Heritage Trivia - The Rest of the Cubs

As promised, here are the back of the remaining six Cubs Heritage cards with a focus on the trivia questions.

#127 Edwin Jackson

"What's the most games played in one World Series?"

Long ago, at the beginning of the World Series as we know it, it was a best of 9 series. In 1903, the first of the modern World Series, Boston defeated Pittsburgh Pirates 5 games to 3 for a total of 8 games. Nobody ever made it to 9 games.

In a trick I learned from today's Wrigley Wax post, I found the black Venezuelen back of the cards so I didn't have to scratch off the answer:

#191 Anthony Rizzo

"Who leads active players with 54 HRs leading off games?"

I knew this one was Alfonso Soriano but it took me a little bit to find a list of some sort. Its a shame he doesn't bat leadoff anymore (as far as catching Rickey goes anyway) but he probably doesn't have enough left in the tank to catch him anyway.

Cubs connection? Obviously, Soriano is a Cub. Of Soriano's 54 leadoff home runs, 22 of them have come with the Cubs.

#220 Matt Garza

"Which Hall of Famer won the 1st Award for top DH?"

I'm a Cubs fan. Which means, in general, I follow National League baseball a whole heck of a lot more than the American League. So much so that I didn't even know there was such an award for the DH. I mean it makes sense and all, I just never even thought about it.

Apparently it was called the Outstanding Designated Hitter Award (real creative there, guys) but was renamed the Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designate Hitter Award because he won it five times. That has since been matched and beaten by the the Boston's David Ortiz, who currently has six.

But the question doesn't ask for most, it asks for first. That award went to Orlando Cepeda of the 1973 Boston Red Sox.

Cubs Connection? Unless a Cubs player bats 1.000 which a gajillion home runs in interleague play, they probably shouldn't have a connection to this. Although former Cubs players Dave Kingman and Rafael Palmeiro went on to win it after leaving Chicago. Former Cubs skipper Don Baylor also won it as a player.

"What's the 1st word of the 1st rule in the rule book"

Which rule book? Fight Club? I didn't even know where to search for this so this is straight up cheating. Night Owl actually scratched off the answer to this question a few posts ago so I knew it was Baseball.

Cubs connection? Sometimes the Cubs play baseball. Hopefully they play more of it this year than they did in 2012.

"Who in 2012, hit the 1st ever HR in a Wild Card game?"

This one was a little easier than I thought it was going to be.I knew the two Wild Cards games were played on the same day so I thought it migt have to come down to finding a time stamp or something. But as luck would have it, there were no home runs in the Texas Rangers-Baltimore Orioles game. Each team hit one in the NLWC game. Matt Holliday of the Cardinals hit a solo shot in the top of the 6th inning, but by that time, history had already been made by Atlanta's David Ross, who hit a 2-run shot in the bottom of the 2nd inning.

Cubs Connection? HAHAHAHAHA, Cubs in the playoffs? No. And no former Cubs played in the game although there were some on the rosters.

"Which pitcher lost a game after he retired in 1959?"

Statistical leaders and first are all fine and dandy but this is my kind of trivia. I love these little anecdotal stories and look for them to include when I write my own blurbs for my customs. This link I found gives a pretty good account of what happened. I figured it would be weather or, in that era, maybe darkness that caused a delayed game to be finished later in the season, but the real cause was funnier.

Anyway, the answer is Jim Hearn of the Philadelphia Phillies. I recommend the link for the back story. Don't worry, its not too long.

Cubs connection? With the Cubs not involved in the game, there wasn't anything I could see from the boxscore other than a couple of future and/or former Cubs in the lineups.

I couldn't find a Venezuelan black back card of Castro on eBay so I'm going to trust the article as accurate without being able to show he proof.

And there you have it, the Cubs 2013 Heritage Trivia challenge. Hope you enjoyed the extra baseball knowledge!

Heritage Trivia - More Cubs

Yesterday, I mentioned that three players in the Cubs team set shared the same trivia question and promised to have the rest today. Well, the post ended up too long so I'm going to split the remaining nine cards over two posts. Six today and six tomorrow.

Starting off, there were three members of the set that did not have a question.

#175 Alfonso Soriano

Alfonso Soriano, the longest tenured MLB player on the Cubs simply had too many statistics filling up the back of his card to squeeze in a question or even a one to two line anecdote.

