59 Fun Facts About MLB Baseball Trivia for Seniors

Babe Ruth began his career as a star left-handed pitcher for which team before he became a full-time slugger?

The Boston Red Sox won the 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Series with Ruth, then moved him to the outfield, where he hit a record 29 home runs in 1919; owner Harry Frazee sold him that December.

Which position did Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers on April 15, 1947, when he broke the color line?

First base was the opening because Eddie Stanky held second; Robinson won the first Rookie of the Year Award there, then took over second base in 1948 after Stanky was traded.

Which uniform number was retired across every Major League team in 1997 in honor of Jackie Robinson?

Number 42 was retired across all of Major League Baseball on April 15, 1997, the 50th anniversary of Robinson's debut; since 2009 every player wears 42 on Jackie Robinson Day.

Mickey Mantle's nickname 'the Commerce Comet' came from the town where he grew up, in which state?

Commerce, Oklahoma, is where his father Mutt worked the lead and zinc mines and, with Mickey's grandfather, pitched to him from both sides until he could switch-hit.

Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run in 1974 came off which Dodgers pitcher?

Al Downing, who like Aaron wore number 44, walked him in the second inning, then threw the fourth-inning pitch that Aaron drove into the Braves' bullpen, where reliever Tom House caught it.

Sandy Koufax famously sat out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on which holiday?

Game 1 on October 6, 1965 fell on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, so Koufax sat; he then threw shutouts in Games 5 and 7 and was Series MVP.

Which Yankees catcher won a record 10 World Series rings as a player between 1947 and 1962?

Yogi Berra reached the majors after manning a Navy rocket boat off Normandy on D-Day, then played in 14 World Series and won 10 of them.

Which Cardinals star did Brooklyn fans nickname 'the Man'?

Stan Musial hit so hard at Ebbets Field that Brooklyn's own fans gave him the name; his 3,630 hits split exactly, 1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road.

Which other team moved to California with the Dodgers after 1957?

The New York Giants wanted a new ballpark too, and when the Dodgers' owner looked west, Giants owner Horace Stoneham did the same; the old rivals left together, the Giants for San Francisco.

Which beloved Cub was known for saying 'Let's play two!'?

Ernie Banks, 'Mr. Cub', hit 512 home runs and won back-to-back MVP awards, yet in 19 seasons with the same club his teams never once reached the postseason.

Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, was known by what nickname?

'Charlie Hustle' began as a jab: a Yankee pitcher is said to have coined it in 1963 spring training after watching the rookie sprint to first on a walk, and it became the name that defined him.

Which Yankees slugger hit three home runs on three swings in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series?

Reggie Jackson hit each one on the first pitch, off three different pitchers; counting his last swing of Game 5, that made four home runs on four straight swings for 'Mr. October'.

Which Red Sox hitter waved his 1975 World Series home run fair?

Carlton Fisk's 12th-inning drive in Game 6 struck the left-field foul pole after midnight and forced a Game 7, yet his team lost it the next night.

What was Harry Caray's trademark broadcast exclamation?

'Holy Cow!' was Caray's signature call. His other trademark, leading the crowd in song at the seventh-inning stretch, began in 1976 when White Sox owner Bill Veeck secretly switched on a microphone in his booth.

Which broadcaster called Dodgers games for 67 seasons, starting in Brooklyn in 1950 and signing off in 2016?

Vin Scully's listeners in Los Angeles carried transistor radios into the cavernous Coliseum to hear him describe the game in front of them, and the habit followed the team to Dodger Stadium.

Which comedy duo made the routine 'Who's on First?' famous?

Abbott and Costello never played an inning, yet a gold record of 'Who's on First?' went on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, and their 1945 film version of the routine plays for visitors there.

Who played Lou Gehrig in the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees?

Gary Cooper played Gehrig opposite the real Babe Ruth, who appears as himself; the film's closing 'luckiest man' speech ranks 38th on the American Film Institute's list of great movie quotes.

Babe Ruth's 'called shot' home run in the 1932 World Series came against which team?

The Chicago Cubs' bench was heckling Ruth when he gestured and then homered off Charlie Root in Game 3; Root denied to the end that Ruth had pointed, saying he would have knocked him down if he had.

Ty Cobb, 'the Georgia Peach', spent 22 years with which team?

The Detroit Tigers had Cobb from 1905 to 1926, the last six years as player-manager; when the Hall of Fame held its first election in 1936, he drew more votes than Babe Ruth.

The famously valuable T206 Honus Wagner baseball card was issued by a firm that sold what product?

