Forever Banned Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cincinnati Reds

Pete Rose grew up a few miles away from Crosley Field, the home ballpark of the Cincinnati Reds from 1912-1970, and he became a Reds fan as a child. Rose made his MLB debut on April 8, 1963 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He went 0-3 with a walk and a strikeout. Rose ended up winning Rookie of the Year that season, hitting .273 with 6 home runs and 41 RBI.

Answer: 10

Ty Cobb was the previous owner of the record with nine 200-hit seasons. Rose led the league in hits seven times during his career, with a career high of 230 hits in 1973, the year he won the NL MVP. .

Answer: Big Red Machine

The Cincinnati Reds won 953 games during the 1970s, won six division championships, four NL pennants, and two World Series titles (1975, 1976). Led by Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson, the Reds' lineup, known as the "Great Eight" featured, Rose, Bench, Morgan, Perez, Ken Griffey, Sr., George Foster, Cesar Geronimo, and Dave Concepcion.

Answer: Yes

Rose won three batting titles during the course of his career. He won two back-to-back in 1968 and 1969, hitting .335 and .348 respectively. He won his third batting title in 1973, the year he won the MVP, with a .338 batting average. Rose hit over .300 in 15 different seasons.

Answer: 6

Yes, 60 percent of the NL MVP awards during the 1970s were awarded to a member of the Cincinnati Reds. Aside from Rose's MVP in 1973, catcher Johnny Bench won two MVP awards (1970, 1972), second baseman Joe Morgan also won two MVPs (1975, 1976), and left fielder George Foster won the 1977 MVP the year he hit 52 home runs.

Answer: Philadelphia Phillies

Rose played with the Phillies from 1979-1983. The 1980s Phillies featured both the NL MVP, Mike Schmidt, and the Cy Young Award winner, Steve Carlton, both future hall of famers, along with star players Larry Bowa, Bob Boone, Manny Trillo, Lonnie Smith, and Tug McGraw.

The team won 91 games in the regular season, and ended up beating the Kansas City Royals in six games during the World Series. Rose hit .261 in the series with one RBI and two runs scored.

Answer: Most ground outs into double plays

Upon retirement, Rose had 15,890 plate appearances, nearly 2000 more at bats than the next closest player Carl Yastrzemski, who had 13,992. Rose's 14,053 at bats towered over Henry Aaron's second place total of 12,364. Rose played in 3,562 games, ahead of previous record holder Yastrzemski's 3,308. Rose was well off the most double play groundouts by a significant margin; he only grounded out into a double play 247 times during his career, comfortably behind Hank Aaron's then record of 328, which has since been surpassed by multiple players.

Answer: 0

During much of the 20th century, it wasn't unusual to see a player also acting as manager, but after he retired in 1986 from playing until the day he died, no other player in the MLB also acted as manager of a team since Rose. The Reds finished fifth in their division in Pete's first season as a player/manager, but the following five seasons under Rose's helm, the Reds finished second each year; however, the Reds never made the playoffs with Pete as manager.

Answer: Bart Giamatti

Rose was under investigation for betting on baseball games in 1989, when Bart Giamatti appointed lawyer John Dowd to look into Rose's gambling history and determine if Rose had bet on baseball games as the Reds manager. Upon further review, it was determined that Rose had in fact bet on games while managing the Reds, and Giamatti suspended Rose. Later that year, Rose accepted a permanent ban from baseball in hopes to be re-instated after one year.

However, Giamatti suddenly died several days later from a heart attack, so Rose had to deal with a different commissioner, Fay Vincent, but Vincent never acted on the matter, and neither did his successor, Bud Selig, which led to Rose's prolonged ineligibility.

Answer: False

Rose's record of 4,256 hits was never seriously challenged from the time he broke the record until the day he died. Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees, who played from 1995-2014 came the closest, with 3,465 hits, nearly 800 hits shy of Rose. A player who plays 21 seasons and averages 200 hits a season would still be 56 hits short of Rose's record, so it would take not only a great amount of skill, but also a great amount of luck as well to break the record, as a player would need to avoid too many injuries to stand a chance.