BLUE JAYS 10TH: LOWENSTEIN CHANGED POSITIONS (PLAYING 2B);
ROENICKE STAYED IN GAME (PLAYING 3B); SAKATA CHANGED POSITIONS
(PLAYING C ); AYALA STAYED IN GAME (PLAYING LF); STODDARD
REPLACED MCGREGOR (PITCHING); Johnson homered; Bonnell singled
to center; COLLINS BATTED FOR BARFIELD; T. MARTINEZ REPLACED
STODDARD (PITCHING); Bonnell was picked off and caught stealing
second (pitcher to first); Collins walked; Collins was picked
off first (pitcher to first); Upshaw singled to second; Upshaw
was picked off first (pitcher to first); 1 R, 3 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. 
Blue Jays 4, Orioles 3.

ORIOLES 10TH: BONNELL CHANGED POSITIONS (PLAYING RF); COLLINS
STAYED IN GAME (PLAYING LF); Ripken homered; Murray walked;
Lowenstein grounded out (first unassisted) [Murray to second];
Shelby was walked intentionally; MOFFITT REPLACED MCLAUGHLIN
(PITCHING); Roenicke struck out; Sakata homered [Murray scored,
Shelby scored]; 4 R, 2 H, 0 E, 0 LOB.  Blue Jays 4, Orioles 7.

Next question tests your Blue Jays history acumen ...

Doug Ault hit the team's first home run in franchise history; Joe Carter hit the team's first World Series home run. But what Blue Jay hit the team's first post-season home run, way back in 1985?

I'll start a list and you tell me a title for the list.

  Joe DiMaggio, but not Ted Williams

  George Brett, but not Frank White

  Greg Maddux, but not Tom Glavine.....

 (I'll give more if necessary)

"Ballplayers Who Had Brothers Who Were Also MLB Players."

I will be away from the PC for a while, so if that's what you were looking for, post another question or hand it off to someone else!

Yes, brothers in the Majors.

OK, here's a quick one. When Alfredo Griffin won Rookie of the Year, he actually tied. With whom?

Good question, Mike G.  I looked it up and my guess was wrong -- way wrong.

I was amazed, however, that Barry Bonds was tied for fourth!  Slender Barry was just an amazing player in his own right.

Carl Crawford seems to be a lock to hold this crown one day.

Excellent!!  It helped, being a Giants fan.

OK, heading into this season there are 20 guys with 500 or more HR's.  I guess a lot of you could name most, if not all of them.  How about the next tier down, though?  There are 22 guys with 400-499 HR's heading into this season.  9 are listed as active on Baseball Reference.  I am deleting Bagwell and Juan Gonzalez, as probably not active, leaving 7 active guys between 400 and 499.  Can you get them all?

Thomas, Delgado, Sheffield, Ramirez, ARod... then it gets tricky.

Giambi? Chipper's getting close and I imagine Edmonds is as well, but I don't think they're there yet.

Thomas, Delgado, Sheffield, Ramirez, ARod... then it gets tricky.

I'll say those five plus Griffey and Thome.

Thome I completely missed, but Griff is over 500.

Well done Jim, Piazza was the last guy you missed the first time around.  Your turn.

The complete list, in order: Thomas, Thome, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sheffield, Piazza, Delgado

Ok...

Among players eligible for the Hall of Fame but not yet inducted, who are the top three in career home runs?

Wild guesses: McGuire, Rice, Canseco?

Not prepared to ask a question, but let me draw something out of the recesses of my brain...

What do Eric Chavez and Jimmie Foxx have in common?

I'm looking for something a little less generic.  That both played for the A's leads you in the right direction...

Ooh, ooh, one I know! Phil "Not Carney" Lansford! But I am still wondering about the Foxx/Chavez answer ... anyone have it? Apparently today is all A's, all the time!

I defer my question-asking rights to whoever answers the question still on the table about Foxx and Chavez.

Did Foxx even wear a number? Or was he too early for that? Nah, the Ruth/Gehrig Yanks wore uni numbers, so Foxx probably did, too ...

I looked up the answer I think we are looking for, and it is more specific than the same number.  It is something that only Foxx and Chavez have done. 

I would like to apologize to Mike Glavine who probably checks this site regularly. I had to come up with a question quickly and I apparently goofed. But so did the guy who got the "correct" answer, come to think of it!

  Whoa - I didn't have to admit a mistake. I could have said "No, that's not the answer. This has nothing to do with brothers", and gone on to make some cockamamie list or other.   How long till camps open?

Well then. You said something about this would be found in a media guide, so I went to Eric Chavez's bio at mlb.com.

Chavez and Foxx are the only 2 A's to have 6 or more consecutive seasons with 25 or more Home Runs. Foxx had 7 and Chavez hit 22 this past year, so his streak was stopped at 6. Remarkable, no?

McGwire hit 22 HR's in 1991 to end a 4-year streak. He followed this by going 42, 9, 9, 39, 52, 34 (plus 24 with the Cards).

Canseco got injured in 1989 and only hit 17 to stop his chances

Tejada had 4-straight, but then went to Baltimore.

