To locate challenging trivia, mining baseball is a tough thing to beat. I hope I’ve struck a balance between “too amazingly obscure for even baseball geeks to know” and “so obvious that even non-sports fans could probably get it.” I’m aiming to give you trivia fans a challenge here — not an insurmountable one, but hopefully one that intrigues you enough to look for clues.
Over the years, at least one player from each of the following major league baseball teams has done a particular thing in a particular circumstance: Astros, Athletics, Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Indians, Padres, Pirates, Rangers, Red Sox, Reds, Rockies, Royals, Tigers, and Yankees. Some of these teams have more than one of these incidents (the most offenses are by the Dodgers), and two of the teams have the same player who did it twice — one of them twice in the same game.
In most other settings and scenarios, this action would be not particularly remarkable. But in this circumstance, it is. The event, in the circumstance under consideration, has happened only twenty-five times in the history of major league baseball, most recently in the 2009 season. It violates neither any rule of major league baseball nor any criminal law.
You’re on your honors to abstain from google, bing, yahoo, or other search engines. A complete response will identify both the action itself, and will specify the circumstance in which the action in question took place so as to to transform it from an unremarkable move into an object of controversy, as in: “Struck out in every at-bat during the World Series.” (First hint: it’s not striking out in every at-bat during the World Series, although I briefly considered that as a category and found the list too cumbersome to be a workable question.)
I don’t know whether this counts as cheating: based largely on close reading of how the question was posed, I devised some candidates, double-checked which ones occurred in 2009 but not 2010, and used baseball-reference to find out which of those had happened exactly 25 times. Only one of them satisfies all of that.
Are the last few occurrences:
2009 Giants
2008 Rockies
2008 Royals
1991 Reds
Sorry, not 2009 Giants (which was a different candidate), but 2009 Padres.
With that correction, I’m certain that you have it. For the others, linking the years and teams produces the following: the Boston Red Sox (1964), the Brooklyn Dodgers (1934 and 1946), the Chicago Cubs (1939 and 1979), the Cincinnati Reds (1983 and 1991), the Cleveland Indians (1952 and 1978), the Colorado Rockies (2008, twice), the Detroit Tigers (1985), the Houston Astros (1979 and 1990), the Kansas City Royals (2008), the Los Angeles Dodgers (1970 and 1990), the New York Yankees (1939, 1950, and 1966), the Philadelphia Athletics (1949), the Pittsburgh Pirates (1958), the San Diego Padres (2009), the San Francisco Giants (1983), and the Texas Rangers (1979). If you have good Google kung fu like Mike Schilling, you would be able to figure this out now.
Is it a wild pitch hitting a celebrity in the stands? Like when the Dalai Lama got beaned in 2008? I’m trying to think of the other 24 times it might have happened…
Be more specific: what sort of celebrity, and which denominations?
Mike! Be nice when you play with the others, please.
I’m pretty sure JB knew I was playing along with his joke.
I did.
And it’s very much in the spirit of baseball trivia that it be “Spiritual leaders of religions derived from Hinduism hit by wild pitches, in the 7th inning or later with the home team ahead by at least 3 runs.”
Tuesday hint: the thing in question was done to the following opposing players: Wade Boggs, Roy Campanella, Rod Carew, Bob Cerv, Johnny Edwards, George Foster, Charlie Gehringer, Ival Goodman, Ken Griffey, Carlos Guillen, Granny Hamner, Willie Horton, Reggie Jackson, Victor Martinez, Willie McCovey, Justin Morneau, Stan Musial, Rafael Palmeiro, Dave Parker, George Selkirk, Roy Smalley, Stan Spence, Miguel Tejada, Tim Wallach, and Robin Yount. All players who were at least “pretty good,” and some of whom were great.
The players who did this thing are, in alphabetical order: Heath Bell, Lou Brissie, Aaron Cook (twice), Rob Dibble, Bob Friend, Atlee Hammaker, Willie Hernandez, Kirby Higbe, Jim Kern (twice), Bill Lee, Bob Lemon, Ramon Martinez, Van Mungo, Claude Osteen, Dick Radatz, Allie Reynolds, Red Ruffing, Joe Sambito, Dave Smith, Joakim Soria, Mario Soto, Mel Stottlemyre, and Bruce Sutter. You will notice, of course, that these are all pitchers.
