Ones and Zeros Trivia Quiz

Answer: Roberto Clemente

Clemente spent his entire 18 year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a 15 time all star and won 12 gold gloves and ended with a .317 batting average. He was killed in a plane crash in 1972 in Puerto Rico or else he likely would have had more than 3000 hits, as he was still active before his death. Unlike most players who have to be retired at least 5 years before being inducted, he was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973 due to this tragedy.

Answer: Babe Ruth

Slugging .690 in a season is hard enough, but doing it over a 22 year career is highly impressive. At the beginning of the 2022 season, Ted Williams ranked second in career slugging percentage at .634 which is significantly less than Ruth's. Ruth finished his career with 714 home runs and over 2200 RBI, and also remarkably racked up 94 wins as a pitcher.

Answer: Cy Young

When Cy Young retired, he was the all time leader in many categories, such as wins, losses, games started, and innings pitched. Cy Young was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1937. Since 1956, MLB began awarding the best pitcher in baseball with what they named the "Cy Young Award" in honor of Young's pitching excellence.

Answer: Lefty Grove

Born Robert Moses Grove, he got his nickname "Lefty" because, obviously enough, he was a left-handed pitcher. Grove's prominence lasted mostly in the 1920s and 1930s, where he won an MVP award in 1931 when he led the league in ERA, wins, and strikeouts. Early Wynn, who won a Cy Young Award in 1959, was another pitcher who retired with exactly 300 wins.

Answer: Ken Griffey Jr.

Ken Griffey Jr. grew up around baseball, as his father was an all star player for the Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds' 1970s teams and his grandfather played high school baseball with Stan Musial. Griffey Jr. was plagued by injuries in the last half of his career but still managed to hit over 600 home runs and 1836 RBI.

He won the 1997 AL MVP when he hit 56 home runs. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016 with 99.3% of the vote, which at the time was the highest percentage ever.

Answer: Mark McGwire

McGwire broke Roger Maris' single season home run record of 61 in 1998. Sammy Sosa also surpassed Maris that year and finished with 66 home runs. The following year, McGwire hit 65 home runs and Sosa hit 63. Barry Bonds broke McGwire's record in 2001 when he belted 73 home runs for the San Francisco Giants. Also, once again, Sosa went over 60 home runs with 64 that season.

Answer: Ted Williams

Williams lost nearly five seasons due to war service in World War II and the Korean War. Despite this, he was able to eclipse the 500 home run mark and drive in 1839 runs. He hit .344 in his career and retired with the all time on base percentage record at .482. He was also the last man in the 20th century to hit over .400 in a season when he hit .406 in 1941.

Answer: Hack Wilson

Wilson drove in 191 runs in 1930, a record that still stood at the beginning of the 2022 season. He also led the league in RBI in 1929 with 159 RBI, but had a relatively short career for being a Hall of Famer; he played 12 seasons with only 5557 plate appearances. He died in 1948, and was posthumously voted into the Hall of Fame in 1979.

Answer: Rickey Henderson

Henderson broke Lou Brock's modern baseball record for stolen bases (Hugh Nicol stole 138 bags in 1887) in 1982 when he stole 130 bases. Eight years later, he broke Brock's all time steals record when he swiped his 939th career base. Henderson retired with 3055 hits and a record 2295 runs scored. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009.

Answer: Denny McLain

McLain won back to back Cy Young awards in 1968 and 1969, but aside from those two years his career was rather lackluster, though he did make the all star team in 1966. He won a World Series ring with the Detroit Tigers in 1968 when they beat the St. Louis Cardinals in 7 games. McLain and Mark McGwire are the only answers in this quiz who have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame as of 2022.