Tobacco: the American Tobacco Company packed the cards with cigarettes from 1909 to 1911, and Wagner's is so scarce because he refused to let production continue.

Larry Doby became the first Black player in the American League in 1947 with which team?

The Cleveland Indians' owner Bill Veeck signed Doby straight from the Negro leagues' Newark Eagles and skipped the farm system, so he debuted on July 5, 1947, under three months after Jackie Robinson.

Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, stood in which section of Brooklyn?

Flatbush lost its ballpark soon after it lost its team: Ebbets Field was torn down in 1960 and replaced by apartments that took its name.

Which ballpark was the last in the majors to add lights, in 1988?

Wrigley Field finally switched on its lights on August 8, 1988, only for rain to wash the game out in the fourth inning, so the first official night game was played the next evening.

Which ballpark was nicknamed 'The House That Ruth Built'?

The original Yankee Stadium opened on April 18, 1923 with Ruth hitting its first home run; it served the Yankees through 2008 apart from the 1974-75 renovation years.

Which brand-name snack is named in the chorus of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game', written in 1908?

Cracker Jack got its line from lyricist Jack Norworth, who wrote the words on a train ride decades before he saw his first major-league game; Albert Von Tilzer set them to music.

In which New York town is the National Baseball Hall of Fame located?

Cooperstown was chosen because the 1907 Mills Commission claimed Abner Doubleday invented baseball there in 1839, a story historians reject; the Hall's museum opened in June 1939.

Which pitcher joined Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson in the Hall of Fame's first class in 1936?

Christy Mathewson was the only one of the five who did not live to see it: accidentally gassed in an Army training exercise during World War I, he died of tuberculosis in 1925.

Baseball's first all-professional team was the 1869 Red Stockings of which city?

Cincinnati's Red Stockings, openly paying every player, did not lose a game in 1869; when the club gave up its professionals, manager Harry Wright took the name to a new team in Boston.

Who became the first Black manager in major league history in 1975?

Frank Robinson debuted as baseball's first Black manager on Opening Day, April 8 of that season, as a player-manager in the American League, and homered in his first at-bat.

Brooks Robinson, 'the Human Vacuum Cleaner', played his whole 23-year career at third base for whom?

The Baltimore Orioles had him for all 23 seasons and 16 straight Gold Gloves; in the 1970 World Series he took away so many hits at third base that he was named its Most Valuable Player.

Casey Stengel managed the champion Yankees of the 1950s and later which expansion team?

The New York Mets lost 120 games in their first season under the manager who had won seven titles across town, leaving him to wonder aloud whether anybody on the club could play the game.

Which Yankee hit 61 home runs in 1961, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record on the final day?

Roger Maris hit number 61 off Tracy Stallard in the last game of the season, and only 23,154 fans were in the ballpark to see the record fall.

Which Pirates second baseman ended the 1960 World Series with a Game 7 home run against the Yankees?

Bill Mazeroski's ninth-inning shot won a Series in which the Yankees scored 55 runs to Pittsburgh's 27 and still lost.

A popular story credits which president with starting the seventh-inning stretch?

William Howard Taft is said to have stood to stretch his legs at the 1910 opener in Washington, bringing the crowd up with him, though Brother Jasper of Manhattan College claimed to have begun the custom in the 1880s.

Which Yankees pitcher was nicknamed 'the Chairman of the Board'?

Whitey Ford got the name from catcher Elston Howard for his cool command of big games; in the 1961 World Series he broke Babe Ruth's record for consecutive scoreless Series innings.

Which Braves left-hander won 363 games, a record for southpaws?

Warren Spahn did not win a big-league game until he was 25, having spent three years in the Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, yet he still piled up 363 wins.

Johnny Bench, the Hall of Fame catcher, spent his entire career with which team?

The Cincinnati Reds' catcher changed how the position is played: he caught one-handed with a hinged mitt, keeping his throwing hand tucked safely behind him, and the hinged mitt soon became standard.

Which Cleveland pitcher struck out 15 in his first start, at age 17?

Bob Feller came straight off his family's farm without a day in the minor leagues, and when that first season ended he went home to finish high school.

Which manager won Brooklyn's only World Series in 1955 and stayed with the Dodgers for 23 seasons?

Walter Alston never had more than a one-year contract: he signed 23 of them in a row, and after 1955 he added three more titles in Los Angeles.

Marilyn Monroe was married to which baseball star?

Joe DiMaggio married Monroe in January 1954 and the marriage lasted nine months; when she died in 1962 he took charge of her funeral and had roses delivered to her crypt every week for years.

In The Natural, what name does Roy Hobbs give the bat he carves from a lightning-split tree?

