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Trivia/History thread


Beau Vine

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There is no city there called “Washington.”  There’s an urban area there we call “Washington” but the mayor, the council, the budget, the seal, the police and other services all fall under “the District of Columbia.”   It’s a city in that it’s densely populated with lots of big buildings. But it is not an incorporated city.  There is no “mayor of Washington”.  There is no “Washington PD”.  The Washington Nationals are not named for a city nor a state.  They are names for DC.  I don’t make the rules, some dead guys did.  

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Growing up in Chicago, though well past his prime by the time I came of age with the game; I know him as an innings eater for the White Sox.  One has to be Wilbur Wood.  So if it had to be around that same time, without looking, I’ll venture somebody like Gaylord Perry or Steve Carlton.  

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Again, his big innings seasons were before my time but he still played for them when I was a wee lad and my brother and middle sister were huge White Sox fans. But as stumped as I am on the second one, I’m freaking out that his innings mark hasn’t been equaled for like 60 years prior to that.  That’s what’s fucking crazy to me.  
 

im picturing the his manager and pitching coach like the two consultants in Office Space.  “Say Wilbur, remember players from a century ago throwing over other day?  What we’d like to do is go ahead and get as many as 375 innings under your belt as soon as possible.  Great!”  

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I remember Wood starting both games of a DH when I was a kid, which was an absolute fucking boss move.  He'd also pitch frequently on 1 day's rest, so a team might see him twice in a 3-game series.  Must've been fun to be his manager...

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31 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I remember Wood starting both games of a DH when I was a kid, which was an absolute fucking boss move.  

Lol just looked this up and it was July 1973 against NYY.  He got 2 L's like a boss.  Torched first game so only was in there for 6 batters without recording an out.  Went 4 1/3 the 2nd game, but he wasn't much better giving up 5ER in each game.  

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Even still, to hear in the 1970's when the modern pitching staff was fairly close to what we have today:  4 starters, a long relief guy if shit got sideways, and an 1-2 inning closer.  For the other guys in the locker room to say, "Hey Wilbur, which one of our games today are you starting?"  And Wood to reply, "Yes."  

I have a neighbor/LL coach who had his son pitch in both games of a double-header in middle school baseball, but he's a psychopath.   

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Well yeah, the guy that did it the season right before Wilbur Wood, or right after.  Duh!?!?  I'm not gonna cheat and look it up.  I thought it would be a Carlton, Ryan, Perry, Sutton, or maybe Blyleven.  But apparently it's somebody far more obscure.  Which is, again, saying something, because it hadn't happened for over a half-century prior.  Some scrub who somehow cobbled together 380 innings in an era when that was, and still is, fucking insane.  I dunno.  Pud Galvin's great-grandson, Armybrat maybe?  

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Doyle's not a bad guess.  He was a great contact pitcher (not a lotta walks or K's, just groundballs and basehits)...so he could certainly sustain that many innings on a low(ish) pitch count.  

Dammit, I got nothing other than Wilbur.  Can the quiz host give us a clue of some sort before we all run off to baseball-reference.com  ? 

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This question is fucking cruel!  The gap between seasons is what's killing me.  

Detroit?  Was gonna say Niekro then since he could pitch every 7 hours, but he wasn't a lefty.  

Fuck it.  As Kramer said when he slammed the $100 bill on the counter, "I'M OUT!" 

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Mickey Lolich, 376.0 innings in 1971

Wilbur Wood, 376.2 innings in 1972.

I was reading Kepner's K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches and he had the bit about Wood having the most innings pitched since 1917 and so I looked it up and noticed Lolich's season the year before.  So Lolich had the most innings in 54 years and the next year Wood beats him by 2 outs.  Baseball is weird.

 

Baseball reference has the top 500 seasons by IP, which goes down to 330 IP.  473 of them were before 1920.  Here are the ones since 1920:

image.thumb.png.240fdefff83f0fcf75cdfc24953d1158.png

So, 8 in the 20s, none in the 30s, 3 in the 40s, 3 in the 50s (all Robin Roberts), 2 in the 60s, and 11 in the 70s.  No one has hit 330 IP since Niekro in 79.  So what happened in the 70s to reverse a decades long trend and then why did it stop again?

I guess 8 of the 11 were Wood and Niekro throwing knuckleballs and Perry throwing KY balls but it's still weird.  Candiotti topped out at 252 and Wakefield and Dickey never got close to 250 throwing knucklers.

