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 Post subject: Great baseball trivia question
PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 9:48 am 
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Though if you saw it presented during the Yanks-Mets ESPN telecast Sunday, it will be a piece of cake. I hadn't, so I was stumped. Took me the better part of three hours to get the answer.

Who are the two players other than A-Rod to hit at least 100 homers for three clubs?

If you're like me, you will be surprised at some of the names who don't qualify.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 10:58 am 
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My first two guesses would be Bobby Bonds and Dave Kingman.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:25 am 
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jjmoney62 wrote:
My first two guesses would be Bobby Bonds and Dave Kingman.


Kingman must be one. I wouldn't have guessed Bonds, but he seems as likely as anyone I can come up with.

If not Bonds, then perhaps Eddie Murray? Frank Howard?


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:37 am 
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Nope, none of the men JJ or Wayne named. Kingman was the first to come to my mind, too, but he fell just six homers short with the Cubs.

I'm glad to see others are struggling a bit with this one too!

This is the perfect type of discussion to have in a bar over a cold one or two.

Barkeep, another round for the boys!


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:47 am 
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A perhaps better guess than Frank Howard or Eddie Murray is mentioned in AP's story about Canseco's new allegations about steroid cover-ups: Rafael Palmeiro.

From that AP story, which also mentions Jose's debut with a low minor league team (3 K's, 1 HBP):

One day after his 42nd birthday, Canseco showed up at the ballpark tanned and toned with his short, black hair slicked back. He sported tight jeans and a black button-down shirt, with several of those buttons open, exposing his muscular chest. And he noted that years of steroids use has helped slow the aging process for him. He weighs 230 pounds - down significantly from his playing weight of between 255 and 260.

Canseco carried a fancy, red duffel bag when he made his entrance into the modest, 4,100-seat ballpark on the campus of rural Chico State University, some 170 miles north of the San Francisco Bay area. A sellout crowd turned out..




Last edited by Wayne Countryman on Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:49 am 
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Palmeiro came to my mind late, Wayne, but alas, he was not among the trio.

Jose really should get on with the rest of his life.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:03 pm 
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wordygurdy wrote:
Jose really should get on with the rest of his life.


Jose has a better on-base average than I do after this. I'm flailing desperately.

Orlando Cepeda and Gary Sheffield?

Marv Throneberry?


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:05 pm 
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Throneberry. Hee-hee.

Nope.

Sheffield came to mind about 3 a.m. today, but no dice.

Let me know if you want hints.

I'll also share my list of people whom I thought it was once someone gets the answer. You won't believe some of the people on it.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:38 pm 
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Wordy, I should have gone to work instead of tackling this. Now I need to go to a bar and get smart.

Great trivia question.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:42 pm 
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Wayne Countryman wrote:
Wordy, I should have gone to work instead of tackling this. Now I need to go to a bar and get smart.

Great trivia question.


Indeed. I'll be around most of the day but will probably be going out this evening. I'm fairly confident someone will get the answer before long.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 1:28 pm 
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Studying for the bar exam has kept me away from baseball lately, so I didn't catch the Mets-Yanks game Sunday. I could use one of those hints.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 1:30 pm 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
Studying for the bar exam has kept me away from baseball lately, so I didn't catch the Mets-Yanks game Sunday. I could use one of those hints.


One of them is a Hall of Famer. (The Hall that's in Cooperstown, N.Y. That wasn't a trick hint.)


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:05 pm 
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Hmm. Reggie Jackson?


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:14 pm 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
Hmm. Reggie Jackson?
One down, one to go.

It even took me a while to come up with Reggie, though he should have been obvious. Many, many others came to mind before he did.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:18 pm 
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Hall of Famer: Al Simmons? [I don't know if he's in the Hall or if he even played for three teams]

not in Hall: Jack Clark?


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:19 pm 
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Wayne Countryman wrote:
Hall of Famer: Al Simmons? [I don't know if he's in the Hall or if he even played for three teams]

not in Hall: Jack Clark?


No to Simmons and Clark. Reggie is one of the two. We need one more.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:20 pm 
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I'll be honest: I didn't think Reggie did it.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:22 pm 
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Sammy Sosa?


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 4:49 pm 
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I was going to guess Andres Galarraga, but then I remembered how bad he was as a Cardinal. (OK, I had to go check, and he actually came close during his stint with the Braves).


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 5:39 pm 
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I looked it up. Not Sosa. Took me about 15 guesses beyond the several I'd already made here.

Now I can get on with my life.

Thanks for the challenge, Wordy.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 5:58 pm 
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I was wondering how long it would take for someone to look it up.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 6:11 pm 
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I didn't think Jackson would have hit 100 with a team besides the A's and Yanks.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 6:13 pm 
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wordygurdy wrote:
Barkeep, another round for the boys!


I think that's the first time Wordy's ever bought a round -- and wouldn't you know, it's a virtual one.

(That's my impersonation of any generic color commentator or radio play-by-play man.)


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 6:44 pm 
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jjmoney62 wrote:
(That's my impersonation of any generic color commentator or radio play-by-play man.)


So, how's your golf game?


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 9:21 pm 
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Hey, I'd be glad to buy a round if'n I'm at another ACES conference someday.

JJ, I was a bit surprised that Jackson did it with the Angels too. I didn't think he was there long enough.

Wayne, it was a hard one, huh? Here's the list of players I went through:

Rickey Henderson, Ken Griffey Jr., Harold Baines, Fred McGriff, Oscar Gamble, Keith Hernandez, Darryl Strawberry, Bill Buckner, Ivan Rodriguez, Andre Dawson, Bobby Bonds, Dwight Evans, Albert Belle, George Bell, Manny Ramirez, Kirk Gibson, Lance Parrish, Larry Parrish, Mickey Tettleton, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Dave Parker, George Hendrick, Cecil Fielder.

