Reading Period Baseball Quiz

Quizmaster-Julio Scheft

Yes, it's that time of year again. My chance to make all you "baseball experts" out there look so very very foolish. There's really no need to go into detail. This is an incredibly difficult quiz, and while it is neither as long or as well thought out as the gonad-cracker that I served up last spring to you, I'm pretty confident you won't do any better this year. As a matter of fact, I think you'd have a better chance of finding a leather-bound copy of J.H. Parry's Trade and Dominion than you do of answering more than half of these questions. And I'm not even talking about whether you answer them correctly or not, chump.

So give it a try, and if you should do well on it don't be too proud. It only means that you're as big a mindless unsophisticated degenerate as I am.

(Quizmaster's note: None of the above obnoxious remarks were intended in any way for my mother or Dave Scheper, who is Harvard's reigning sports trivia king.)

1. Can you give me the opening day 1969 double play combinations (second baseman and shortstops) for the four expansion teams of that year? (Hint: The teams were the Seattle Pilots, the Kansas City Royals, the Montreal Expos, and the San Diego Padres).

2. Name the player whose 1969 baseball card had a picture of the California Angels' batboy instead of himself.

3. Who won American League Rookie of the Year in 1970, and then proceeded to disappear from the limelight faster than Zager and Evans?

4. What was Zager and Evan's hit single?

5. Who are the only three pitchers to throw the last pitch in two different World Series?

6. Before division play came into being, who were the only two teams to win over 100 games but finish in second place?

7. Who was the first player selected by the Mets in the expansion draft?

8. Who won the first game ever for the Montreal Expos?

9. What mediocre-at-best catcher showed his dissatisfaction after his team traded him by burning his uniform in the dugout five years ago?

10. What pitcher won the first night World Series game?

11. Who was the batboy for the 1966 and 1970 World Champions?

12. Who played behind Mickey Mantle in the middle '60s, but never managed more than 30 at bats in a season?

13. Oh yeah, what did Mickey Mantle do in his first major league at bat?

14. Who was the last football All-American to play in the big leagues?

15. Who won American League Firemean of the Year in 1967?

16. Who won the National League Cy Young Award in the same year?

17. For you locals, who was the last Red Sox player before Fred Lynn in 1975 to knock in ten runs in a game?

18. Who was the last player to go seven-for-seven in a game?

19. What was his batting average that year?

20. What was the only song recorded by Tony Conigliaro to ever make it in the Top 40 charts?

21. Who was the fifth outfielder on the 1971 Western Division Champion San Francisco Giants?

22. How did Denny McLain lose his contact lenses before the sixth game of the 1968 World Series? (By the way, the only game of the series which the 31-game winner won.)

23. Who is generally acknowledged as the first player to wear his baseball stirrups really high?

24. What color was Ken Harrelson's nehru suit when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1968?

25. Whose bloop single with one out in the ninth broke up Tom Seaver's perfect game against the Cubs in July of 1969?

I think it's time for some uniform numbers to really break your spirits: Soooooooo, match the number to the player:

26. Rod Carew (so easy)

27. Bill White

28. Bill Melton

29. Bobby Murcer (four answers, but I'll settle for three).

30. Ferguson Jenkins

31. Bill Rohr

32. Horace Clark, with the Padres, not the Yankees.

33. Reggie Jackson last year in spring training.

34. Bob Burda

35. Gates Brown (not his prison number, either)

Home stretch time, gang.

36. What two pitchers were the only players to play on both Seattle expansion teams (Hint: Both were terrible)

37. What was the unintentional but nonetheless incredibly dirty thing that Curt Gowdy said during the broadcast of the first game of the 1975 World Series?

38. In what city did Yankee relief pitcher Steve Hamilton throw up on the mound after he swallowed his chaw of tobacco?

39. Who played second base for the White Sox in 1967 after Al Weis got hurt by Frank Robinson?

40. Who played the college professor turned pitcher in the smash film "It Happens Every Spring?"

ANSWERS: 1] Seattle--Gus Gill and Ray Oyler, Kansas City--Jerry Adair and Jackie Hernandez, Montreal--Gary Sutherland and Maury Wills, San Diego--Dave Campbell and Enzo Hernandez. 2] Aurelio Rodrieguez. 3] Roy Foster. 4] "In The Year 2525." 5] Will McEnaney [1975, '76], Ralph Terry [1960, '62], Bob Gibson [1964, '67]. 6]1954 Yankees, 1961 Tigers. 7] Hobie Landrith. 8] Don Shaw. 9] Carl Taylor. 10] Bruce Kison. 11] Jay Mazzone. 12] Ross Moschitto. 13] Broken bat groundout to shortstop. 14] Jake Gibbs [Q.B. at Mississippi, 1963]. 15] Minnie Rojas. 16] Mike McCormack. 17] Norm Zauchin [1958]. 18] Cesar Guttierez of the Tigers. 19] .243 20] "The Little Putt Putt." 21] Jimmy Rosario. 22] Joe Sparma flushed them down the toilet. 23] Frank Robinson. 24] Light blue. 25] Jimmy Qualls. 26] 29. 27] 24. 28] 14. 29] 29, 1, 20, 7. 30] 31. 31] 15. 32] 37. 33] 20. 34] 3. 35] 26. 36] Diego Segui and John Montague. 37] "Luis Tiant is coming from everywhere except between his legs." 38] Kansas City. 39] Wayne Cuasey. 40] Ray Milland.