Not-So-Basic Nightmare Baseball [3] Quiz

Answer: Willie McCovey

In his tenth year as number 44 with the San Francisco Giants, Willie McCovey (or 'Willie Mac') managed this record-breaking number of intentionals, a record that would take more than three decades to beat (by Barry Bonds, who also played for the Giants). In the same year, McCovey would win the MLB's MVP award.

McCovey was a feared batter in everyone's eyes, and his legacy is amongst the strongest in Giants history. He started and ended his career with them, playing with the Padres and Athletics briefly in his twenty-one year career in the MLB. He would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986.

McCovey passed away in California in 2018.

Answer: Nolan Ryan

The strikeouts record is interesting since the most strikeouts in the American Association, well before the MLB, was a total of 513 with the honour going to Matt Kilroy. Nolan Ryan wouldn't hit that many in 1973 but he would top the records books for the MLB with his grand total of 383, doing so while playing for the California Angels. His last pitch of the season struck out Rich Reese of the Minnesota Twins.

Ryan surpassed the great Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers who topped the record books with a total of 382 when he played the 1965 season. Ryan would be the leader in annual strikeouts eleven times in his career (taking the title through most of the 1970s). His record of 383 would stand into the twenty-first century.

Answer: Cincinnati Reds

Concepción's career with the Reds would span nearly two decades from 1970 to the 1988 season; he never played with another team in his MLB career. Considered an iron man shortstop, he joined the team for two World Series championships in the mid-1970s, ultimately having his number (13) retired at the end of his run. Though he would try to continue playing in the Major Leagues after being released by the Reds, he would end up retiring in 1989, returning to his native country of Venezuela.

Answer: Moe Drabowsky

It was May 13, 1958 when Musial hit this milestone, doing so in Wrigley Field, Chicago, when the St. Louis Cardinals faced the Cubs. Musial would be the sixth person to hit three thousand hits, joining the ranks of Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins. Musial would be a Cardinal for his full career, retiring after the 1963 season.

Moe Drabowsky, meanwhile, played for the Cubs for the first five careers of his long career in the game; he would be on eight teams in sixteen years, winning two World Series. He passed away in 2006.

Answer: Oscar Stanage

With a career spanning more than two and a half decades of play in the leagues, Stanage committed an outrageous forty-one errors behind the plate in 1911 for the Detroit Tigers. It would be his third season with the team though he would end up playing with them from 1909 to 1920 (and then once more for a season in 1925). Ironically, he also set the American League record for most assists in a season in the same year, scoring two hundred and twelve.

Oscar Stanage would go on to become a coach (for the Tigers in 1925 and then for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1927-1931), retiring from the sport shortly after. He would live the remainder of his life in Detroit, passing away in 1964.

Answer: 3-21

Don Larsen's perfect game was a record-breaker for the history books as he completed a feat that would continue into the twenty-first century, pitching a perfect World Series game when he faced the Brooklyn Dodgers. What's surprising is that Larson had his 3-21 record only two years earlier in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles. At that time, his lifetime record was 30-40.

For his feat, Larsen would be awarded the World Series Most Valuable Player Award and the Babe Ruth Award in the same year.

Answer: Five

Ott, then of the New York Giants was passed at every at-bat in this game on October 5th, 1929 when the team played against the Phillies. He would have three such instances of being walked five times and, interestingly, he would break the record for intentional walks for a doubleheader in the same year (with six). In the October 5th game, he was only one home run behind the Phillies Chuck Klein for the season lead on the last game of the season. The Phillies passed him up every time purposely.

Ott had a storied career with the Giants across more than twenty years as both a player and a coach, becoming a World Series Champion in 1933, eventually joining the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951. He passed away later in the decade in 1958.

Answer: Roy Face

Roy Face, then of the Pittsburgh Pirates ripped through the league with a .947 percentage which, at the time, became the highest ranking in the twentieth century amongst pitchers with fifteen or more decisions. One of his closest competitors for this record was Johnny Allen of the American League Indians-- he had a .938 percentage in 1937 with a 15-1 record.

Face retired with several records, being one of the longest-playing pitchers with the most appearances in the league. He was a World Series Champion only once, in 1960. He last played in 1969.

Answer: Twice

Playing the sport throughout all of the 1920s and part of the 1930s on the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees, Sewell was a two-time World Series Champion, once on each team, and was a record-holder for strikeout rates. At one point in his career, he managed nearly ten dozen consecutive games without a strikeout, making the feat in question quite notable.

Sewell was struck out twice in one game only two times throughout his entire career, the second being in the last game of the 1930 season against the White Sox when Pat Caraway zapped him twice. The first time was when unknown Cy Warmoth did it in 1923. Ironically, Warmoth had a career strikeout total of 54.

Answer: Left

The Cy Young Award, given to top pitchers in the league on an annual basis, was first given in 1956 though Spahn won it in its second year. Because its inaugural winner was right-handed, it made Spahn the first such winner to claim it for being a lefty. At the time, he played for the Milwaukee Braves.

Originally, the Cy Young Award was given to the one person across all leagues but in 1967 it was won by one person in the American League and one in the National League. Before this happened, Sandy Koufax walked away with the prize three times. Roger Clemens would get it seven times across eighteen years of his even-longer career. Clemens threw right; Koufax threw left, like Spahn.