The ‘Tis-the-Football-Season Baseball Quiz
(presented on Dec. 17, 2009 )
| I. Warming Up With the Ground Rules |
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| 1. | How much more is the most a team can score on one play in football than the most a team can score on one play in baseball? (1 point) |
Two. Six for a touchdown and four for a grand slam |
| 2. |
Assuming an unimpeded path, who has to run the furthest: a batter who hits an inside-the-park home run, or a return man who catches a kickoff at teh back of his own end zone and returns it for a touchdown? (1 point) |
The batter. He must run 360 feet (4×90) while the returner must run 330 feet (110 yards x3) |
| II. Shared Roots? |
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| 3. |
Which one of these NFL teams started out with the same name as their local Major League Baseball team? (3 points) a. Detroit Lions (as Tigers) b. Pittsburgh Steelers (as Pirates) c. Philadelphia Eagles (as Phillies) d. Chicago Bears (as Cubs) |
b. The Steelers name started to take hold in 1940. |
| 4. |
The NFL’s Redskins began their existence sharing the same name as what baseball team? (Must have city and name for points.) (5 points) |
Boston Braves. They started as the Braves in 1932 and became the Redskins the next year. They moved to Washington, DC in 1937. |
| 5. |
Which two of these baseball team and city name combinations were never used by an NFL franchise? (2 points each) Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Browns |
Baltimore Orioles and St. Louis Browns. |
| III. The Two-Sport Guys |
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| 6. |
Name all the NFL and MLB teams for which Deion Sanders played. (There are nine. You get 12 guesses. 1 point for each correct guess) |
Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants; Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, Baltimore Ravens |
| 7. |
This long-time major league umpire (22 years) was also a two-way back for the New York Giants for nine seasons and once scored the game-winning touchdown in an NFL championship game. (3 points) b. Hank Sauer c. Hank Soar d. Hank Bauer |
c. Hank Soar. Hank O’Day was an umpire mostly before the NFL was born. Hank Sauer was a hard-hitting Cubbie and Hank Bauer was either a ’50s Yankee or a San Diego Charger from 1977 to 1982. |
| 8. |
Name the combined number of career major league home runs hit and career NFL touchdowns scored by Bo Jackson. (3 points) b. 201 c. 129 d. 185 |
a.157 (141 homers and 16 TDs). |
| 9. | It’s not everyone who can say they played for a World Champion baseball team and also coached an NFL champion team. This fellow could, though. He even did the latter twice. Name him. (5 points) |
Earl "Greasy" Neale. A member of the 1919 Cincinnati Reds and the head coach of the 1948-49 NFL Champion Philadelphia Eagles. |
| 10. | The same year the answer to the previous question was on the winning side in the World Series, this future charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame had a cup of coffee in the bigs and became the incorrect-but-oft-asserted-otherwise answer to the famous trivia question, "What player did Babe Ruth replace in right field for the Yankees?" (5 points) | George Halas, he of the 2-for-22 big league career. |
| 11. | Aside from the man who is the answer to the previous question, five former big league baseball veterans are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as players. Name two of them. (5 points each) |
Jim Thorpe, Paddy Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Ace Parker and Red Badgro. Greasy Neale is in the Hall as a coach, but never played in the NFL. |
| 12. | While no former NFL player has ever made it to Cooperstown as a player; this one hit more career homers than any of the other NFL/MLB hybrid guys. (5 points) |
Brian Jordan, the former Atlanta Falcons safety. |
| IV. Side by Side |
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| 13. |
At the present time, there are six NFL cities/geographic areas that do not have a major league baseball counterpart. (Green Bay/Milwaukee counts as one area for the purposes of this question and the next one.) Name them. (2 points each) |
New Orleans, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Carolina |
| 14. |
Name the three current major league baseball teams that do not have a geographic counterpart in the NFL. (2 points each) |
Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Toronto Blue Jays |
| 15. |
It has so happened that, on seven occasions, a baseball team and an NFL football team from the same city/region have won championships in the same season. (For football, that means the year in which the regular season took place, not the year in which the Super Bowl was played.) Listed below are 10 such pairings. Seven of them are true and three of them are not. Name the three that are wrong. (3 points each) 2004: New England/Boston: Red Sox and Patriots |
1948: Cleveland, Rams and Indians (Rams left Cleveland after 1945, the year they won it all); 1934: New York, FB Giants and Yankees (Yankees were not champs that year); 1933: New York: FB Giants and BB Giants (Giants were not NFL champs that season)
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Bonus |
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| What distinction do Bo Jackson and Vic Janowicz – who played for the Pirates in 1953 and 1954 – share? (5 points) |
Janowicz, like Jackson, won the Heisman Trophy. They are the only two big league baseball players to have done that. |