90s Sports Trivia
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This 90s sports trivia quiz has 97 free questions with answers and runs through the decade that gave us the Dream Team, Michael Jordan's two retirements, a cancelled World Series, Tiger Woods' first green jacket and a penalty kick at the Rose Bowl that ended with a sports bra on the cover of every magazine. It covers the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, soccer, boxing, golf, tennis, the Olympics, cycling and NASCAR, so nobody at the table gets to coast on a single sport. The questions start easy (who bit whom in Las Vegas?) and get genuinely hard (which pitcher gave up McGwire's 62nd? which team was leading baseball when the 1994 strike hit?). Difficulty is marked on every question so you can pick a level for a bar night, a family game or a 90s-themed party. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation, so when someone insists the Bills lost five straight Super Bowls, you can settle it on the spot.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which team did the Bulls beat in the 1998 NBA Finals, ended by Michael Jordan's last shot as a Bull?
Utah Jazz
The Bulls beat the Utah Jazz in six games; Jordan's jumper over Bryon Russell with 5.2 seconds left gave Chicago an 87-86 lead in Game 6 and a sixth title.
Q 02During his 1994 baseball detour, Michael Jordan played for which minor-league team?
Birmingham Barons
Birmingham Barons were the White Sox's Double-A club; Jordan, chasing the baseball dream his late father had held for him, hit .202 there with three home runs and 30 stolen bases.
Q 03What regular-season record did the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls post, an NBA best that stood for twenty years?
72-10
Chicago's 72-10 stood as the NBA record until the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors went 73-9, though Golden State lost in the Finals and the Bulls did not.
Q 04Into whose arms did Michael Jordan collapse late in the 1997 'Flu Game'?
Scottie Pippen
Scottie Pippen held Jordan up in the final seconds of Game 5; Jordan had scored 38 points, including the go-ahead three-pointer with 25 seconds left, and his trainer later blamed a bad pizza, not flu.
Q 05Which acting commissioner called off the 1994 World Series during the players' strike?
Bud Selig
Bud Selig, the Brewers owner serving as acting commissioner, called it off that September; the Series had been played every year since 1905, through two world wars.
Q 06Which team had the best record in baseball, 74-40, when the 1994 players' strike halted play for the year?
Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos, 74-40, never got their shot at a title; the franchise moved to Washington in 2005. Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 when play stopped.
Q 07Which future Supreme Court justice's March 1995 injunction effectively ended the baseball strike?
Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor, then a federal district judge in Manhattan, issued the injunction against the owners days before a season of replacement players was due to open; the regulars returned for a 144-game schedule.
Q 08On September 6, 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking whose record?
Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig's record of 2,130 straight games had stood since 1939; Ripken kept going until 1998, voluntarily ending his streak at 2,632 games, 502 beyond the old mark.
Q 09Whose single-season record of 61 home runs, set in 1961, did Mark McGwire break in September 1998?
Roger Maris
Roger Maris's mark fell with members of his family watching in St. Louis; McGwire finished with 70 and Sammy Sosa with 66, yet it was Sosa who was voted the National League's MVP.
Q 10Whose walk-off three-run home run off Mitch Williams won the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays?
Joe Carter
Joe Carter's three-run shot turned a 6-5 ninth-inning deficit into an 8-6 win in Game 6; Mitch Williams, who threw the pitch, was traded to Houston six weeks later.
Q 11Who hit the 11th-inning walk-off single in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series for the Marlins?
Édgar Rentería
Édgar Rentería's single off Charles Nagy scored Craig Counsell; the Marlins were the first wild-card champion, and owner Wayne Huizenga then sold off the roster, leading to a 54-108 1998.
Q 12Scott Norwood's 'wide right' miss handed which team Super Bowl XXV?
New York Giants
New York Giants won 20-19 when the kick drifted wide in the final seconds; it was Bill Parcells's last game as their coach, as he stepped down afterwards citing his health.
Q 13Who was named MVP of Super Bowl XXXII after scoring three touchdowns despite a migraine?
Terrell Davis
Q 21Who lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1996 Atlanta opening ceremony?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali, visibly shaking from Parkinson's, took the torch from swimmer Janet Evans and lit the cauldron; a record 197 nations took part in Atlanta.
Q 22Which American in golden spikes won the 200 and 400 metres at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics?
Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson ran the 200 in a world-record 19.32 seconds; talk that this made him the world's fastest man led to a 150-metre match race against the 100m champion in 1997, in which he pulled up mid-race.
Q 23Which Canadian sprinter won the 100 metres in Atlanta in a then world record 9.84 seconds?
Donovan Bailey
Terrell Davis missed most of the second quarter with the migraine and yet ran for a Super Bowl-record three touchdowns; Denver's win snapped the AFC's 13-game losing streak.
Q 14With which quarterback did Barry Sanders share the 1997 NFL MVP after rushing for 2,053 yards?
Brett Favre
Brett Favre was collecting his third MVP award in a row; for Sanders, who had topped 100 yards in a record 14 straight games, it was the only one, and he walked away healthy after one more season.
Q 15Barry Sanders retired in 1999 just 1,457 yards short of whose NFL career rushing record?
Walter Payton
Walter Payton's 16,726 yards were in reach, but Sanders, 31 and healthy, quit the day before training camp and later said he never valued the record enough to chase it amid the attention.
Q 16Which team did the Dallas Cowboys beat 30-13 in Super Bowl XXVIII in January 1994?
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills lost their fourth consecutive Super Bowl, the second straight to Dallas, after leading 13-6 at halftime.
Q 17Who guaranteed a 1994 playoff win for the Rangers, then scored a hat trick?
Mark Messier
Mark Messier made the promise with his team down 3-2 to New Jersey, then scored three times in the third period of a 4-2 comeback win; the Rangers went on to end a 54-year Stanley Cup drought.
Q 18Goalie Dominik Hašek led which country to men's ice hockey gold at Nagano 1998, when the NHL first paused for the Olympics?
Czechia
Czechia beat Canada in a semi-final shootout, with Hašek stopping all five shooters while Wayne Gretzky was left on the bench, then shut out Russia 1-0 in the final.
Q 19At 15, who became figure skating's youngest Olympic women's singles champion at Nagano in 1998?
Tara Lipinski
Tara Lipinski stood second to Michelle Kwan after the short programme, then landed seven triple jumps in the free skate to overtake her; she turned professional that April.
Q 20Who beat Nancy Kerrigan to the 1994 Olympic figure skating gold, seven weeks after Kerrigan was clubbed in Detroit?
Oksana Baiul
Oksana Baiul, 16, edged Kerrigan on a 5-4 split of the judges; a practice collision before the free skate had left her needing three stitches in her shin and painkilling injections.
Donovan Bailey ran 9.84 to take the 100 metres, then won a second gold with Canada's 4x100 relay team, which beat the host United States into silver.
Q 24Who was wrongly suspected of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing after finding the bomb?
Richard Jewell
Richard Jewell, a security guard, spotted the backpack and helped clear the area before it exploded; he was cleared after 88 days as a suspect, and Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty in 2005.
Q 25Who was the only college player on the 1992 US Olympic 'Dream Team'?
Christian Laettner
Christian Laettner, the Duke forward, was picked over LSU's Shaquille O'Neal; the team won by an average of 43.8 points and beat Croatia 117-85 for gold.
Q 26Which Detroit Pistons star was controversially left off the 1992 Dream Team roster?
Isiah Thomas
Isiah Thomas was passed over despite back-to-back Pistons titles, even though Dream Team coach Chuck Daly was his own coach in Detroit; Charles Barkley led the team at 18 points a game.
Q 27On November 7, 1991, which NBA superstar announced he had HIV and was retiring immediately?
Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson announced his HIV diagnosis at a Forum press conference; he nonetheless played in the 1992 All-Star Game, scoring 25 points for MVP, then joined the Dream Team in Barcelona.
Q 28Who won the NBA title in the 50-game 1999 lockout season?
San Antonio Spurs
San Antonio Spurs won their first championship, with Tim Duncan the Finals MVP in his second season; the 204-day lockout had also wiped out the All-Star Game and pushed opening night to February.
Q 29Which team did Houston beat in the 1994 NBA Finals for the first of its back-to-back titles?
New York Knicks
Houston beat the New York Knicks in seven games; Game 5 was famously interrupted on TV by O.J. Simpson's white Bronco chase, and Houston swept Orlando the following year.
Q 30Which major did Tiger Woods win by twelve strokes in 1997?
The Masters
The Masters began badly for Woods, who shot 40 on his first nine holes; he played the remaining 63 holes in 22 under par to finish at 18-under 270, twelve clear of Tom Kite.