The Abacus of Baseball Trivia Quiz

Answer: 6

The American League teams in the season were the Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, Kansas City Royals, and Texas Rangers. Over in the National League found the Cincinnati Reds and Colorado Rockies. In the 2016 World Series, the Cubs defeated the Indians four games to three.

Answer: 1

There were no pitching Triple Crowns in the 1950s after fans witnessed five in the 1930s and two in the 1940s. New York Yankee Mickey Mantle was the only player to walk away with a Triple Crown in the 1950s. His bat showed the force in 1956 by batting .353 with 52 home runs and forcing 130 RBIs.

More amazingly in Mantle's statistics is that he was a switch-hitter. The "Commerce Comet" was inducted into the Hall of Fame after 18 seasons with the Yankees in 1974. He died in 1995 at the age of 63.

Answer: 1960

The only season listed that had anyone inducted into the Hall was in 1970. Four people were brought to immortality that year in the names of Lou Boudreau, Earl Combs, Ford Frick, and Jesse Haines.

Answer: 2

Ryne Sandberg won the NL MVP in 1984 in addition to pitcher Rick Sutcliffe winning the NL Cy Young Award. Andre Dawson duplicated Sandberg's feat by winning the MVP in 1987. They were the first Cubs to win the MVP since Ernie Banks won it in 1958 and 1959.

Answer: 1980

The Phillies appeared in all the World Series listed but couldn't bag their first title until 1980 against the Kansas City Royals. The team certainly had the talent led by Greg Luzinski, Bake McBride, Pete Rose, and Mike Schmidt. Their key arms on the mound were Steve Carlton and Dick Ruthven. The Phillies' second World Series title came in 2008 against Tampa Bay, four games to one.

Answer: Rogers Hornsby

None of the others wore numbers on their jersey because the American League had not yet mandated numbers when they played. Hornsby played from 1915-1937 in 23 seasons. He played for the Cardinals, Braves, Giants, Cubs, and the St. Louis Browns where he retired in 1937.

He wore the number 16 with the 1933 Browns. He won the MVP in 1925 with the Cardinals and 1929 with the Cubs. Rogers won seven batting titles in addition to two Triple Crown Awards.

Answer: 2

The only two were Mike Scott of the Houston Astros who struck out 306 in 1986 which helped earn him the NL Cy Young Award. The other pitcher was Hall of Fame great Nolan Ryan who struck out 301 in 1989 with the Texas Rangers. Ryan finished fifth for his efforts in the Cy Young voting. Nolan retired as the strikeout king of baseball with 5714 strikeouts while Scott struck out 1469 over 13 seasons.

Answer: Frank Bancroft

Bancroft never played the game and began managing in 1880 with the Worcester Ruby Legs of the National League. In 1881 and 1882 he was in charge of the Detroit Wolverines in the NL also. From there it was on to the Cleveland Blues in 1883, then the Providence Grays in 1884 and 1885 still in the National League.

The American Association found Bancroft with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1887. Back to the National League in 1889 he managed the Indianapolis Hoosiers. Frank ended his managerial career with the Cincinnati Reds in 1902.

Answer: Carl Yastrzemski

Yaz was a career Boston Red Sox player from 1961-1983 over 23 seasons. In addition to him winning one American League MVP in 1967, winning four batting titles and batting for the Triple Crown in 1967, Carl won the AL batting title in 1968 with a frivolous .301 average.

He won the batting title over the Athletics' Danny Cater who batted only .290 in the season. In comparison, Pete Rose of the Reds won the NL batting title with a .335 average in 1968 and also found four other NL sluggers to hit over .300.

Answer: 1965

The pitcher was Jim "Mudcat" Grant in 1965. Grant was a Minnesota Twin and in his eighth season at the time. He went 21-7 in the season and finished sixth for the AL MVP Award. It was Jim's only 20-game winning season. He pitched for seven teams over 14 seasons with a 145-119 career record and retired in 1971.