Give me some good baseball trivia

A mathematician would argue the ChiSox had no batting averages before Opening Day, because you can't divide zero by zero. After Opening Day, of course, they would have had .000s across the board.

 

Regarding No. 2: I always have heard the same thing. And the beauty of this one, when someone is struggling and asks for a hint, you can say: "The two guys' last names rhyme."

And still I had someone, after the hint, guess "Yastrzemski" as one of 'em.

 

I was going to guess "postponed" with maybe that first inning box showing that the game was called in the first inning but the numbers under the R column don't add up right. If the P is meant to indicate the pitchers who got the decision in the first game of a doubleheader, then the Giants had a losing pitcher with a rare single-digit uniform number (or the Dodgers had a different way of identifying pitchers in their program).

Also, the Reds' pitchers must have been horrible in that first inning, allowing 15 runs on 10 hits...but no errors.

 

Saw a piece on the blind kid/1963-64 Houston Colt 45s on Fox the other night (http://www.astrosdaily.com/history/1963/) that made me think that Tracy Stallard has to be the king of obscure major-league "Forrest Gumps."

* Was on the Red Sox and in uniform when Ted Williams homered in his last at-bat.
* Gave up Roger Maris' 61st homer.
* Saw Yaz's first game as a major-leaguer.
* Gave up the grand slam to Bob Aspromonte, the third of Aspro's three "called shots" for the blind kid in the story I linked.
* Was the losing pitcher in Jim Bunning's Father's Day perfect game.
* Was the losing pitcher in Warren Spahn's 363rd and final victory in 1965.
* And he is the only major-league player with at least 200 career plate appearances to never have drawn a walk.

 

OK, I cannot do this (calling Mr. Weaver) but how quickly can you trace back through baseball?

Ken Griffey Jr. is playing today.
He played in a game with Eddie Murray.
He played in a game with Pete Rose.
He played in a game with...

How many players does it take to reach back to the first professional organized baseball team or to the start of the current baseball league?

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/oracle/link.cgi?n1=Ken+Griffey+Jr.&n2=Harry+Wright

It takes 7 degrees to trace Griffey to Harry Wright, who played on the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings.

Ken Griffey Jr. played with Steve Trout for the 1989 Mariners.
Trout played Minnie Minoso for the 1980 White Sox.
Minoso played with Phil Cavarretta for the 1954 White Sox.
Cavarretta played with Charlie Grimm for the 1934 Cubs.
Grimm played with Red Ames for the 1918 Cardinals.
Ames played with Jim O'Rourke for the 1904 Giants.
O'Rourke played with Harry Wright for the 1877 Boston Red Caps.

 

Only four players finished with a higher OPS than Babe Ruth during his 16 seasons as a full-time hitter: Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Hank Greenberg and Hal Trosky.

Ruth had the best OPS from 1918 to 1931. Foxx beat him in 1932; Foxx and Gehrig got him in 1933; and all four finished ahead of Ruth in 1934.

 

Minoso, Rose, Ryan, Niekro, Cobb; those are the guys who will show up in almost all of these "Oracle" searches.

It's a fun tool.

 

And also don't forget (because I used this trivia question in our section today and got two-emails adding corrections):

Jimmie Foxx (Philadelphia A's and Phillies)
Yogi Berra (New York Yankees and Mets...I had no idea, but he played five games for the Mets in like '64)

 

My all-time favorite question...

Q: Who was the first player born in the 1970s to appear in the majors? (I like it because I was born 12-19-69, so that means this was essentially the first person born after me to make it.)

A: Wilson Alvarez. He came up in 1989, faced five batters an didnt' retire any, then went back to the minors. The next big league game he pitched was in 1991 ... and he threw a no-hitter.

The first player born in the 1980s, by the way, I think was Albert Pujols, but I'm not 100 percent sure on that.

 

Don't forget your hero, Julio Franco.