Mashed Potato Baseball Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pete and Pete Rose, Jr.

The other father/son combinations do not exist. Pete was a rookie with the Reds in 1963 and played with them until his release in 1978. He then played for the Phillies and Expos before retiring in 1986. Pete Jr was born in 1969. He played for only one season in 1997 with the Reds. He appeared in 11 games and batted .143 for his solo season in big league baseball.

Answer: 1940s

The Browns met the crosstown Cardinals in 1944. Amazingly they won the opening game of the World Series and game three but that was it. The Cardinals won the series four games to two. The St. Louis Browns (1902-1953) moved and became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954. Rogers Hornsby was the only player to be inducted into the hall between 1940-1943. Hornsby played most of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals and won seven batting crowns with six being in consecutive seasons along with two NL MVP Awards. Hornsby was inducted into the hall in 1942.

Another Cardinal in later years, Stan Musial played his entire 22-season career with St. Louis. He won his batting crowns in 1943, 1946, 1948, 1950-1952, and 1957.

Answer: Randy Johnson

Galvin, Mathewson, and Young never wore jersey numbers that early in baseball. Johnson pitched for 22 seasons while retiring in 2009. He played for six teams including two seasons with the Yankees in 2005 and 2006. It was there that he wore the number 41 instead of the familiar 51 on his back. Randy won five Cy Young Awards during his career and was a runner-up for the award another three times.

Answer: Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

William Devery was the first owner of the franchise when it moved to New York and became the New York Highlanders in 1903. MacPhail was owner and general manager of the team from 1945-1947 then later sold the team to Dan Topping. Steinbrenner purchased the team as lead shareholder from CBS in 1973. MacPhail came back as general manager from 1967-1973 until he was axed by George. Steinbrenner fired/re-hired managers 15 times from 1973 until the end of the century.

Answer: Dan Quisenberry

The others listed were all starting pitchers in their career. Quisenberry played most of his 12-season career from 1979-1990 with the Kansas City Royals. Dan won his consecutive Rolaids Relief Awards in 1982-83-84-85 and also in 1980 for his first time. From 1982-1985 he was also in the top three voting for the Cy Young Award in every season. Quisenberry was runner-up for the Cy Young in 1982 to LaMarr Hoyt of the White Sox, then runner-up again to Willie Hernandez of the Tigers in 1983.

Answer: Barry Bonds

None of the others reached 25 intentional walks, in however long their career was. Bonds led the league an amazing 12 seasons with being walked intentionally from 1986-2007 all with the Pirates and Giants. Not only was Barry the first to reach 300 intentional walks, but he was the first to reach 400, 500, 600, then retired with 688 free passes. Bonds won a record seven NL MVP Awards during his career, a career shrouded with suspicions and allegations of performance enhancing drug use. Bonds also retired with 762 home runs.

Answer: He never went to a World Series

Minoso never played for any of those other teams, and also never played in a World Series game. From 1949-1964 he played fairly steady with the Indians, White Sox, Cardinals, and Senators. He came back in 1976 for three games with the White Sox at the age of 50 and had one hit in eight at-bats. Minnie did another curtain call in 1980 with the White Sox for two games and went hitless.

He was 54 years old at the time. Minoso finally retired with a .298 career batting average while playing in 15 actual seasons.

He would have been a .300 career hitter had he not come back in 1976 and 1980. Saturnino Orestes Armas (Arrieta) "Minnie" Minoso died in March 2015 at the age of 89.

Answer: Oakland Athletics

The other teams did not exist in the 1980s. The Athletics met the Giants in what is known as the "Earthquake Series" in 1989. On October 17th during the warm-ups of game three, a massive earthquake hit the bay area in California. Game three and the series was delayed until October 27th when Oakland resumed its two games to zero lead over the Giants and made it three. Oakland won game four at Candlestick Park in San Francisco and the series was over.

The Athletics outscored the Giants 32-14. The MVP of the series was Athletics pitcher Dave Stewart who won two games and struck out 14 in 16 innings.

In the 1970s World Series, there was also only one skunking by the Reds in 1976 against the Yankees. In the 1990s there were three, provided by the Reds once and the Yankees twice.

Answer: Bobby Cox

Both Cox and Torre retired in 2010, and Cox's final season with the Braves kept him one postseason appearance ahead of the legendary Joe Torre with 16 postseason appearances. Bobby managed for 29 seasons of which 25 were with the Braves and four with the Blue Jays of Toronto. Torre also managed for 29 seasons.

In addition, Cox won five NL pennants but only one World Series in 1995. Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics managed for a tremendous 53 seasons from 1894-1950 and appeared in eight World Series as there were no division or league championship series back then. Stengel was in the same predicament as Mack, but topped Mack by going to 10 World Series in Casey's 25 seasons as a manager and won seven of them.

Answer: New York Mets

With all the power of teams in the 1980s, the Mets broke the century mark in 1986 by winning 108 games, then another 100 games in 1988. It was only the third time that the franchise reached 100 wins in a season, the first coming as the "Amazing Mets" in 1969 with 100 wins.

In 1986 the Mets won the World Series over the Red Sox, but were bounced out of the playoffs in 1988 by the Dodgers in the NLCS. The American League in the 1980s saw the Athletics, Tigers, and Yankees all hit the century mark in wins.