Bay Area baseball fans have a lot of favorite moments, from watching a slow, arcing ball seemingly float over the wall to dot racing on the jumbotron. But no matter which team you’re rooting for, you’ve got to love the trivia associated with the game.
We’re not talking stats, the lifeblood of the baseball fan. We’re talking good ol’ push up your sleeves and rummage in the brain files to dredge up those memories of what makes Bay Area baseball so distinctive.
Step up to the plate and take a swing at these questions. (Then check your answers here.)
1st Inning: There’s still a raging debate over who invented the high five. Was it outfielder Glenn Burke, who played for the L.A. Dodgers before a short stay with the Oakland A’s — or basketball’s Derek Smith? No one knows for sure, so instead we’ll ask whose moves replaced both the handshake and the high five and might have been a precursor to the COVID elbow bump?
A) San Francisco Giants father and son, Bobby and Barry Bonds
B) Oakland A’s pitcher Dennis Eckersley
C) San Francisco’s Willie Mays and Willie McCovey
D) Oakland’s Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire
2nd Inning: OK, we promised no stats, but we couldn’t resist this one: Martinez native Joe DiMaggio had a staggering hitting streak in the majors, managing to get on base in 56 consecutive games. No one has touched that record. But what was Joltin’ Joe’s record eight years before landing in the majors, back when he played for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League?
A) 55 consecutive games
B) 12
C) 61
D) Who knows? They didn’t keep records back then.
3rd Inning: In the late 1970s, baseball teams got into mascots to a ridiculous degree, launching everything from a giant San Diego Chicken to the furry green Phillie Phanatic. The mascots certainly annoyed some fans, but none more so than the one San Francisco developed as an anti-mascot to poke fun at mascot mania. His career came to an infamous end when he was tackled by two San Diego Padres, and the actor inside the suit sued the team for damages. What was the name of the mascot?
A) Crazy Crab
B) Lou Seal
C) The Old Fisherman
D) The Mayor of Frisco
4th Inning: When the Oakland A’s were still in Philadelphia in the first half of the 20th century, Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Waddell roomed with his catcher, Ossie Schreck. When they were on the road for away games, penny-pinching teams housed their players in shared rooms — often with just one shared bed, as well. So when contract time came around, Schreck demanded that Waddell’s contract include a clause forbidding him from doing one thing in bed. What was it?
A) He wasn’t allowed to snore.
B) He had to stop stealing the covers.
C) He couldn’t eat animal crackers.
D) There was a strict no-passing-gas clause.
5th Inning: Oakland A’s outfielder and base-stealing phenomenon Rickey Henderson did something that threw the A’s finance office into a tizzy. What was it?
A) Sent their supplies and equipment budget into the red, when Rickey began keeping all his stolen bases as mementos.
B) He framed his million-dollar signing check without cashing it.
C) H kept returning money to them, because he thought they were accidentally overpaying him.
D) That extra E in his name threw the accountants into disarray. Whenever they wrote out a paycheck to “Ricky Henderson” — which was routinely — the bank bounced them back.
6th Inning: David Ortiz, the Boston Red Sox slugger and newest inductee to the Hall of Fame, might have been good at navigating the bases, but he didn’t do so well when he was a Minnesota Twin facing the Oakland A’s. What Bay Area standard got him so fouled up, Big Papi and a few of his teammates almost missed the game?
A) They got caught in a massive traffic jam coming across the Bay Bridge.
B) They got on the wrong BART train and almost went to Richmond instead of the Coliseum.
C) On a sightseeing jaunt, they drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and couldn’t figure out how to get to Oakland from there.
D) They got stuck on Lombard Street when a car broke down in front of them, and a traffic nightmare ensued.
7th Inning: San Francisco Giant’s Bengie Molina entered the record books in 2008, when he became the first major league player to hit a home run, but not get credit for the run scored. How did that happen?
A) He tripped while rounding second and was knocked unconscious. A pinch runner was substituted and actually scored the run.
