Nine Innings: Baseball Quiz for the New Season

With the new baseball season in high gear, it’s time to test and update your knowledge of the great American pastime. 

To further your education, here’s a nine inning quiz designed to broaden and enrich your familiarity with the sport’s past and present.  

Ready to play? All set in the batter’s box? Got your torpedo bat ready for action?

Dig in now and keep a sharp eye for quiz curves, heaters, sinkers and sliders.

Play ball! 

Inning one:  In his all-star career behind the plate for the San Francisco Giants, catcher Buster Posey received over 91,000 pitches and allowed only 37 passed balls, a remarkable record of defensive mastery. Buster was a nickname he preferred to his given name.  Can you name that name? 

Inning two: For the first time in history, the major league season jumpstarted ahead of opening day with two National League teams playing two games in a foreign country.  Name the two teams and the city that hosted them. 

Inning three:  In the classic baseball song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the fan eager to go to a game gives a few reasons for that desire—from root-root-rooting for the home team to snacking on peanuts and Cracker Jack. What’s the one thing the storyteller absolutely does NOT care to do?  Extra credit: the song was adopted from a poem whose prologue (not part of the song) identifies the narrator by name. Who is that person?  

Inning four:  In 1983, the San Francisco Giants introduced an award for fans who braved the nighttime cold and fog of Candlestick Park by staying into an extra innings game.  What was the name of the award? What Frisco landmark was depicted on it? Extra credit: What was the meaning of the award’s three-word Latin motto?                                

Inning five:  Which Giants personality, visible at every home game, entered the Hall of Fame in 2024?   

Inning six:  Two major league teams are playing all their home games this season in minor league ball parks. Name the teams and cite the reasons why both have lost their home stadiums. 

Inning seven:  On April 20, Giants star center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, a usually reliable hitter in addition to an impressive center fielder, achieved a baseball rarity in five at bats, sometimes referred to in baseball parlance as “the unmentionable five.” What exactly did Lee do in his five trips to the plate? 

Inning eight:  With its quirky, bulbous look, a reputation for power, and an ominous name, what new addition to the game of baseball was invented by Aaron Leanhardt, a Massachusetts physicist who plays shortstop in a local amateur league? What problem did he solve?   

Inning nine:  What was Yogi Berra’s real name? What is a Yogi-ism? What presidential honor was he awarded?

10th inning teaser:  Substitute what letter of the alphabet to the first name of a baseball immortal and you have the name of what sweet temptation?

11th inning record breaker:  In 2024, the Chicago White Sox set a modern major league record by losing 121 games, exceeding by one the hapless 1962 Mets (40-120). What team is currently on pace to set a new record of losses in 2025?

Quiz Answers

      1.  Gerald Dempsey Posey III.  Buster was his father’s childhood nickname and lent itself well to Gerald’s baseball career.  

2. Tokyo hosted the  Dodgers and Cubs at the Tokyo Dome. The reigning World Series champion Dodgers took both games to open the 2025 major league baseball season.  

3. The take-me-out-to-the–ballgame fan says, “I don’t care if I never get back.”  The name of the fan in the 1908 original was Katie Casey.  This was changed in 1927 to Nelly Kelly.  The lady is asking a presumably male friend for a date at the ballpark, complete with her favorite snacks.    

4. The Croix de Candlestick was a pin given to fans who endured extra innings at chilly Candlestick Park. It  depicted The Golden Gate Bridge with snow on its towers and saluted its wearer with a Julius Caesar-inspired Latin motto of “Veni, Vidi, Vixi” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”). Actually, “vixi” is a misspelling of “vici,” but it’s the thought that counts.  

5. Luigi Francisco Seal, better known as Lou Seal. The fun-loving mascot of the San Francisco Giants entered the major league Mascot Hall of Fame for his contributions of comedy and team support. Clad in his Giants cap, dark glasses, Giants jersey, clownish tummy, and baggy pants, Lou has been part of all home games since 1996 and entertains at city events and festivities beyond Oracle Park.

6. The formerly known Oakland A’s and the Tampa Bay Rays. While the A’s wait for a new ballpark to be constructed for them on the Las Vegas Strip (estimated date of completion, 2028), they will share the newly upgraded Sutter Health Park with the minor league Sacramento River Cats. The Rays abandoned their obsolete Tropicana Field when a hurricane blew off its roof and are  seeking a new home elsewhere in Florida.

7.  Lee made five different outs with a groundout, strikeout, flyout, lineout and pop up. Just an off day for a player whose typical performance at the plate and on the field would never be categorized as “unmentionable.” 

8.  The torpedo bat.  The problem Leanhardt solved was how to hit a round ball effectively with a wooden bat. 

9. Lorenzo Pietro Berra.  A Yogi-ism is a saying that doesn’t seem to make sense unless you realize it does. Yogi was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2015, with the president  quoting an apt Yogi–ism by saying “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”

    10:  Substitute the letter y to the last letter of Babe Ruth’s first name and you have a Baby Ruth candy bar. Just what your taste buds require after the peanuts and Cracker Jack.

    11. Given their current losing trend (7-35), the Colorado Rockies may qualify for that sorry distinction, but as Rockies General Manager Bill Schmidt has said, “We have to battle through it and get to the other side. There is still a lot of games left.”

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