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21 hours ago, YGIFS said:

Well yeah, the guy that did it the season right before Wilbur Wood, or right after.  Duh!?!?  I'm not gonna cheat and look it up.  I thought it would be a Carlton, Ryan, Perry, Sutton, or maybe Blyleven.  

Good guesses

 

It's amazing Nolan went over 330 with as many BBs and Ks as he had.  He was never very efficient.

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Mickey fucking Lolich, eh?  That guy still owes me money.  Wow.  Blast from the past name.  I have a Mets card of his somewhere.  

Wow, I knew his name but nothing much about him.  Guy threw 4 seasons over 300 innings in the 1970s.  Not the 1870s.  And did it consecutively.  I never knew anything that.  This game is a strange beast.  6 straight seasons of double-digit Complete Games in the 1970's.  Also not nothing.  

How's this?  1968 World Series MVP.  Starts 3 games, finishes all of them, goes 3-0, 1.67 ERA over 27 innings, only 6 walks, hits .250 with a HR and 2 RBI and a walk.  Fucking beast mode.  All due respect to Toni Kukoc, Lolich shoudla been called "The Croatian Sensation" 

Here's a "What the Fuck" fact.  His record for most strikeouts by an AL lefty didn't fall until 2017 when Sabbathia passed him.  After baseball, he got a bit part in a horror movie and grew a donut franchise.  

What a game...

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11 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

How's this?  1968 World Series MVP.  Starts 3 games, finishes all of them, goes 3-0, 1.67 ERA over 27 innings, only 6 walks, hits .250 with a HR and 2 RBI and a walk.  Fucking beast mode.  All due respect to Toni Kukoc, Lolich shoudla been called "The Croatian Sensation" 

That's the year Denny McLain won 31 games in the regular season...and lost Game 1 and Game 4 of the WS, both to Bob Gipson.  He did come back and win Game 6 on 2 days rest...CG and 1 run allowed.  The Cardinals saved Gibson for Game 7 and Lolich beat him.

I would have liked to have been alive to watch that WS.

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After he got out of the Navy before that series, my father met up with some Navy buddies for one of those games.  Years later, I watched the Tigers win the World Series in 1984 and the news coverage cutaway to Detroit basically burning itself to the ground.  And my little confused ass was like, "Why would they burn their own city?  They won the series, Dad."  And he basically just shrugged like, "You shoulda seen what the fuck they did in '68."  

McClain and Lolich, just the two of them, pitched 70% of the innings of that series for Detroit.  

Gibson & Lou Brock for STL and Al Kaline (one of dad's favorites) for DET were straight fire in addition to Lolich.  

5 games in which the losing team scored 0 or 1 run only.  Even for that era, that's fucking insane over a 7-game series.  Yeah, that woulda been a great one to witness in person.  Save for the car bombings.  

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7 hours ago, WBT said:

Mickey Lolich, 376.0 innings in 1971

Wilbur Wood, 376.2 innings in 1972.

I was reading Kepner's K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches and he had the bit about Wood having the most innings pitched since 1917 and so I looked it up and noticed Lolich's season the year before.  So Lolich had the most innings in 54 years and the next year Wood beats him by 2 outs.  Baseball is weird.

 

Baseball reference has the top 500 seasons by IP, which goes down to 330 IP.  473 of them were before 1920.  Here are the ones since 1920:

image.thumb.png.240fdefff83f0fcf75cdfc24953d1158.png

So, 8 in the 20s, none in the 30s, 3 in the 40s, 3 in the 50s (all Robin Roberts), 2 in the 60s, and 11 in the 70s.  No one has hit 330 IP since Niekro in 79.  So what happened in the 70s to reverse a decades long trend and then why did it stop again?

I guess 8 of the 11 were Wood and Niekro throwing knuckleballs and Perry throwing KY balls but it's still weird.  Candiotti topped out at 252 and Wakefield and Dickey never got close to 250 throwing knucklers.

I was gonna guess Denny McClain originally but it seemed everyone assumed it was a scrub and then it was 70's which I knew wasn't his 31 win season.

Lolich was a damn good pitcher.  He was 25 and 14 that year.  39 decisions out of 45 starts.  29 complete games. 

post 1920 the most complete games in a season is Robin Roberts in 1953.  33 complete games in......41 starts.  ridiculous

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  • 3 weeks later...