B) An earthquake disrupted the game, which was suspended until both teams were available to resume play two months later. By then, Molina had left the team, and another player got credit for the homer.
C) The ball hit the right field wall and was initially ruled a single. When the umps used instant replay, they changed the call to a home run. Molina had gone to first, then was replaced by a pinch runner, who went on to score the run.
D) A gull stole the ball and in the confusion, the run didn’t get counted.
7th Inning Stretch: Why is the Oakland A’s mascot an elephant?
A) In 1902, the then-New York Giants manager called the then-Philadelphia team a white elephant. The A’s owner thought it was so funny, he adopted the elephant as the team’s mascot.
B) When the Ringling Brothers Circus pitched its big top in the field next to the Oakland stadium one game day, an elephant got loose and ran into the stadium. The resulting game delay gave the A’s a chance to regroup, rally and win the game.
C) No reason. Elephants are just cool.
D) The elephant exhibit at the Philadelphia Zoo was such a favorite with A’s players when the team was based in the City of Brotherly Love, they convinced owner Connie Mack that an elephant would be a great mascot.
8th Inning: Ball boys have a long and often underappreciated role in a number of sports including, of course, baseball. In 1992, the San Francisco Giants began employing “spry seniors” to serve in the role and called them “ball dudes.” The glass ceiling for ball boys was broken in 1993, when then-67-year-old Corinne Mullane was afforded the honor. What was her title?
A) Ball duchess
B) Ball dudette
C) The Queen of Diamonds
D) Ball girl
9th Inning: The Oakland A’s won the World Series in 1972, but the team also achieved a first with something no other team had done for 50 years. What was it?
A) Nearly all the players sported mustaches or other facial hair
B) The A’s had notched the highest number of wins in half a century
C) Instead of drinking Champagne to celebrate the victory, they drank soda and ordered pizza.
D) All the players were over age 40.
Extra innings
10: Former Giants infielder Chris Brown once missed a minor league game because of an eye injury. What was it and how did it happen?
A) He strained his eyelid by “sleeping on it funny”
B) He got punched in the eye by the opposing team’s mascot after asking “What are you supposed to be?”
C) His own teammate accidentally hit him while tossing a ball into the stands for a young fan.
D) He got a black eye sliding into home.
11. Babe Ruth, who pitched and batted left handed but signed autographs with his right, played a 1924 exhibition game in what tiny Northern California hamlet?
A) Dunsmuir
B) Cupertino
C) Gilroy
D) Crockett
12. The A’s were only in their fourth week of existence in Oakland when Jim “Catfish” Hunter threw a perfect game on May 8, 1968, the first perfect game in a regular season in the majors in 46 years. How many fans actually witnessed the feat?
A) 33,496
B) 48,322
C) 12,115
D) 6,298
13. What former tennis star is a minority owner of the Dodgers and has a brother who played a decade for the Giants?
A) John McEnroe
B) Jimmy Connors
C) Billie Jean King
D) Bobby Riggs
14. The Giants weren’t always Giants. They started out in 1883 as the New York Gothams. Why the name change?
A) The creators of “Batman” threatened to sue for misappropriation of the name of the caped crusader’s city.
B) In an emotional speech after a particularly convincing win, player-manager Jim Mutrie congratulated his teammates, calling them “my big fellows, my giants.” The name stuck.
C) Simple. When the team moved to San Francisco in 1958, the name didn’t fit, so they picked “Giants.”
D) The team was sponsored by The Giant Dynamite Co.
15. Sportswriter Ernest Thayer’s classic baseball poem, “Casey at the Bat,” was published in 1888 by the San Francisco Examiner and set off a heated debate that exists to this day over the identity of the real Casey and the Mudville team. A town near Thayer’s childhood home, Holliston, Massachusetts, says it was the inspiration. But a California minor league team also lays claim to it — and well, you know we’re going with the home team. Name the city and the team.
A) The San Francisco Seals
B) The Stockton Ports
C) The San Jose Starlings
D) The Pittsburg Pirates