Giambi also left after his 4th Consecutive 25-HR Season

Reggie Jackson had 1 of his 8 seasons as an Athletic with less than 25, and his longest streak was 5 seasons

Bob Johnson had 5 straight, and then hit 23 in 1939 to end the streak

If I have any right to ask a question, I defer to anyone else.

Shoot, Jeremy, no one will ever get that! :)

(I'm wrong by the way...)

Willie Stargell, Mike Schmidt, and Tony Perez?

Here's a good one that I stumbled across today ...

In 2000, NYY uber--closer Mo Rivera had what may have been, so far, the least effective year of his career; of course, he still led the Yankees with 36 saves and was fourth in the AL with that total.

Question: who was second on the 2000 Yankees in saves with a grand total of two?

Hint: he was much better known for ... other things.

Dingdingding!

Score one for the youngster! Rob, you're up!

Gooden had two of his three career saves with NYY in 2000.

Bruce Bochy.  He even has a French last name.

I'm 99% sure I'm right, so I'll confirm elsewhere and then ask the next question (which was mine to ask anyway!)

OK, it was Bochy as I remembered.

Next question : Carlos Delgado has had the most seasons leading the Blue Jays in OPS (on base percentage + slugging percentage) with eight.  (Only batting title qualifiers are considered.)

Who is second?

Graeme Lloyd was - I'm almost sure - the primary lefty reliever on that team.  Was it him?  I can't remember the closer - I think Koch was a rookie the next year - so it might be whoever the closer was.

Watch me have the wrong season...

A new trivia question... OK...

Many of you will be trying to forget that Edgardo Alfonzo played for the Toronto Blue Jays this past season, in which he managed to set an all-time record (at all levels of baseball) for 4-3 groundouts in a week.

Today's question is: when Edgardo Alfonzo was a rookie with the Mets, four of his teammates that year were past or future Blue Jays (all played significant roles with the Jays - no five-game cup-of-coffee guys).  Name three of the four.

Jeff Kent, surely. Robert Person. (I lived in New York at the time, remember.) Umm ... does David Segui qualify or was he not with TOR long enough for your parameters.

After that, I have not a clue.

I completely forgot about Segui.  There were two others that I was thinking of, namely Alberto Castillo and Pete Walker.

Anyway, I asked for three, and Mick gave three, so Mick is up!  Well done, sir.

Who holds the Montreal Expos team record for strikeouts in a single game pitched?

No, not him. Nope, not him either.

Way-out-there clue? He has something in common -- a physical condition, actually -- with Ron Santo. Bonus points if you identify the pitcher AND the condition!

Jeremy is disqualified from answering the question, though he is invited to offer a real whiz-bang explanation as  response to actionjackson's question, and if it's impressive enough (science fiction is welcome) then this ruling will be reconsidered.

in the mean time, actionjackson, ask another one or pass it on to someone else!

There were 6 different 3B that year, including *shudder* Cory "Swiss Cheese Bat" Snyder, but it's not him.

Snyder's Swiss Cheese Bat raises an intriguing dual possibility - did he strike out all the time because his swiss cheese bat had holes, or did he strike out all the time because Boomer Wells ate his swiss cheese bat?

Jeremy is still up...

I'm going to commit the unpardonable sin of shoehorning in with a question when it's not my turn.  (I think we can handle doing two questions at once anyway).

Here goes... what future major league ballplayer set a NCAA record for punt return average and led all Pac-10 basketball players in scoring, as a sophomore?

Well, Winfield was a Big 10 guy (Minnesota) and I don't think Lofton played football .... let's try UCLA legend Jackie Robinson, though I don't know if he played basketball ...

Good question!

Mick nails it down!  Yes, it was Jackie Robinson, who smashed the NCAA record for punt return average (21 yards per return) in 1939 and led the Pac-10 basketball conference (then called the PCC) in scoring in 1939-40.  He also finished third in the Pac-10 in passing yardage, playing only part of the time at QB.   Later that year, he quit school... to take a job as a phys. ed. instructor, because he couldn't find a job as a professional athlete.

In 1938, Jackie had been the backup to football legend Kenny Washington at halfback for UCLA and averaged over 11 yards per carry.   This was the summer after he broke the national junior college record in the long jump at 25' 6 1/2", which stood for decades, and in that same summer he won the Pacific Coast 'Negro' junior boys tennis championship, despite not really being a tennis player.  He played baseball in his spare time, of course. 

Two years later, in 1942, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. cavalery - and entered the Army ping-pong championship, apparently on a whim.  He won.

Wow, the wild guess pans out! Okay, my turn ...

Robinson played for just one major league franchise in his career, the Dodgers; he even refused a late-career trade by retiring because he didn't want to play for anyone else.

On the other end of the spectrum, Rickey Henderson leads all Hall of Famers by having played for no less than nine different franchises. Without looking them up, name all nine.

Well, we are eight for nine so far ...

• John Northey got six -- Oakland, Yankees, Mets, Jays, San Diego, Dodgers
• Zao got Boston
• Aweb got Seattle

We are missing just one ... and given how much time Rickey spent on the left coast, it's a surprise people don't remember this little foray ...

Jeff Nelson?

We have a new trivia thread.

Once the answer to this question is confirmed, please head on over there and Stump Da Box.