Wonderboy breaks on a foul ball in the last game of Bernard Malamud's novel, and Hobbs then strikes out; the 1984 film with Robert Redford gives him a happy ending instead.

In Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner's character builds a ballfield in his cornfield in which state?

Iowa kept the diamond: the field cut into a farm near Dyersville for the 1989 film became a tourist attraction, and in 2021 Major League Baseball staged a real game beside it.

In Bull Durham, Kevin Costner plays a veteran catcher named what?

Crash Davis is the veteran sent to Durham to steady wild pitcher Nuke LaLoosh; writer-director Ron Shelton drew the story from his own five years as a minor-league infielder.

Which broadcaster, famous for 'How about that?!', was known as 'The Voice of the Yankees'?

Mel Allen called Yankees games from 1939 until the club dropped him after 1964 without ever explaining why; from 1977 a new generation knew his voice as host of This Week in Baseball.

Which St. Louis Cardinals pitcher won 30 games in 1934?

Dizzy Dean went 30-7 for the 1934 Gashouse Gang and won the NL MVP; his brother Paul added 19 wins and the pair won all four Cardinals games in that year's World Series.

Bob Uecker, 'Mr. Baseball', was the radio play-by-play voice of which team for 54 seasons?

The Milwaukee Brewers kept him on the air from 1971 through 2024; a .200 hitter as a player, he joked about it so well on The Tonight Show that Johnny Carson dubbed him 'Mr. Baseball'.

Which pitcher was the Cy Young-winning ace of the 1969 'Miracle Mets'?

Tom Seaver reached New York by the luck of a draw: the commissioner voided his 1966 contract with the Braves, and the Mets won a three-team lottery for the right to sign him.

Which Pirates slugger, known as 'Pops', swept the NL, NLCS and World Series MVP awards in 1979?

Willie Stargell rewarded teammates' big plays with 'Stargell stars' for their caps; he shared the league award with Keith Hernandez and won the other two outright.

Which third baseman hit .390 in 1980, then the highest average since Ted Williams's .406 in 1941?

George Brett's year ended memorably: he left Game 2 of the World Series in pain from hemorrhoids, had minor surgery the next day and came back to homer in Game 3.

Which future astronaut flew Marine combat missions over Korea with Ted Williams as his wingman?

John Glenn's famous wingman flew 39 combat missions and once nursed a jet crippled by ground fire to an airfield for an emergency landing.

Which Negro leagues legend finally reached the majors in 1948 as a 42-year-old rookie?

Satchel Paige helped his new club win that year's World Series, and he was not finished: at 59 he came back to pitch one more big-league game for Kansas City in 1965.

Willie Mays started his career in the Negro leagues with the Black Barons of which city?

Birmingham's Black Barons took Mays on while he was still a schoolboy; to keep him in school, his father and his manager agreed he would play only home games while classes were in session.

Lou Gehrig's durability earned him what nickname?

'The Iron Horse' played 2,130 consecutive games from 1925 to 1939, a record until Cal Ripken Jr. passed it in 1995; he took himself out of the lineup on May 2, 1939.

Nolan Ryan's 27-year career took him to the Mets, the Angels, the Astros and which fourth team?

The Texas Rangers saw his sixth and seventh no-hitters, the last at age 44; at 46 he answered a charging Robin Ventura, 20 years younger, by clamping him in a headlock.

Which Dodgers pitcher gave up Bobby Thomson's 'Shot Heard 'Round the World' in 1951?

Ralph Branca came on in relief of Don Newcombe and gave up the pennant-winning homer on October 3, 1951; he and Thomson later became friends and appeared together at shows for decades.

Which Yankee pitched the only perfect game in World Series history, against Brooklyn in 1956?

Don Larsen had been pulled early from his Game 2 start only three days before; in Game 5 he retired all 27 Dodgers he faced, needing just 97 pitches.

Roberto Clemente died in a 1972 plane crash flying earthquake aid to which country?

Nicaragua's earthquake victims were waiting for the supplies on the overloaded plane that went down off Puerto Rico on New Year's Eve 1972; the Hall of Fame held a special election and inducted Clemente the next year.

Which pitcher posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, the 'Year of the Pitcher'?

Bob Gibson threw 13 shutouts that season, and pitchers so dominated the game that baseball lowered the mound from 15 inches to 10 for 1969.

Which Cardinals outfielder stole 118 bases in 1974, breaking Maury Wills's single-season record?

Lou Brock had come to St. Louis in a 1964 trade for Ernie Broglio, an 18-game winner the year before; the deal is remembered as one of the most lopsided in baseball history.