Baseball Stuffings #4 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Karl Spooner

The others listed had not started their Major League careers yet. Wood set a record of his own by striking 20 batters in his rookie season with the Cubs in 1998. The 23-year old Spooner struck out 15 in his debut on September 22, 1954, as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 18 innings pitched in his rookie season, Spooner struck out an amazing 27 batters. More amazing, 1955 was his last season. J.R. Richard tied this record of 15 on September 5, 1971 with Houston.

Answer: Dick Groat

1960 was before Johnson and long after Gehringer and Ott. Groat was an All-American at Duke before he signed a bonus contract with the Pirates and debuted in 1952. His MVP award came in 1960, as he topped Don Hoak, Willie Mays, and Ernie Banks for the award. Groat also played in the NBA.

Answer: Jimmie Foxx

The others would not start their MLB careers until 1947. Foxx was walked the six times on June 16, 1938, while playing for the Red Sox. He walked 119 times in the season, mainly because he was such a home run terror. He hit 50 in the season. In 1929, Mel Ott of the Giants was walked five times intentionally in a game.

Answer: They went 23 scoreless innings

The April game went 24 innings with Houston finally winning it, 1-0. To start their season, Houston was 5-1 at that point, but finished in last place with a 72-90 record.

Answer: Dick Higham

The others never umpired a game in the Majors. Higham played in the 1870s and 1880s. In eight seasons, he batted a career .307. He was under suspicion many times as a player for throwing games, so one wonders what the National League was thinking when they hired him in 1882 to umpire. With many games involving the Detroit Wolverines, there were so many questionable calls made by Higham, that Detroit officials were to led to inspect his mail.

They found coded letters that uncovered a gambling ring that bet against Detroit. That was the end of that job.

Answer: Josh Gibson

The others all played in the Major Leagues. Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard were both inducted into the Hall in 1972, but Gibson received the credit for being first for receiving more votes. They were inducted along with Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra, Early Wynn, Lefty Gomez, and others.

Answer: Pittsburgh Pirates

The others listed were all American League teams. Honus Wagner won a batting title multiple times, Arky Vaughan won his in 1935, then Dick Groat won his in 1960 along with the NL MVP Award for the Pirates.

Answer: Nap Lajoie

None of the others had started their Major League careers yet. Lajoie of the Philadelphia Athletics took the pass on May 23, 1901. The White Sox defeated Philadelphia 11-9 in the game.

Answer: Joe Black

The other's careers had not begun yet. The Brooklyn Dodger Black, won game one against the Yankees in the 1952 World Series, 4-2. Unfortunately, Joe took two losses in the Series also, and the Yankees defeated the Dodgers, four games to three.

Answer: Fernando Valenzuela

The Cy Young award began in 1956, more than 20 years after the others listed were rookies. At any rate, they never won a Cy Young Award. 1981 was when 'Fernando Mania' began, and Valenzuela went 13-7 in his rookie season in 1981 with the Dodgers, winning the Cy Young award.

He would win 20+ games in a season only once in his career, which came in 1986. After playing for 11 seasons in the Dodger blue, his last six seasons found him playing for five different teams before he retired in 1997.