A Sports Smorgasbord Trivia Quiz

Answer: O. J. Simpson

Orenthal James Simpson, aka "The Juice", was a Heisman Trophy winner in 1968, and went on to play for the Buffalo Bills for most of his career. He is also the ONLY running back to have rushed for more than 2,000 yards in a 14 game season. He was a broadcaster and an actor in, among other movies, the "Naked Gun" trilogy.

He was later tried for allegedly murdering his wife and Ron Goldman on June 12, 1994 but was found not guilty in October of 1995; after all, "if the glove don't fit, you must acquit".

However, O.J. was found guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery in 2008 and sentenced to prison for 9 to 33 years.

Answer: Cleveland Spiders

There was a National League baseball team named the Cleveland Spiders who played in Cleveland, Ohio, but they played between 1889 and 1899. Their former name was the Cleveland Forest Citys/Blues, a weak team who inexplicably chose the 'Spiders' as their new name.

In 1890 they signed a rookie pitcher named Cy Young who pitched a shutout in his major league debut. In 1899, the owners bought the St. Louis Browns (who then became the Perfectos) and transferred most of their good players to St. Louis (including Cy Young). That same year the Spiders became the worst team in baseball, finishing with a won-loss record of 20-134 (.130). Mercifully, the team was disbanded after that.

Answer: Zamboni

In 1939, an inventor named Frank Zamboni opened a skating rink in Paramount, California, but he found that resurfacing the ice required 3 or 4 employees and was extremely time-consuming. Having been in the refrigeration business originally, Zamboni tried to come up with a solution to this problem.

It took him another 10 years to effectively find an answer; in 1949, he used an army surplus chassis with four wheel drive and front and back wheel steering and, voila!, "The Model A Ice-Resurfacer" was born.

The 'Zamboni' was patented in 1953 and, as one journalist put it, it looked "like the offspring of a field tractor and a warehouse crate".

Answer: Althea Gibson

In 1956, Althea Gibson (1927-2003) became the first person of color to win a Grand Slam title, when she won the French Open. The next year she won both the U.S. Nationals (which was a forerunner of the U.S. Open) and Wimbledon, a feat she would repeat in 1958.

She won a total of 11 Grand Slam events, an extraordinary accomplishment. In the 1960s, Ms. Gibson was the first black player to compete on the women's professional golf tour. She was voted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.

Answer: Zaire

All of the choices given include the former names of African countries: Tanganyika and Zanzibar became Tanzania; French Equatorial Africa is now the Central African Republic whose neighboring countries include Chad, Cameroon and Sudan. However, the boxing match fought in 1974 between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali was held in Kinshasa, Zaire, which became the the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997.

In this historic 15 round match, undefeated heavyweight champion Foreman was defeated by Muhammad Ali by a knockout just before the end of the eighth round, to win the title of WBC/WBA undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.

Answer: Horton Smith

And the first green jacket goes to... Horton Smith (1908-1963) won the inaugural Masters Tournament in 1934 and went on to win the third Masters in 1936 as well. In case you're interested, Gene Sarazen won the second in 1935. Smith played on 5 Ryder Cup teams, was the only golfer to defeat Bobby Jones in Jones' Grand Slam year of 1930. He played in every Masters through 1963.

Answer: Triple jump

The decathlon is a grueling combination of 10 track and field events and first appeared at the 1912 Olympic games in Stockholm, Sweden. The first gold medal was won by American Jim Thorpe but the IOC stripped him of the medal in 1913, claiming he had violated Olympic amateur rules, so Hugo Wieslander was awarded the gold; however, in 1982 Thorpe's medals were reinstated, saying the disqualification was improper. To get back to the events themselves, there are four runs, three jumps (with the triple jump not among them) and three throws; i.e., 100 meters, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400 meters, 110 meter hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw and 1500 meters.

Answer: Landon Donovan

Landon Donovan is a retired American soccer player who was a member of the first class of the U.S. Soccer Residency Program, held in Florida on January 15, 1999. In Major League Soccer, not only did Donovan win a record six MLS cups, but he has also been the league's all-time scorer (144 goals) and led the league in assists as well (136).

He is the only American player to reach the 50 goals/50 assists mark. In fact, there is not enough space here to enumerate all the awards he has won. In honor of his accomplishments, on January 15, 2015 (exactly 16 years to the day), Major League Soccer announced it was naming its MVP trophy 'The Landon Donovan MVP award'.

Answer: Affirmed

It was on June 9, 2015, after a span of 37 years, that American Pharoah became only the 12th horse to win the Triple Crown of thoroughbred racing since its inception in 1919. Prior to that, Affirmed became the 11th winner in 1978 with jockey Steve Cauthen; in fact, Cauthen was at the Belmont Stakes to see jockey Victor Espinoza ride to victory. Thirty-seven years was the longest period of time in between Triple Crown winners: Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978) and American Pharoah in 2015.

Answer: Golden State Warriors

The 2015 National Basketball Association Finals (called, unremarkably, 'The Finals') began on April 18th and ended on June 16th with the Golden State Warriors beating the Cleveland Cavaliers at Cleveland in the 6th game of the series, by a score of 105 to 97. Stephen Curry and MVP Andre Iguodala helped the Warriors to clinch their first title since 1975 (a very long drought).

While LeBron James ("King James") was a major force for the Cavaliers, it just wasn't enough to defeat a strong Golden State team.