Road Apples
Feb. 23, 2009


National Pastime Quiz

By Tim Sanders

My wife and I have been watching the Ken Burns PBS documentary on baseball. There are 10 DVDs in the series, which lasts for over 25 hours and covers the history of the national pastime from the days of the old colonial teams to modern times. Our game strategy has been to fortify ourselves with peanuts and crackerjacks, warm up the remote in the bullpen, watch one of the DVDs, have some more peanuts and crackerjacks, and then watch another DVD in a week or so. One evening we did attempt a doubleheader, but it took too much out of us, so now we pace ourselves. It is an excellent film series, and paints vivid pictures of the old ball game and the characters it produced.

In a little more than a month the major league season will begin, and I thought the following quiz inspired by those DVDs might help prepare you. I guess you could call it a spring training exercise.


1. The Atlanta Braves franchise was originally known as:

A. The Boston Beaneaters
B. The Boston Braves
C. The Milwaukee Brewers
D. The Milwaukee Braves
E. The Pips
F. Please go on to the next question, we’re feeling queasy


2. This man pitched for the Boston Red Stockings from 1871 to 1876, and then changed stockings and played for the Chicago White Stockings from 1876 to 1878. His name, now synonymous with sporting equipment, is:

A. Lester Wilson
B. Lionel Rawlings
C. Al Spalding
D. Jacques Strapp


3. The old Brooklyn Dodgers were originally called:

A. The old Corn Dodgers
B. The old Draft Dodgers
C. The old Trolley Dodgers
D. The old Codgers


4. In the very early days of baseball, a base runner could be "soaked out." What did this mean?

A. A torrential thunderstorm got him mired in the mud between bases
B. He’d forgotten to visit the latrine before stepping into the batter’s box
C. An accurate fielder managed to "stick one in his ear" before he reached base


5. Rube Waddell, who set several major league records pitching for both American League and National League teams in the early 1900s, was famous for:

A. Running off the field to chase fire engines
B. Being easily distracted on the mound by opposing fans who waved puppies and shiny objects in the air
C. Wrestling alligators in the offseason
D. All of the above


6. Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander was named after:

A. A United States President, possibly Millard Fillmore
B. That bustling Ohio metropolis on the shores of Lake Erie, Grover City
C. He was named after his birth in 1887


7. In 1965, Mobile Alabama’s Satchel Paige pitched his last major league game for the Kansas City Athletics. He was somewhere between 58 and 65 years old, depending on which verison of his birthday you choose to believe. Satchel Paige, of course, was not his real name. His real name was:

A. Handbag Paige
B. Shopping Cart Paige
C. Leroy Robert Paige
D. Satchel Paragraph


8. Perhaps the greatest hurler of all time was:

A. Cy Young, who had 511 career wins between 1890 and 1911
B. Walter Johnson, who in 1913 won 36 games with 11 shutouts and 243 strikeouts
C. Babe Ruth, who between games in a 1916 doubleheader against the Washington Senators, consumed 14 hot dogs and 19 pints of beer


9. Eddie Gaedel is best remembered as:

A. The lanky second baseman for the 1900 Chicago Orphans baseball team
B. The powerful, hard-hitting center fielder for the 1902 Toledo Pygmy Goats
C. The feared, one-armed St. Louis southpaw who struck out Ted Williams four consecutive times in the 1946 World Series
D. The 3 ft. 7 in., 65 lb. dwarf, wearing the number 1/8 on his jersey, hired by owner Bill Veeck as a pinch hitter for the St. Louis Browns against the Detroit Tigers in the second game of an August 19, 1951 doubleheader


10. Speaking of dwarves, one of whom might or might not have been Eddie Gaedel, how did Bill Veeck prevent his little pinch hitter from swinging at the ball in his only major league at-bat?

A. Veeck promised him steroids and a Shetland pony
B. He duct-taped the bat to his shoulder
C. He told him he had a sharpshooter with a high-powered rifle in the stands, and if that bat moved even an inch off his tiny shoulder, he’d shoot him where he stood


11. Yogi Berra once said:

A. If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, nobody’s gonna stop ’em.
B. It gets late early out there.
C. Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
D. I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let ‘’’em walk to school like I did.
E. I never said most of the things I said.


12. According to officials at the National Goofy Names Registry, the three most popular baseball names are:

A. Nap, Enos and Honus
B. Goose, Rabbit and Chick
C. Dizzy, Daffy, and Three Fingers
D. Grumpy, Sneezy and Doc


13. Who’s on first?

A. That’s him.
B. Who?
C. Absolutely, he’s the guy on first
D. You mean Absolutely’s the guy on first?
E. No, he’s the shortstop.


If you can answer all of these questions correctly, and are the first to give us a call here at the Post, we’d like to present you, in a quiet yet dignified ceremony on the steps of the old County Courthouse, with an authentic 1927 major league baseball signed by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri. We’d like to, but we don’t have any such baseball, so you’ll have to settle for an attractive laurel, and hardy handshake.