Man, you throw out some fucking doozies.  My first inclination was the record holder for decades, George Sisler.  But he got into the HOF so surely had more productive seasons before/after.  

Not gonna cheat, but I'm assuming it's probably somebody from the 30/40/50s era who didn't match it before/again only because of war service.  

But this is a weird one because if you knock out 240 hits, you can knock out 190.  Obviously an injury-truncated career.  But Imma go with war service.  Shit, this is gonna bug me all day.

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A 63-hit differential?  This fucking game.  Wow.  No idea on that one.  

In honor of my uncle's 95th birthday recently.  He played minor league ball for Cleveland after WWII.  

Which pitcher threw for Cleveland and won 40+ games for the Indians -AND- two other MLB clubs and also saved 60+ games for two teams -NOT- in Cleveland?  

 

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A 63-hit differential?  This fucking game.  Wow.  No idea on that one.  
In honor of my uncle's 95th birthday recently.  He played minor league ball for Cleveland after WWII.  
Which pitcher threw for Cleveland and won 40+ games for the Indians -AND- two other MLB clubs and also saved 60+ games for two teams -NOT- in Cleveland?  
 
This question seems confusing as fuck but....Eck?
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It's that confusing man, but yeah I should have spelled out over multiple seasons in case the implication was all in one season.  Which of course is impossible unless we're talking about the deadball era when you could throw 8 games a week between cigars and whiskey.

Yep, the Eck man won 40+ games for three franchises-Cleveland, Boston, and Oakland.  And did well for the Cubs for a short stint.  And saved over 60 games for the Cardinals and Oakland to boot.  Even in this age of free agency and prolonged careers due to medical advancements.  Nobody will ever match that ever again.  

 

Fun factoid---which pitcher has the highest batting average in the post-season?  

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15 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

In 1957, 3 NL franchises applied for permission to relocate.  We know two of them were accepted.  What other club applied to relocate and where did they ask to go?

I have absolutely zero clue so just throwing out a dumb random ass guess 

Cincy to New Orleans 

 

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18 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

In 1957, 3 NL franchises applied for permission to relocate.  We know two of them were accepted.  What other club applied to relocate and where did they ask to go?

Spoiler

Reds asked to relocate to New York City.

 

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On 2/19/2024 at 9:33 PM, YGIFS said:

It's that confusing man, but yeah I should have spelled out over multiple seasons in case the implication was all in one season.  Which of course is impossible unless we're talking about the deadball era when you could throw 8 games a week between cigars and whiskey.

Yep, the Eck man won 40+ games for three franchises-Cleveland, Boston, and Oakland.  And did well for the Cubs for a short stint.  And saved over 60 games for the Cardinals and Oakland to boot.  Even in this age of free agency and prolonged careers due to medical advancements.  Nobody will ever match that ever again.  

 

Fun factoid---which pitcher has the highest batting average in the post-season?  

Is there a min number of AB's?  

I;m sure this isn't it but Early Wynn?

since we were talking about the 68 series and Gibson.  Gibson started 6 games total in the 67 and 68 series and had only 2 hits.  Both were HR's.

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  • Beau Vine changed the title to Trivia/History thread

Okay, I like your stumpy questions.  But is this some kinda trick because the number of games has changed so much over the years?  On the face of it, it'd have to be, like the Rockies, a relatively "recent" franchise which has only played 30-50 seasons and as such their odds are lower they'd have dropped 100+ games.  I know it's not the Astros/45s or the D-Backs.  DAMN YOU WOMAN! 

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On 1/16/2024 at 1:13 AM, YGIFS said:

There is no city there called “Washington.”  There’s an urban area there we call “Washington” but the mayor, the council, the budget, the seal, the police and other services all fall under “the District of Columbia.”   It’s a city in that it’s densely populated with lots of big buildings. But it is not an incorporated city.  There is no “mayor of Washington”.  There is no “Washington PD”.  The Washington Nationals are not named for a city nor a state.  They are names for DC.  I don’t make the rules, some dead guys did.  

There is a City of Washington. It is coterminus with the District of Columbia but that was not always so, as I said. It also combined with the District governmentally but is still a city (much like Anchorage, Denver, Honolulu and others are both cities and counties). Multiple federal sites can confirm this for you.

 

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15 hours ago, WBT said:

I meant to include current franchise...I don't think they were including any defunct teams.  Which of the current 30 mlb teams has never lost 100 games in a season?

I’ll take a stab….

The Cardinals.

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