Now Batting, Number Eight Trivia Quiz

Answer: 17

Yogi Berra was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972, and Bill Dickey had previously been elected there in 1954. Both men were enshrined as Yankee catchers. Bill Dickey played on some of the great Yankee teams of the early 1930s, winning seven championships with the team. As a Yankees coach in 1949, Bill mentored Yogi at the catching position. Yogi was a 15-time All-Star, 10-time World Series champ, and three-time Most Valuable Player award winner.

Answer: 1990

Joe Morgan was a 10-time All-Star, with one All-Star game MVP award, two-time World Series Champion, and two-time National League Most Valuable Player. He chose number eight because of Willie Stargell.

Answer: New York Mets

Gary 'The Kid" Carter was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2003.
Gary compiled over 2000 hits, 1100 RBIs, 1000 runs scored, and 341 home runs in 2296 games. He went to 11 All-Star games winning the Most Valuable Player award at two of those, three Gold Gloves, and five Silver Slugger awards.
He played his first 10 full seasons with the Expos, five seasons with Mets, one with Dodgers, one with the Giants, and finished with his original team, the Expos. Gary Carter's number was retired by the Expos, but when the team moved to Washington D.C. thus becoming the Washington Nationals, the retired number along with those of other Expo greats was moved to the Belle Center, home of the Montreal Canadians.

Answer: 2632

Lou Gehrig was known as the "Iron Horse" during his playing days as part of the Yankee's alongside Babe Ruth, who dominated baseball in the late 1920s. The 1927 Yankees hitters are known as "Murderers Row". Gehrig is also immortalized in the great sports movie, "The Pride of the Yankees", in which Gary Cooper played him and the aforementioned Bill Dickey played himself. Cal played in 3001 games in his career, had 3184 hits, hit 431 home runs, and had 1695 RBIs. Cal was a 19-time All-Star, eight-time Silver Slugger, two-time All-Star MVP, two-time Gold Glove winner, two-time league MVP, and Rookie of the Year award winner in 1982.

Many say Cal paved the way for a different view of the shortstop position in the Major Leagues.

Answer: Pops

Willie "Pops" Stargell was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1988. Willie was known for crushing home runs literally out of stadiums. In 1979, Stargell and Keith Hernandez were Co-MVPs of the National League. Stargell was also named National League Championship MVP and World Series MVP in 1979. Making him the first to receive at least a share of all three of these awards in the same year.

Some other notables from the 1979 Pirates were Dave Parker, Bert Blylevyn, Dale Berra (Yogi's son), and Phil Garner.

Answer: Won the Triple Crown

Winning the Triple Crown in baseball is the daunting feat of leading the league in batting average, home runs and RBI's in the same season. Ted Williams was the last player in 1941 to hit over .400 and win the batting title. The first player to hit four home runs in a game was Lou Gehrig in 1932.

Answer: Javy Lopez

A couple of other players who have worn the number eight for the franchise are Bob Watson for the same Atlanta Braves, and Rabbit Warstler when the team was known as the Boston Bees.

Answer: Shane Victorino and Jason Bartlett

While not stars on their teams, both Victorino and Bartlett were full time players for their respective teams. Victorino scored over one hundred runs during the regular season. In the playoffs Shane had 13 RBIs and three stolen bases to help the Phillies to the World Series championship. Bartlett had 20 stolen bases during the regular season and scored eight runs during the playoffs.

Answer: Albert Belle

In 1593 games, Albert had an overall batting average of .295 and a slugging percentage of .594. The difference between batting average and slugging percentage is that total bases are taken into account when being divided by total at bats. Albert was the first player to ever have 50 home runs and 50 doubles in a season.

His statistics would most certainly have made him a good candidate for the Hall of Fame if he had not developed degenerative osteoarthritis in his hip, causing him to end his career early.

Answer: Roberto Mejia

While not a great or well known player Roberto does have the unique distinction of being the first player to have worn the number 8 for the Rockies franchise. Yorvit Torrealba started wearing number eight for the Rockies in 2006 and did not enter the big leagues until 2001 with San Francisco. Dale Murphy wore number three and Vinny Castilla wore number nine for that Rockies team in their inaugural season.