Posted by crazystengel on 4/5/2016 2:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by italyprof on 4/5/2016 1:37:00 PM (view original):
Bonds is neither the 30-30 guy (did not play in the AL in any case) nor the answer to the HR/hits ratio.

Neither is Kingman.

Bonds did play in the AL from 75-79, and in fact hit 30/30 three times.

Hence my guess

Okay, okay. But you all have to admit that Harshman is a much more fun answer, even if it is no longer true.

Throughout all of baseball history, the Major League player who lived to be the oldest ever was Chet Hoff who lived to be 107 years, 132 days old before passing away on September 17, 1998. When Hoff made his pitching debut on September 6, 1911, the first batter he faced was Ty Cobb - and Hoff struck him out.

Posted by thejuice6 on 4/7/2016 12:00:00 AM (view original):

Throughout all of baseball history, the Major League player who lived to be the oldest ever was Chet Hoff who lived to be 107 years, 132 days old before passing away on September 17, 1998. When Hoff made his pitching debut on September 6, 1911, the first batter he faced was Ty Cobb - and Hoff struck him out.

Holy Cow ! and he lived to see 70 HRs in a season hit. Without having to know about the whole steroid thing later. "Benedetto lui" is the Italian phrase. Not sure if it translatable beyond "lucky him".


Name a lifetime .300 hitter with 500 plus career homers who never had 200 hits in a season. There may be more than one, but there is one answer I am looking for that is surprising.

Ted Williams

It may not be that unusual...it appears from a quick check that Manny Ramirez, Mel Ott, and Frank Thomas also qualify.

And there are a few .300/500 guys who appear to have only one 200 hit season (including Willie Mays).

Yeah I had in mind Ted Williams, just discovered that today. In fact after the age of 30 he had surprisingly low PA per year the rest of his career, often playing in only around 130 or so games. Something I didn't know.

Who was the last non-lawyer to serve as a judge in the state of California?

Posted by italyprof on 4/9/2016 8:17:00 AM (view original):
Who was the last non-lawyer to serve as a judge in the state of California?

Really? Nobody took a guess all day?

Gavy Cravath (It was Gavy with one "v" because his nickname was short for the Spanish word for seagull. The two "v"s was a typo in a newspaper. Anyway, he was a judge for decades in California.

Who were the first two major leaguers to get 1,000 hits?

If we're counting 19th century I'd guess Cap Anson and, I don't know, Tip O'Neill? 20th century I'll say Wagner and Lajoie.

19th century counts and Cap Anson was one of the two who accomplished the feat the same year. The other actually ended up with 1 career hit more than Anson a's of the enday of that season. It was not LaJoie

Posted by italyprof on 4/12/2016 11:01:00 AM (view original):

2nd question: who was the only 20th century pitcher to pitch a no-hitter in his first major league start?

This guy.

Reading that article, I thought this quote by Bill Veeck about that no-hitter was classic reading:

Big Bobo went out and pitched against the Athletics, the softest competition we could find, and everything he threw up was belted. And everywhere the ball went, there was a Brownie there to catch it. It was such a hot and humid and heavy night that long fly balls which seemed to be heading out of the park would die and be caught against the fence. Just when Bobo looked as if he was tiring, a shower would sweep across the field, delaying the game long enough for him to get a rest. Allie Clark hit one into the left-field stands that curved foul at the last second. A bunt just rolled foul on the last spin. Our fielding was superb. The game went into the final innings and nobody had got a base hit off Big Bobo. On the final out of the eighth inning, Billy Hunter made an impossible diving stop on a ground ball behind second base and an even more impossible throw. With two out in the ninth, a ground ball was rifled down the first base line — right at our first baseman, Vic Wertz. Big Bobo had pitched the quaintest no-hitter in the history of the game.^[10]