Trivia | The Baseball Zealot

Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship (Team Zealot still has a lot of work to do)

Today, the Champaign-Urbana Kiwanis held their 2nd annual Sports Trivia Championship. Much as I’d like to think that this is an effort to humble me and my Team Zealot teammates, I just have to admit that their are a lot of guys out there who are smarter than me at least when it comes to sports trivia. And I’m fine with that because I had a blast today regardless of the outcome.

I won’t tell you how bad Team Zealot (myself, Shawn Lee, and team newcomer Nick Zahos) did other than to say that we didn’t come in last (whew!). The questions were tougher in my opinion, from last year’s inaugural Sports Trivia Championship. During the halfway break, we were mentally exhausted.

They did give us the answers to the first half’s questions during the break and while they were tough, I think we caught a break and got a lot of lucky answers (including questions like what was the height of the Illinois state high school record high jump… we got that through pure luck). We really weren’t in the running by the halfway point but I thought we did ok.

Overall, we generally scored 7 out of 10 on most categories. Weak points for Team Zealot were (don’t hate us Illini fans) Illinois football (4 out of 10) and Illinois basketball (5 out of 10). Ironically, we managed to score 8 on the NFL (I haven’t followed football religiously since the 80s).

The biggest trivia question surprise to us? It was in the Major League Baseball category. Ok, here’s the question:

Which franchise had the most players in the Hall of Fame? The choices: Yankees, Cardinals, Giants, Red Sox.

I’ll tell you the answer later in the article. I will say that I think all three of us agreed on the same answer and got it wrong anyway.

Much kudos go to the winners named ‘Team Rain Delay’, who scored 83 out of 100 questions correctly. If you think of it, they would have had to score eight or nine out of ten for each of the ten categories. They had four members on their team so they will have to split that $1,000 check four ways. Be nice, guys!

Thanks to Brian Barnhart who was the Master of Ceremonies. Some of you may know Barnhart as the broadcaster for Illini football and basketball games. Others may remember him from his days as broadcaster for the Angels in the late 90s. He did an excellent job and quite honestly, kept the event going at a pretty good pace.

Biggest thanks go to Jim Sheppard, longtime former public address announcer for Illini football and basketball games. His work with Kiwanis to organize the Sports Trivia Championship to raise money for the service projects that they are involved should be recognized.

Oh, the trivia question. Which franchise had the most players in the Hall of Fame? The answer is the Giants. The lesson here is: Don’t go with the obvious. The three of us all thought it was the Yankees.

Jim Sheppard told me that they plan to do a third Sports Trivia Championship next year. Those in the East Central Illinois area should keep that in mind for a fun afternoon for a good cause.

Don’t forget to register for the upcoming Sports Trivia Championship

Registration for the Second annual Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship is coming to a close. The date of the contest is January 30th but if you want to enter, you’ll need to register by January 15th. Do it now! You can register at Kiwanis’ web site they have set up for the event.

The Sports Trivia Contest will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Champaign, Illinois. Event organizer Steve Zahos is mum on the types of questions being asked other than to say that there are a few new categories. Indeed, he is right. Here is the list:

Illini Men’s Basketball
St. Louis Cardinals
National Football League
What’s The Number?
Illini Football
Super Bowls
Chicago Cubs
NCAA Men’s Basketball
Major League Baseball
Chicago Bears

Alas, I don’t remember What’s the Number, Super Bowls or NCAA Men’s Basketball from last year.

Team Zealot will once again make an appearance this year. The good news is that we can’t do much worse than last year. There’s Room for Improvement! That’s our slogan and we’re sticking with it.

Local Kiwanis now taking registrations for 2nd annual Sports Trivia Championship

If you live in the East Central Illinois area, you might be interested in the 2011 Sports Trivia Championship put on by the Kiwanis Club of Champaign-Urbana.

Details are at the Kiwanis’ Sports Trivia Championship website but here’s the skinny:

Date: January 30, 2011
Time: 2-5pm
Location: Hilton Garden Inn, Champaign, IL
Entry Fee: $25

There will be prizes of course, with the winning entrant or team winning $1,000. The Baseball Zealot entered a team in the Sports Trivia Championship last year and quite honestly, fared quite poorly. Well, at least now there’s room for improvement.

The deadline for registration is January 14th.

Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship: Wait till next year

Shawn and I took part in today’s C-U Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship at the Hilton Garden Inn. There were a few words we could use to describe our performance today. Among the printable ones are “humiliating”, “pitiful”, and “put in our place”.

No, we didn’t do very well.

But we DID have fun and the Kiwanis event’s purpose was to raise money for a couple good causes, most notably the Don Moyer’s Boys and Girls Club.

“Captain”. I like the sound of that.

Here’s page 1 of the General Baseball round questions (click to enlarge).

Shawn and I did pretty well on the General Baseball round. I’m embarrassed to say we did better on the St Louis Cardinals round than the Chicago Cubs round (ouch). I was happy I got this one right: “What are the dimensions to centerfield in Wrigley Field?” 400 feet.

The judges tabulating the scores.

A representative from the “Dave’s Guys” team accepting the $1000 check prize.

Kudos to “Dave’s Guys” who won it all. It was a good fight. It came down to a two-way tie at the end and a tie-breaker was necessary. The tie-breaker was brutal, it seemed. Ten questions, no multiple choice. We knew that both teams had deserved to be there because the Championship came down to one question. “Dave’s Guys” had to answer EVERY question in order to win it all. Congratulations to them.