Is it throwing a perfect game (as opposed to a mere no-hitter)?
No, that would be something that these guys would have been proud of. This is something that I’m sure they found at least minimally distasteful to do.
It’s also unclear whether the recipients and nominal beneficiaries of the act in question were happy about it, either. And it’s quite likely that the fans who watched it happen were most displeased.
Oh, and it happened in July. Every time.
This is my last guess:
The pitchers were told to walk the guy instead of letting him swing.
No, that’s something that, I’m sure, has happened a lot more than 2oish times.
I’ve exhausted my baseball trivia knowledge.
I want to go back to my beaning the Dalai Lama guess.
That’s the first part of it. That’s called an “intentional walk.” The other part is that it happened in a particular circumstance, one in which an intentional walk should never happen.
Look at my most recent clue — it has always happened in July.
Oh, it can’t be “intentional walks on the 4th of July”, can it?
That’s very close, but still no cigar. In fact, this event has never been held on July 4, although it seems to me like it ought to be.
In 2008, Aaron Cook of the Colorado Rockies intentionally walked both Carlos Guillen in the bottom of the tenth inning, and Justin Morneau in the bottom of the twelfth. Happened in the same game. Since 2003, Carlos Guillen has played for the Detroit Tigers and Justin Morneau has played for the Minnesota Twins.
So, how could Cook have intentionally walked both Guillen and Morneau in the same game (one that famously went to extra innings)?
They were all celebrating Bill “Spaceman” Lee Day.
(Lee and I went to the same high school. This pleases me immensely.)
Intentional walk while bases are loaded?
What event, which only ever takes place in July and after Independence Day, is the only possible circumstance in Major League Baseball when the same Colorado Rockies pitcher would be in Yankee Stadium, intentionally walking a Detroit Tiger in the bottom of the tenth and then intentionally walking Minnesota Twin in the bottom of the twelfth?
The Pro Bowl!
Now you’re toying with me, right?
If you’re serious, you’re so close you should be able to taste the peanuts and Cracker Jack.
Well, I broke your rule* and googled it after yesterday’s hint, so I can’t answer.
*and this isn’t ‘Nam
At least two players know it from Google. Any final guesses about why these particular 25 intentional walks are remarkable? Answer coming tomorrow afternoon.
At this point, the google is the only thing that would help me.
I never Googled; I looked here. My first (incorrect) guess, by the way, was this.
Hell, I fished up both links.
I looked here.
My incorrect guess was this.
I wouldn’t consider using baseball-reference cheating since you’d need to pick your own search criteria before looking it up.
There should never be intentional walks in the All-Star Game. Fans paid to see the best players play against the best players. That means you have to pitch to Roy Campanella or Robin Yount, because you’re supposed to be good enough to take them on — you made it to the All-Star Game, too. Besides, what’s your reward for intentionally walking an All-Star player in the All-Star game? You get to pitch to another All-Star player, this time with an extra man on base.
Play ball.
Though, in a National League park, the second player might be a pitcher.
Has there ever been a beanball at the All Star Game?
I haven’t looked it up, but I wouldn’t put it past either Pedro Martinez or Josh Beckett. The only reason I hesitate to say “Yeah, Beckett did it,” is that Beckett has thrown a grand total of two All-Star innings in his career so he may not have had time to get himself so pissed off that he’d actually take aim at someone’s head. I think that even in the celebratory, low-stakes setting of an All-Star game he would be capable of that (as were a lot of guys before him), but I’ve no evidence that it’s actually happened.
Anyway, it’s hard to say whether a particular pitch is a beanball or a brushback. One is unacceptably unsportsmanlike, the other is merely aggressive play. If you ask a pitcher about a high, inside pitch, the most he’ll ever admit to is that it was a brushback. So it’s always going to be a matter of interpretation.
But there’d be no question if Pete Rose had ever pitched in one.