The baseball community lost some of its proudest pillars in this year of sorrow, six Hall of Famers whose careers enchanted us from the early-1950s til the mid-1980s: Al Kaline in April, and then, in a six-week stretch starting Aug. 31, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford and Joe Morgan.
An off-the-field original also died this fall: Jack Scheuer (pronounced “Shore”), 88, a long-time Philadelphia sportswriter for the Associated Press. Jack’s first love was Big 5 basketball — he had his own key to the Palestra — but I knew him as the trivia guru of the Phillies press box, first at Veterans Stadium and then at Citizens Bank Park.
You couldn’t miss Jack: shock of white hair, tanned face as weathered as a catcher’s mitt, perpetual twinkle in his eye. I’d usually catch him strolling through the box, clutching a cup of Turkey Hill ice cream, and I tended to skip past the pleasantries.
“What do you got for me tonight, Jack?” I’d ask. He’d cock his head, smile and within seconds come up with a trivia question to consume me for the next couple of innings. I’d see him off and on for 30 years, and he never let me down. Jack had a bottomless baseball brain, and he taught me the difference between a good and bad trivia question.
How many career wins did Cy Young have? That’s a bad question. You know right away that the answer is 511, or you don’t know it at all.
A great question is one that can be answered with a little bit (or a lot) of logical thinking. Here’s a favorite of Jack’s: who is the only player to collect 500 hits for four different teams?
You narrow the answer into subcategories, because you know the player had at least 2,000 hits and moved around a lot, likely within the last 50 years or so, when player movement escalated. Then it becomes a test of remembering the careers of well-traveled players who spent at least three and probably four years in four different spots. Maybe Roberto Alomar? What about Scott Rolen, Gary Sheffield or Dave Winfield? (The answer: Rusty Staub, with the Astros, Expos, Mets and Tigers.)
Hopefully, some of the questions in this annual 50-question holiday spectacular would have made Jack proud. This one’s dedicated to him, and features categories on the greats we lost in 2020; the number 21; the pennant-winning Dodgers and Rays; retired numbers and more. Lift a glass of eggnog and enjoy!
Different Sport, Same Last Name
(enter just the last name for each answer)