#399 Dale Sveum

Dale Sveum, the manager had one long blurb. Makes sense with the format of this card to not include a trivia question. Not even one referring to being shot by a Hall of Famer...

Welington Castillo, one of six (I think) catchers the Cubs used last year has his complete Major and Minor League batting record shown on his card and therefore had no room. The only explanation I can think of is leaving out the minor league information left too much room on the card. Although a blurb and a trivia question probably would have filled in the space just fine.

On to the trivia!

#49 Brett Jackson

 "Which was the 1st team, 1961, to hit 4 straight HRS?"

A quick internet search shows that 4 staright HRs has been accomplished 7 time in MLB history. But the question asks for the first team, which happened in 1961. The chart in the link shows the Milwaukee Braves with Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas going deep in the 7th inning on June 8, 1961 against the Cincinnati Reds. The first two home runs were given up by Jim Maloney, with Marshall Bridges giving up the next two.

Cubs connection? Frank Thomas (home run #3) played for the Cubs in 1960-61 and 1966. 

#96 Jeff Samardzija

"Who was the 1st player to play 9 positions in 1 game?"

A search turned up Bert Campaneris on September 8, 1965 against the California Angels as the answer. Interestingly enough, as the link points out, Campaneris not only played all 9 positions but when he pitched, he threw left handed to left handed batters and right handed to right handed batters. Say, what? This was the only time in his MLB career that Campaneris pitched. His inning:

Jose Cardenal - popped out to second base

Albie Pearson - walk

Jim Fregosi - walk

Joe Adcock - single, Pearson scores, Fregosi to second

Bobby Knoop - strikeout, Fregosi thrown out trying to steal 3rd for a strike'em out throw'em out doubleplay

One run, one hit, two walks. Not too bad for a non-pitcher.

This feat has since been matched three times. Cesar Tovar of the Twins did it in 1968. Scott Sheldon of the Rangers and Shane Halter of the Tigers both did it in 2000.

Cubs connection? This is kind of a stretch because all four instances happened in the American League. But the first batter Campaneris faced was future Cub Jose Cardenal who played for the Cubs from 1972-1977.

#145 David DeJesus

"Who was the last NL catcher to win a batting crown before 2012?

I thought this one would be pretty easy to track down. Find a list of batting champions and go back until I found a catcher. As I started going further and further down the list, the names became a little more obscure. Was I missing something? Was there some player I associated with a different position but was previously a catcher? Like a Craig Biggio or Mike Piazza? (Not winners, just examples of position switches).

So after another search, I found an article proclaiming 2012 NL Batting Crown winner Buster Posey to be the first in seven decades. This was probably a big deal and common knowledge when it happened just a few months ago but I didn't pay much attention to leaders and awards other than Darwin Barney's Gold Glove.

The answer? Ernie Lombardi of the Boston Braves in 1942. In my "research" I discovered Joe Mauer is the only catcher from the American League to win a batting crown and has done it three times. Impressive.

Cubs connection? None that I can find relating to Cubs catcher and batting titles. The Cubs have had seven batting crown winners in their history with the most recent being Derrek Lee in 2005. Other winners include Heinie Zimmerman, Phil Cavarretta, Billy Williams, Bill Madlock (twice) and Bill Buckner.

Thanks for playing! Tune in tomorrow for another rousing edition of Heritage Trivia!

Heritage Trivia - Repeats?

Two weeks I posted the results from my first (and so far, only) pack of 2013 Heritage. I managed to pull one Cub, Darwin Barney.  In the meantime, my Cubs team set came in the mail. I don't have any of the original 1964 Cubs cards so I won't be doing a compare and contrast. But one thing I did notice was that three of the Cubs cards have the same trivia question.



#144 Darwin Barney

#322 Scott Baker

#347 Carlos Marmol

All utilized the same question about Sid Gordon's gift for hitting a home run on Maine Day in 1952. (Answer on the previous post) I won't be completing this set outside of the Cubs and only have the cards I pulled from my singular pack to go by so I don't know if this affects any of the other teams.

Does anybody know if this is one of those quirky homages to the original 1964 Topps set I've been reading about? Or was Topps too lazy to come up with two more questions?

Tomorrow, I'll do a nerdy post with the questions (and maybe the answers) from the rest of the Cubs cards.