Baseball

Question: What was Hall of Fame pitcher Mordecai Brown’s nickname?

Answer: A farming accident during his youth robbed Brown of parts of two fingers on his pitching hand, giving rise to his memorable nickname. His injury did not prevent him from becoming one of the dominant pitchers of all time, as he posted the sixth best career earned run average (2.06) in major-league history.

Question: Who is popularly (and incorrectly) credited with having invented baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York?

Answer: A 1907 commission appointed by the American sporting-goods manufacturer A.G. Spalding concluded that Doubleday invented baseball, a claim that has since been proven false. The nationalistic commission felt the need to prove that the “national pastime” was a wholly American creation, but, in fact, baseball was adapted from a similar English game called “rounders.”

Question: Which baseball player holds the record for most professional hits across all baseball leagues?

Answer: While Rose has the most hits in major-league history (4,256), the 1,278 hits that Ichiro amassed in Japan’s Pacific League combined with his major-league hits led to him breaking Rose’s total professional hits record in 2016.

Question: In how many consecutive games did Joe DiMaggio record a hit during his historic 1941 season?

Answer: One of the most well-known records in the history of American sports, DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak is a feat that will be hard to ever surpass, as the closest that anyone has ever gotten to it in the more than seven decades since was Pete Rose’s 44-game streak in 1978.

Question: Which country won the inaugural World Baseball Classic tournament in 2006?

Answer: The World Baseball Classic was begun in 2006 to give international baseball teams an Olympic Games-styled competition, and Japan won the first two events.

Question: Who was the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, serving in that role from 1920 until 1944?

Answer: Following the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which eight Chicago White Sox players were accused of accepting bribes to lose the World Series, Landis became the first MLB commissioner in an effort to better oversee the behavior of the players and the play of the game.

Question: Who has the all-time most career Major League Baseball innings pitched with 7,356, a record that many observers consider to be unbreakable?

Answer: The most durable pitcher in major-league history, Young set records that modern pitchers (who pitch less frequently and have pitch-count limits when they do) will never equal, including wins (511), losses (316), and complete games (749), in addition to the number of innings pitched.

Question: In which of the following statistical categories did Barry Bonds not hold the all-time Major League Baseball record at the end of his career?

Answer: One of the most proficient hitters of all time, Bonds left the game in 2007 with the most home runs (762), walks (2,558), and intentional walks (688). His 2,227 runs scored rank third in baseball history behind Rickey Henderson (2,295) and Ty Cobb (2,244).

Question: Which team won the first World Series in 1903?

Answer: After years of the “baseball wars” that saw teams from the newly formed American League poach star players from the established National League, the two organizations agreed to a truce and decided to pit their respective champions against each other in the World Series beginning in 1903. That inaugural event was a best-of-nine-games series, in which the Boston Americans (now known as the Red Sox) defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates five games to three.

Question: Who is the most recent major-league player to win the batting triple crown by leading his league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in during a season?

Answer: Winning the triple crown was a much more common occurrence during the first two-thirds of the 20th century, with 14 winners between 1901 and 1967. In 2012 Cabrera became the first hitter to capture the triple crown in 45 years when he batted .330 with 44 home runs and 139 runs batted in.

Question: What did the irascible Ted Williams do in the final at bat of his 19-year major-league career?

Answer: Never known for his friendliness, Williams showed how little he was concerned with public perception when he refused to come out for a curtain call after ending his incredible career with a home run in front of his adoring Boston fans, a moment that author John Updike memorialized with his famous line “Gods do not answer letters.”

Question: Which of the following Negro Leagues greats and Hall of Famers never played a game in the major leagues?

Answer: Although Paige, Doby, and Campanella all had varying degrees of success in major-league baseball, Gibson (“the black Babe Ruth”) never played at that level, as he died of a stroke during the year in which MLB was integrated.