacious but appropriate sobriquet continued to fit him in college, in the minor leagues
as well as in the majors.
- Agganis debuted with PHA playing for with BOS on 13-Apr-1954. That same day, Aaron made his first start with the Braves representing
their new home city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- He received the Bulger Lowe Award as the best
collegiate football player in New England.
- His squad reached the National Baseball
Congress tournament in Wichita, Kansas in 1951 where Harry was
named its all-star first baseman and Most Valuable
Player despite his team’s disappointing 5th place finish.
FCR - Mike Sparks, Sarasota
Incorrect
guesses: Rocky Bridges, Jackie Jensen
SATURDAY BONUS —
22-Aug
Q. Which Phillies pitcher won 20 or more
games three consecutive years without striking out 100 batters in any one of
those seasons?
Hint: No pitcher in St. Louis Cardinals franchise
history has lost more games in his final season with the team than he
did in his only year pitching for them.
Hint: He and Steve Carlton are the only Phillies
pitchers to drive in over 100 runs.
- Between 1894-1896, won 23, 26 and 20 with his
highest K total being 97 (over 359 IP) in 1896.
- Dropped 29 decisions in 1898 for the NL
Cardinals’ precursors the Browns (not to be confused with the AL’s St. Louis
Browns team born in 1901 as the ... Milwaukee Brewers).
- Although both had 112 RBI during their time
with PHI, Taylor did it in about 300 fewer games than Lefty.
FCR - Mike Sparks, Sarasota
Incorrect guesses: Rick Wise, Charlie Ferguson, Schoolboy Rowe,
Chris Short, Eppa Rixey, Curt Simmons, Red Donahue, Pete Alexander, Charlie Buffinton
WEEKEND BONUS — 23-Aug
Q. Which highly-heralded 18-year old had
two hits in his first game with the Red Sox?
Hint: Generally recognized as one of the game’s
most prolific sluggers, his league single-season high in home runs was only 33.
Hint: Buck O’Neil famously said that there was a
certain sound—of a ball hitting a bat like dynamite—that he’d heard only three
times: from Babe Ruth, Bo Jackson and him.
Hint: "I played with Willie Mays and against
Hank Aaron," Hall of Famer Monte Irvin once said. "They were
tremendous players, but they were no [him]."
Hint: When an opposing player asked if a certain broken
bat belonged to him, he replied, "I don't break bats, I wear 'em
out."
- Credited with 33 HR in 1941 while playing for Veracruz in the Mexican League.
Precise records of Gibson’s
accomplishments do not exist. Stat-keeping
was haphazard in the Negro leagues and Gibson took part in a vast number of
exhibition games and games against semiprofessional teams. However, Gibson is generally believed to have
led the Negro National League in home runs for 10 consecutive seasons and to
have had a career batting average of “at least” between .345 and .365. Most researchers hold that even perhaps the best-kept
accounts
of his career do not do him justice.
- Another Buck O’Neill quote: “Gibson was the
best hitter I ever saw. He had the power of Ruth and the hitting ability
of Ted Williams. Would have been outstanding in the majors and re-written the record
book as far as home runs were concerned.”
FCR - Sarah Grynpas, Toronto
Incorrect
guesses: Jimmie Foxx, Tony Conigliaro,
David Ortiz, Ted Williams
SUNDAY — 23-Aug
Q. Who was referred to as base ball’s
“martyred saint” by John Thorn?
Hint: He (not Thorn) was likely among base ball’s
very first professionals according to SABR.
Hint: He changed the game more profoundly than
any other pitcher to that point.
Hint: Although he played six years prior to the
birth of major league baseball and no reliable statistical records exist for
him, Baseball-Reference.com still maintains a page for him.
- John Thorn is the Official
Historian of Major League Baseball. Make
sure you read the SABR Bio for Creighton (link above), written by Thorn.
- The SABR research on Creighton study was done
by Thomas W. Gilbert. His research into
the first handful of players to receive payments to play ball points to
Creighton and couple others. Such
payment were considered immoral at the time.
- Written on a bronze plaque laid by SABR at Creighton’s Brooklyn gravesite in 2014, is: “The
movement, command and velocity of his pitches overwhelmed opposing batters,
spurring the transformation of the pitcher from a mere server into a decisive
weapon. He paved the way toward the
modern game, where the battle to control the strike zone is paramount.”
FCR - Mike Sparks
Incorrect
guesses: Billy Sunday, Candy Cummings, Abner
Doubleday, Harry Wright
WEEK’S FINALE — 23-Aug
Q. For which defensive standout did John
McGraw attempt to negotiate a trade at the end of the 1929 season?
Hint: His batting average dropped nearly 50
points after Lefty O'Doul "helped" adjust his swing.
Hint: In his final major league game, two records
held by Rogers Hornsby were broken.
Hint: Hornsby called him, "…the best young
catcher I have seen come up in quite a while."
Hint: He used a specially-modified catcher's
mitt, which allowed him to devise a "Cigar Store Indian" play.
- Lerian passed away before a deal could be
struck.
- 1928 BA .272, 1929 BA .223
- Final game 05-Oct-1929 (1), Chuck Klein broke Hornsby's NL single-season HR
record [42 in 1922] & Lefty O'Doul broke his modern
NL single-season H record [250 in 1922]
- To pull off his Cigar Store Indian play,
Lerian would stand at rest, with his arms at his side near the plate or a base
and then, as a throw came in, spring to life and catch the ball in a
specially-created pocket in the center of his mitt, tagging out the
unsuspecting runner.
FCR - Steven Wright, Naperville, Illinois
Incorrect guesses:
WEEKLY THEME – (A very
brief list of…) People whose deaths terminated their baseball careers.
Decedent Cause Date
of passing
Adenhart........... Car crash................................................09-Apr-2009
Agganis............. Massive Pulmonary Embolism.............. 27-Jun-1955
Chapman.......... Killed by pitched ball............................. 17-Aug-1920
Clemente........... Lost at sea in airplane........................... 31-Dec-1972
Creighton.......... Ruptured bladder while at-bat................ 14-Oct-1862
Daubert............. Died following appendectomy................ 09-Oct-1924
Delahanty.......... Died after falling from train...................... 02-Jul-1903
Giamatti............. Died of heart attack............................... 01-Sep-1989
Gibson............... Died of stroke or brain hemorrhage....... 20-Jan-1947
Hubbs................ Killed in plane crash.............................. 15-Feb-1964
Huggins............. Died of erysipelas.................................. 25-Sep-1929
Kile ................ Died of heart disease .................. 22-Jun-2002
Lerian................ Died after being hit by
truck................... 22-Oct-1929
Taylor................ Died of Bright's disease......................... 07-Feb-1900
Youngs.............. Died of Bright's disease......................... 22-Oct-1927
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, “It might have been,”
More sad are these we daily see:
“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”
— Bret Harte
First
Correct Respondent to Identify Theme – Kevin Mix, Chicago (after Hubbs)
Incorrect theme
guesses:
Monday - Players
who died during a season in which they were active
- Players
who died as active players under age 30
- Friends
of Ty Cobb
Tuesday - MLB
infielders who died tragic deaths while still active
- ball
players who died in their 20s
- Tragic
infielders
- MLB
Players from each position who died in their 20s
- Players
who died the year after making the All-Star team
- In-season
MLB deaths
Thursday- All-star players who died while active on a
major league roster
Fri. - Lawyers
in the game
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