NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: You will still be required to enter the drawing as usual. However, through the end of 2024 you will get points depending on the complexity of the questions. Enter each week and correct answers will get those points-one guess per person per week. The reader with the most points after the years final column will get a $50 Starbucks Gift Card. Ties will be placed into a drawing. Questions will be worth anywhere from 10-25 points depending on degree of difficulty. Questions will be more difficult as the year goes on, so you are never really out of the mix. Tell your friends and sports fans who like trivia. We will keep track of your points. - YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN.
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: This is the very last trivia question of the year, so we are going into the deep unknown. There are five correct answers, and you will get 50 points for each correct one. In my Little League, Babe Ruth and Colt League youth years I played for 5 (five) different teams. There are 10 listed below. Pick the five you think I played for and submit. 50 points for each correct one. TOTAL 250 POSSIBLE POINTS.
Here are the 10: White Sox, Indians, Mike's Lunch, Cubs, Beckman Motors, Pirates, Dodgers, Cardinals, San Fernando Hardware, Phillies.
In sports it's often what is first is last and what is last is first. Take Opening Day, 1960. The Reds usually play the first if not one of the first games on the schedule. The game with the Phillies that day, April 12, was started by two veterans. Jim Brosnan took the hill for the Reds and Robin Roberts for the Phils.
Roberts went 4.1 innings, gave up eight runs and took the loss. Brosnan didn't fare much better. He went 1.2 innings and gave up four earned runs. Brosnan gave way to Chris Short who went on to have a marvelous career. Brosnan left on behalf of Brooks Lawrence who went a third of an inning getting Ed Bouchee to fly out. He was relieved by Jim O'Toole, soon to be a solid starter for Cincinnati. He went six and Bill Henry picked up the Save.
What Lawrence did not know, was that after a decent career in the big leagues, this was his last win. He did pitch in six more games before it was over, but he didn't lose, and this one-third of an inning produced his 69th win versus 62 losses. He was 35 and the Reds released him in July. He only pitched seven innings, giving up 12 runs, nine earned.
In his career he won in double figures three times, with his best season 1956 when he went 19-10 in an all-star year in which he earned some votes for MVP. The following year he won 16 games. As a rookie in 1954 he went 15-6 with St. Louis. His career ERA was 4.25 with a WHIP of 1.36. He died in 2000.
TRIVIA CONTEST;