Most of those guys were with three clubs but didn't hit enough homers with all of them. I think most fans came up with Kingman right away because it sounds like the sort of relatively meaningless stat for which he would have been known.

Phillip, it's not that easy a stat to look up, given that such a stat isn't officially tracked. You have to have a pretty wide knowledge of home-run hitters over the past 30 years.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 10:28 pm 
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Hah. I found it on the "Internet" in about 10 seconds.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:59 pm 
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I have rules for my cheating


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 7:42 am 
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Phillip Blanchard wrote:
Hah. I found it on the "Internet" in about 10 seconds.


By "Internet" you mean Wikipedia, right?

I just gave in and Googled it to find the non-HOFer, and the Wikipedia entry was the first one to have it.

Glad I checked. I would never have guessed the answer if you gave me all year.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 8:08 am 
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Two more guesses, then I give up.

Gary Gaetti and Dick Allen.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 10:45 am 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
Phillip Blanchard wrote:
Hah. I found it on the "Internet" in about 10 seconds.


By "Internet" you mean Wikipedia, right?



No.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 11:02 am 
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Ah. I figured the quotation marks were intended as derisive.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 11:49 am 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
Glad I checked. I would never have guessed the answer if you gave me all year.


The bar exam will be easier.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 11:06 pm 
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Fred McGriff was going to be my guess, but when I looked it up, I discovered he fell exactly one homer short of the feat.

I'm still searching for the answer ...


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 11:26 pm 
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For the record ... I figured it out.

But it was with research, not by guessing, so I won't ruin it for those of you still searching (or guessing).

As for McGriff, had he been successful in his pursuit of 500, he most likely would've been an addition to this list, as the team he hit 99 with - the Devil Rays - was the same team he finished his career with.

One could guess that if he had known he was just one homer shy of this milestone, he might've tried to stick it out a bit longer. Or maybe not, since he hung it up just 7 shy of 500. Anyway, I digress ...


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:40 am 
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Biggdbo wrote:
For the record ... I figured it out.

But it was with research, not by guessing, so I won't ruin it for those of you still searching (or guessing).

As for McGriff, had he been successful in his pursuit of 500, he most likely would've been an addition to this list, as the team he hit 99 with - the Devil Rays - was the same team he finished his career with.

One could guess that if he had known he was just one homer shy of this milestone, he might've tried to stick it out a bit longer. Or maybe not, since he hung it up just 7 shy of 500. Anyway, I digress ...


I think it's pretty cool that no one has revealed the name of the non-Hall of Famer here.

Crime Dog was a class act, and, boy, could he make the baseball disappear.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:02 pm 
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I don't suppose it's giving anything away to say that Total Baseball ranks him higher than Rod Carew, Ernie Banks and Johnny Bench, using the "total player" rating. Does this mean our mystery man belongs in the Hall of Fame?


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:34 pm 
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ADKbrown wrote:
Does this mean our mystery man belongs in the Hall of Fame?


I don't think so. Only 1 year with over 100 RBIs, never hit 30 doubles in a season, .248 career average, only 1 season with at least 150 hits, just 4 seasons with at least 30 homers (and led the league once), and he was an All-Star just twice (for whatever that's worth).

Basically, he's one of those guys who hit a lot of home runs because he played a long time. That's nice, but I don't think it makes him a Hall-of-Famer.

(Sorry if this gives it away, but I don't think it will.)


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:17 pm 
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I don't have time to look this up, but I am really curious as to the answer. Would someone please PM it to me?

Edit: Answer received. I wouldn't have come up with him in a million years myself. Thanks, guys.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:13 pm 
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Yeah, he had a solid career but was always overshadowed by the stars on his various teams. Not Hall material at the end of the day.


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 7:44 pm 
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Biggdbo wrote:
ADKbrown wrote:
Does this mean our mystery man belongs in the Hall of Fame?


I don't think so. Only 1 year with over 100 RBIs, never hit 30 doubles in a season, .248 career average, only 1 season with at least 150 hits, just 4 seasons with at least 30 homers (and led the league once), and he was an All-Star just twice (for whatever that's worth).

Basically, he's one of those guys who hit a lot of home runs because he played a long time. That's nice, but I don't think it makes him a Hall-of-Famer.

(Sorry if this gives it away, but I don't think it will.)


I wouldn't have thought so either, but these newfangled stats, if you believe them, are supposed to reveal hidden merits and demerits in players. In this case, they suggest our mystery man was better, over the course of his career, than Carew, Bench and Banks. By the old stats, those three seem clearly superior. The new stats factor in fielding, by the way.


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:08 am 
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Damn this Internet. I might have wrestled with this for some time, and maybe even consulted an almanac. And I would have learned all kinds of things in the pursuit.

But, as No. 1 said, the answer is easy to find.

Darn good trivia question though. I would never have come up with the answer on my own.


Last edited by hwoodnorth on Sun Jul 09, 2006 4:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 4:07 am 
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Was going to say David Justice, but not even close.

Ken Caminiti is also wrong. I was only conscious of baseball around 1997, so this might be impossible for me.

I need to consider that hint you gave. Mike Piazza hasn't quite hit 100 for the Padres yet (or in his six-day stint with the Marlins).

Since you said Reggie Jackson, this other player must have been a Met at some point. Maybe that's painfully obvious, but it works me.

Nope on Bobby Bonilla.

I finally looked it up – had never heard of the guy.


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