Crazy Sports Trivia
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95 free Crazy Sports trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Crazy sports trivia is the good stuff: not who won, but the night a baseball team blew up disco records and had to forfeit, the ten-cent beer promotion that ended in a riot, the 3-foot-7 pinch hitter who walked on four pitches, and the Olympic marathon 'winner' who had done part of the course in a car. This quiz collects 54 of the strangest true stories in sports history and turns each into a multiple-choice question. You will meet the Zamboni driver who won an NHL game, the octopus that predicted the World Cup, the soccer team that scored on itself on purpose, a wrestling bout that lasted eleven hours, a rower who stopped for ducks, and the kicker whose Super Bowl pass went straight up in the air. Baseball, American football, soccer, hockey, boxing, tennis, golf, horse racing, cricket and the early Olympics all get their turn, and the difficulty runs from stories everyone half-remembers to ones almost nobody knows. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, usually the encyclopaedia entry for the game or athlete, and the source is shown after each question. If a story sounds too crazy to be real, that is exactly why it made the cut.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did the White Sox detonate between games of a 1979 doubleheader promotion?
A crate of disco records
A crate of disco records was detonated by radio DJ Steve Dahl on Disco Demolition Night, July 12, 1979; fans stormed the field, and the White Sox forfeited the second game to Detroit.
Q 02Cleveland forfeited a 1974 game to Texas after a riot during a promotion selling cups of beer for how much?
10 cents
10 cents bought a cup of beer that night; the home side had just rallied to tie it 5–5 in the ninth when drunken fans stormed the field, so the umpires awarded Texas the game.
Q 03Which team owner sent 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to bat for the St. Louis Browns in 1951?
Bill Veeck
Bill Veeck had Gaedel pop out of a cake between games, then sent him up to pinch-hit; he walked on four pitches, and the league voided his contract within days.
Q 04What did a Randy Johnson fastball hit and kill during a 2001 spring training game?
A dove
A dove flew across the plate during a March 2001 spring-training game against the Giants and was obliterated by Randy Johnson's fastball; the umpire ruled it no pitch.
Q 05In 1993 a fly ball bounced off which outfielder's head and over the wall for a home run?
José Canseco
José Canseco, playing right field for Texas at Cleveland on May 26, 1993, let Carlos Martínez's fly ball bounce off his head and over the fence; days later he hurt his elbow pitching in a blowout.
Q 06On 'Grandstand Managers Night' in 1951, how did St. Louis Browns fans make the team's decisions?
Holding up YES and NO placards
On August 24, 1951, more than a thousand Browns fans ran the game by holding up YES and NO placards on each decision against the Philadelphia Athletics; St. Louis won 5–3 in a season it lost 102 games.
Q 07Who was the first woman to play in an NHL game, in goal for Tampa Bay in 1992 preseason?
Manon Rhéaume
Manon Rhéaume stopped seven of nine shots in her one period against St. Louis, and Tampa Bay sent her out for a second preseason game a year later.
Q 08Which Eagles quarterback passed for 407 yards in the 1988 'Fog Bowl' at Chicago without throwing a touchdown?
Randall Cunningham
Randall Cunningham kept moving the Eagles after dense fog rolled over Soldier Field in the second quarter, but he threw three interceptions and the Bears won 20–12.
Q 09In 1968 NBC cut away from a Jets–Raiders game with a minute left to show which film?
Heidi
Heidi started on schedule at 7 p.m. Eastern, so viewers in the East missed Oakland scoring two touchdowns in the final minute to beat the Jets 43–32, and the outcry was enormous.
Q 10Which Raiders quarterback's forward fumble on the 1978 'Holy Roller' play led the NFL to restrict who may advance a fumble?
Ken Stabler
Ken Stabler, about to be sacked, let the ball go forward and two teammates knocked it on over the goal line for the winning score; he later admitted it was deliberate.
Q 11How did Greg Chappell order his brother Trevor to bowl the last ball to New Zealand in a 1981 ODI?
Underarm, along the ground
Underarm, along the ground, so that Brian McKechnie could not hit the six New Zealand needed to tie; legal at the time, it outraged both countries, and NZ's prime minister called it disgusting.
Q 12Wrestler Antonio Inoki spent most of his 1976 bout with Muhammad Ali doing what?
Lying on his back kicking Ali's legs
Antonio Inoki spent nearly all 15 rounds lying on his back kicking Ali's legs on June 26, 1976 in Tokyo; the bout was scored a draw, and Ali left with blood clots in his badly bruised legs.
Q 13In which event were animals deliberately killed at the 1900 Paris Olympics?
Q 21In 1964 Vikings lineman Jim Marshall recovered a fumble and ran 66 yards to where?
His own end zone
Jim Marshall ran 66 yards the wrong way into his own end zone on October 25, 1964 and tossed the ball away, giving the 49ers a safety; Minnesota won anyway, 27–22.