Event Organizer Jim Sheppard

MC Brian Barnhart

Thanks to the Kiwanis for a great time. Jim Sheppard (former PA announcer of the Illini) did a great job organizing the event. Brian Barnhart (broadcaster for the Illini and former broadcaster for the Angels) used his awesome voice as the MC. Thanks also to my good friend and teammate Shawn, who at least made it fun and answered the questions I couldn’t.

The Kiwanis say they plan to do this again so we plan to avenge our mediocre performance.

Saturday links

They’ve gone through physical training. They’ve fine-tuned their hitting, pitching and fielding skills. Now, MLB rookies must go through a special class to “prepare them for life under the lights: how to live with the attention”.

In other words, don’t post incriminating photos on the Facebook and Twitter, rubes.

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A few years ago, it was hard to get any info at all on winter league action. Not so much anymore. Teams are getting ready for the Caribbean Series.

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The Pirates unveiled a statue of Bill Mazeroski at PNC. Word has it, Maz was pretty teary-eyed at the event. The statue depicts him hitting his famous homerun against the Yankees in the 1960 World Series. I’m not a Pirate fan but I’d rather have it showing his fielding prowess. Your thoughts?

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On a personal note, tomorrow is my big day at the Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship. My friend Shawn and I are team are teaming up to hopefully going to show our sports trivia prowess (or embarrass ourselves trying). Wish us luck!

Last chance to sign up for Kiwanis’ Sports Trivia Championship

If you’re in the Champaign-Urbana area, tomorrow (January 15) is the last day to register for the Kiwanis’ Sports Trivia Championship. The Championship will take place on January 31 at 2pm. I get the sense that the deadline is pretty hard and fast so sign up now!

Here is the sign-up page.

Not only have I registered for the contest but I’m teaming up with Shawn Lee (yes, teams are allowed). Some of you might remember Shawn from a few episodes of our now defunct podcast, Baseball Zealot Radio. Shawn is the webmaster of the Vermilion Voles vintage base ball team. He’s even been known to pick up a bat for them as well.

Shawn and I are obviously pretty good at the baseball trivia bit. But the Kiwanis will be throwing in some Illini sports trivia our way, too (Chicago Bears, too). Shawn’s a Rutgers man so he won’t be much help with that I suppose.

Time to brush up on my Illinois sports history, I guess. Now if only they would include Illini Baseball, I would smoke ‘em all.

Go Team Zealot!

C-U Kiwanis accepting registrants for Sports Trivia Championship

For those in Champaign-Urbana, if you’ve given thought to taking part in the C-U Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship on January 31 but haven’t signed up yet, I encourage you do so.

I posted info about it a few weeks ago or you can go directly to the Sports Trivia Championship web site.

They are looking for more participants so if you’re interested, sign up!

2009 MVP roundup: Joe Mauer’s power convinces the BBWAA

I was thinking about the 2009 MVP awards and getting all cynical about how the BBWAA only recognizes players when they finally start hitting the long ball. After all, Joe Mauer’s 28 homeruns was twice his previous high three years ago. Mauer had all (ok, most) of the tools necessary to garner the award already but the boost in power clinched it.

But then I thought back to last year. Oh yeah, Dustin Pedroia. As much as a surprise as it was to me, Pedroia came through with the 2008 MVP award with a measly 17 homeruns for the Boston Red Sox (yeah, yeah, go ahead… scream East Coast bias all you want. Yankee writers vote on this too).

A little bit of related MVP trivia… who was the last National League player with less than 20 homers to win the MVP? It’s been a few years. Answer at the end.

It was more than the power in of itself though. An intriguing statistic… Joe Mauer led the league in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. No big deal? Except it hasn’t been done since George Brett did it in 1980.

Cocky sports show host Sam Panayotovich, who guest posted the MVP predictions on TBZ in September, shot me an email. Referring to his article, he wrote, “Man, this guy was right on the money. ;).”

Sure enough, Sam correctly picked Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols to win the big one. But let’s be fair. Albert Pujols was a gimme. :) The entire BBWAA thought the same way.

Seriously, it was a nice call, Sam. Out of all of our analysts who predicted the awards, I think he was the only one to get them both right.

Mauer wasn’t unanimous and that’s not too surprising. What is strange is that the lone dissenting vote didn’t go to second place Mark Teixeira or even third place Derek Jeter. Fourth place Miguel Cabrera was the recipient of the gratuitous #1 vote.

Oh back to the trivia question, who was the last NL MVP player with under 20 homers???

It was Barry Larkin in 1995. Larkin hit .319 with 15 homers with 98 runs and 66 rbis. He also stole 51 bases and won the Gold Glove that year.

C-U Kiwanis host Sports Trivia Championship on Jan 31

For those in the Champaign-Urbana area, the local Kiwanis chapter is putting on a “Sports Trivia Championship” on Sunday, January 31 at the Hilton Garden Inn.

Some of the question topics: Illini basketball and football, Cubs, Cardinals, White Sox, Chicago Bears.

If you’re interested, you can sign up at the Sports Trivia Championship website. Entry fee is $25 and proceeds are going to the Don Moyer’s Boys and Girls Club, Little League Baseball, and Challenger Baseball League for Handicapped Youth. Did I mention there was a $1,000 grand prize?

I’m thinking of entering but that means I have to study up on the White Sox. Help Teddy!

Illinois full of win … and a bit o’ trivia

Illinois won their season opener 8-3 against Iowa. Yippie!

I did a recap over at the Illinois Baseball Report.

Tonight, the Fighting Illini play the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. That’s unusual in of itself since both team name don’t end in ‘S’.

How many NCAA team names can you think of that don’t end in the letter ‘S’? There are about fifteen.

When you give up, wikianswers.com has the answer.