Concrete on the Diamonds Trivia Quiz

Answer: George Brett

Brett was a career Royal for 21 seasons. In 1980, George battted .390. It would be the second of three batting titles that he won. Tony Gwynn came closer to the .400-plateau by batting .394, but that was in 1994 with the Padres. Boggs' career high was also in the 1980s, batting .366 in 1988 with the Red Sox. Rod Carew of the Twins and Angels, won seven batting titles in his career, but never batted over .340 in the 1980s.

Answer: Al Spalding

Although Bob Caruthers of the St. Louis Browns almost did this in 1887 but fell short with 29 wins, Al Spalding was the first player in history to do it. In 1872 with the Boston Red Stockings, Spalding batted .354 while winning 38 games.

Answer: St. Louis

St. Louis had the Cardinals of the National League, the Browns in the American League, and the Terriers in the Federal League. In 1915, both the Cardinals and Browns finished sixth in their leagues, while the Terriers won the Federal League pennant.

Answer: Choked on food

While visiting friends for dinner in Miami, Jimmie bit off more than he could chew on July 21. He died at the age of 59. Foxx's three MVPs came in 1932, 1933, and 1938. His first two were with the Athletics, and the latter with the Red Sox. Jimmie retired with two batting and four home run titles. Babe Ruth was the first to hit 50 home runs in a season in 1920 when he hit 54, then Hack Wilson of the Cubs hit 56 in 1930. Foxx hit 58 in 1932.

Answer: 6

It was 1970 for the Pirates who moved into Three Rivers Stadium for their fans. 1970 also saw a new ballpark for the Reds at Riverfront Stadium. In 1971, the Phillies moved into Veterans Stadium. 1973 saw Royals Stadium in Kansas City. 1977 saw the Expos and Mariners with new stadiums also, with Olympic Stadium and the Kingdome, respectively.

Answer: Toad Ramsey

Ramsey also went 38-27 in the season, compared to Kilroy's 29-34 record. Ramsey pitched for only six seasons, and retired with 1515 strikeouts, averaging 253 per season. In 100 seasons of Major League baseball (which began in 1901), no pitcher reached the 400-season mark, but Sandy Koufax (382) and Nolan Ryan (383) came close.

Answer: Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker

The entire incident did not surface until the 1926 season. In some 1919 games near the end of the season with the Tigers playing the Indians, Cobb of the Tigers and Speaker of the Indians allegedly bet on the Indians in three different games. Cobb and Speaker had agreed to let the Indians win, so Cleveland would finish in second place.

This would prevent the Yankees from gaining second place money. At the time in 1926, Cobb was the player-manager for the Tigers, and Speaker was player-manager of the Indians. Both players retired in 1928 on their own.

Answer: Patsy Dougherty

Although this was the first World Series in 1903, it went eight games. There would be a series home run drought after that until the next player hit two in a series. That was Fred Clarke who hit two for his Pirates in 1909. He was followed by Frank "Home Run" Baker in 1911, then Harry Hooper of the Red Sox in 1915.

In the 1923 series, Babe Ruth hit three big ones, then hit four in 1926, two more in 1927, three in 1928, and finally two more in his last World Series in 1932.

Answer: John Franco

All the others started games, and only Wilhelm appeared in 1000 games. After six years with Cincinnati, then 15 with the Mets, John retired as a Houston Astro in 2005. He appeared in a total of 1119 games. Strangely enough, he pitched in 1245.7 innings which averaged a cameo appearance in each game. Amongst his leading the league three times in saves, he also won two Rolaids Relief awards.

His career win-loss record was only 90-87 in all those seasons.

Answer: Charlie Grant

Before the new American League even began in the 1901 season, controversy was everywhere in spring training with John McGraw's discovery of "Tokohama", a full-blooded Cherokee. McGraw, manager of the Orioles (later Yankees) was looking at a map on the wall, and saw the name of a creek in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

This is how he came up with the name and idea. Grant never played in a regular season game thanks to Charles Comiskey. Third baseman-shortstop Jimmy Williams was converted to a second baseman for that Giants season due to the loss of Grant.

He hit 26 doubles, 21 triples, seven home runs, and batted .317. Charles Comiskey is as well documented as Cap Anson for being two of the most prejudice baseball figures in history.