Q 22In 'The Play' that ended the 1982 Cal–Stanford game, Kevin Moen ran through what to score?
The Stanford band
The Stanford band had marched on thinking the game was won. After five laterals Moen burst through it and flattened trombonist Gary Tyrrell as he scored, and Cal won 25–20.
Q 23What did the NBA adopt after Darryl Dawkins shattered two backboards with dunks in 1979?
Breakaway rims
Live pigeon shooting
Live pigeon shooting paid cash prizes; a shooter was out after missing two birds, and Belgium's Léon de Lunden won the main event by downing 21.
Q 14Why was Dorando Pietri, first home in the 1908 Olympic marathon, disqualified?
Officials helped him finish
Officials helped him finish: Pietri collapsed five times inside the stadium and was steered over the line. Queen Alexandra gave him a special cup, and the drama made him far more famous than the winner.
Q 15How did Eric 'the Eel' Moussambani win his 100 m freestyle heat at Sydney 2000 in 1:52.72?
Both rivals false-started
Both rivals false-started and were disqualified, so he swam the heat alone. He had learned to swim only eight months earlier and had never raced over more than 50 metres.
Q 16What happened on the last corner to hand Steven Bradbury 2002 Olympic short-track gold?
All four rivals crashed
All four rivals crashed while Bradbury trailed in last place, so he glided through for Australia's first Winter Olympic gold; 'do a Bradbury' later entered the Australian National Dictionary.
Q 17Which 1899 baseball team finished a record-worst 20–134 after its owners moved its stars to their St. Louis club?
Cleveland Spiders
Cleveland Spiders owners had also bought the St. Louis club and shipped it Cy Young and their other stars; the hollowed-out Spiders folded after that single ruinous season.
Q 18What did Cubs outfielder Rick Monday snatch from two protesters at Dodger Stadium in 1976?
An American flag
An American flag: the two had doused it with lighter fluid and were striking matches when Monday ran in from centre field. The crowd then sang 'God Bless America'.
Q 19George Brett's 1983 go-ahead home run against the Yankees was briefly nullified because of what?
Too much pine tar on his bat
Too much pine tar on his bat, the umpires ruled, and an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout. The league president overruled them, and the game resumed 25 days later, the Royals winning 5–4.
Q 201976 Rookie of the Year Mark 'The Bird' Fidrych was famous for doing what on the mound?
Talking to the baseball
Mark Fidrych was famous for talking to the baseball on the mound; the 1976 AL Rookie of the Year also knelt to smooth the dirt by hand and got his nickname from his resemblance to Big Bird.
Breakaway rims, which give under a dunker's weight, followed after Dawkins smashed boards in Kansas City and Philadelphia three weeks apart; he gave the first dunk a rhyming name ending 'Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam'.
Q 24Why did Barbados deliberately score an own goal against Grenada late in a 1994 Caribbean Cup qualifier?
To force extra time
To force extra time: Barbados needed a two-goal win, led only 2–1, and a golden goal counted double. Grenada then attacked both nets, but Barbados held out and got its golden goal.
Q 25Which runner was stripped of the 1980 Boston Marathon title after jumping into the race near the finish?
Rosie Ruiz
Rosie Ruiz was undone when two Harvard students said they had seen her burst out of the crowd close to the end; eight days later officials named Canada's Jacqueline Gareau the winner.
Q 26Which astronaut hit two golf balls on the Moon in 1971 using a six-iron head fixed to a sample scoop?
Alan Shepard
Alan Shepard had to swing one-handed in his stiff suit and joked that his second ball went 'miles and miles'; analysis of the footage in 2021 put it at about 40 yards.
Q 27Which jockey, later a bestselling crime novelist, rode Devon Loch when it collapsed yards from winning the 1956 Grand National?
Dick Francis
Dick Francis was five lengths clear on the Queen Mother's horse when it leapt at nothing and belly-flopped 40 yards out; no cause was ever settled, and 'doing a Devon Loch' came to mean a late collapse.
Q 28Why did 42-year-old Zamboni driver David Ayres play goal for Carolina in a 2020 NHL game?
Both goalies got hurt
Both goalies got hurt, so the Toronto arena's emergency backup went in against his own home club; he stopped eight of ten shots in a 6–3 win, the first by an emergency goalie in NHL history.
Q 29Which two NFL teams merged in 1943 after wartime service thinned their rosters?
Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers
Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers pooled players as the 'Steagles'; most also held defence jobs in shipyards or factories, yet the patched-up side finished 5–4–1, a winning record.
Q 30Which 1904 race was awarded to fifth-placed Henri Cornet after the first four finishers were disqualified for cheating?
Tour de France
Tour de France winner Maurice Garin and three others were thrown out four months after the finish; riders were accused of taking trains, and nails had been scattered on the roads.