Fun Trivia : Baseball Literature

Structure Sub-topic of: Baseball Quizzes Interesting Questions, Facts and Information There are a total of 35 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display. Special Topics Baseball Music Talkin' Baseball Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" The Greatest Prospect Ever

Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information

Baseball Literature

Jim Bouton's groundbreaking bestseller, 'Ball Four', is about his experiences with which expansion team?

Literature About Baseball


1969 Seattle Pilots. After one year the team moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.



Bouton writes about his efforts to get back to the Majors using what pitch?

Literature About Baseball


the knuckleball. Bouton won 39 games for the Yankees during the 1963 and 1964 seasons, but won only 16 games total during the 7 years he played after that. His decline is representative of the decline of the Yankee franchise after the 1964 season.



Who described some of the bizarre plays during the Mets' first season in his book entitled 'Can't Anybody Here Play This Game'?

Literature About Baseball


Jimmy Breslin.



Many of the most entertaining books are written by ex-catchers. Which former catcher wrote about the humorous side of baseball in his bestseller 'Baseball Is a Funny Game'?

Literature About Baseball


Joe Garagiola.



Whose biography is entitled, 'The Catcher Is a Spy?'

Literature About Baseball


Moe Berg. Berg played for 16 years in the Major Leagues, then embarked on a second career as a spy dring World War II. Fluent in a dozen languages, he became the chief atomic spy for the U.S., assigned the crucial task of determining how close Hitler's scientific corps was to perfecting the atomic bomb.



Which catcher-turned-broadcaster wrote 'The Catcher in the Wry'?

Literature About Baseball


Bob Uecker. Uecker's wry humor earned him numerous appearances with Johnny Carson on 'The Tonight Show', where Johnny would introduce him as 'Mr. Baseball'. He sums up his career like this: 'Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.'



Which catcher-turned-broadcaster wrote 'Baseball for Brain Surgeons'?

Literature About Baseball


Tim McCarver. McCarver has been widely recognized for years as one of the best baseball broadcasters.



Which writer spent the last year of Ty Cobb's life with him, and later wrote a 420-page biography of Cobb?

Literature About Baseball


Al Stump. Initially Stump and Cobb collaborated on a biography. But after Cobb's death, Stump wanted to write a biography that was more objective and less self-serving that the one Cobb had authorized.



Which colorful former umpire wrote about his umpiring experiences in the entertaining book, 'The Umpire Strikes Back'?

Literature About Baseball


Ron Luciano. A very entertaining book.



Who wrote 'It is said that baseball is 'only a game'. Yes, and the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.'?

Literature About Baseball


George Will. Written in a newpsaper column. Will tries to write at least a third of his columns on subjects other than politics, and sometimes writes about baseball, of which he is an avid fan.



Who wrote a magazine article entitled '99 reasons why baseball is better than football'?

Literature About Baseball


Thomas Boswell. Boswell's books, including 'Why Time Begins on Opening Day' and 'How Life Imitates the World Series', show him to be one of the best writers around.



The well-known poem 'Casey at the Bat', written by Ernest Thayer, was first published in which newpaper?

Literature About Baseball


San Francisco Chronicle. Published in 1888.



Who wrote the almost-as-well-known poem 'Tinker to Evers to Chance'?

Literature About Baseball


Franklin Pierce Adams. Adams was a New York newspaperman who in 1910 write this short poem about the double-play combination of the Chicage Cubs: 'These are the saddest of possible words, Tinker to Evers to Chance. Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double, Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble, Tinker to Evers to Chance.'



Managers have written some good baseball books. Which former manager wrote 'Nice Guys Finish Last', chronicling his days as a player and manager over a period of six different decades?

Literature About Baseball


Leo Durocher. Durocher started in the '20's as a teammate of Babe Ruth on the Yankees, and ended as the Astros manager in the '70's, disillusioned about what he perceived as the pampered attitude of today's players.



Which erudite baseball observor wrote this nugget in his bestselling book: 'Baseball exemplifies a tension in the American mind, the constant pull between our atomistic individualism and our yearning for community'?

Literature About Baseball


George Will. From 'Men at Work'. Will is making the point that although baseball is ostensibly a team game, it is in reality a series of individual events, making it a fertile field for statistical analysis.



Who, while President of Yale, wrote this poetic masterpiece: 'It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the Spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the Fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.'?

Literature About Baseball


Bart Giamatti.



Whose beautiful eulogy at Mickey Mantle's funeral, entitled 'The Ninth Inning', included the observation that 'We knew there was something poignant about Mickey Mantle before we knew what poignant meant'?

Literature About Baseball


Bob Costas.



Speaking of poignancy, Roger Kahn's bestseller 'Boys of Summer' tells the stories of what happened to the players on the Brooklyn Dodger teams of the early 1950's after retirement. Which old Dodger moved back to Anderson, Indiana after his fourth child was born mongoloid?

Literature About Baseball


Carl Erskine.



Which Dodger became an agnostic after his son lost a leg in Vietnam?

Literature About Baseball


Clem Labine.



Which 'boy of summer' sued the Dodgers because they released him while he was hurt, without paying him for the rest of the year as required by the standard player contract?

Literature About Baseball


Carl Furillo. Furillo died in 1989 at the age of 66.



Which Dodger became a broadaster, teaming with Dizzy Dean on NBC's Game of the Week?

Literature About Baseball


Pee Wee Reese. Pee Wee was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran's Committee in 1984. He died in 1999 at the age of 81.



Which Dodger became a bartender in Newport, Pennsylvania?

Literature About Baseball


Billy Cox.



Which Dodger became the manager of the Mets?

Literature About Baseball


Gil Hodges. Hodges died suddenly on April 2, 1972, two days before his 48th birthday. As of 2002, there remains a concerted attempt by his fans to get Hodges electd to the Hall of Fame. Hodges' fate now rests with the Veteran's Committee, which has shown some willingness to rectify unfair slights by the baseball writers by its election in recent years of Bill Mazeroski and Richie Ashburn.



Which Dodger was crippled in a car accident?

Literature About Baseball


Roy Campanella. Early in the morning of January 28, 1958, Campanella was driving home from a charity appearance when his car hit a patch of ice and rammed into a telephone pole, leaving him paralyzed. Campy was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969. He died in 1993 at the age of 71.



Roger Kahn's 'The Boys of Summer' details his experiences as a reporter covering which team?

Baseball Literature


Brooklyn Dodgers. An excellent book detailing Dem Bums



Who wrote 'The Natural'?

Baseball Literature


Bernard Malamud. An excellent book, but don't expect the same happy ending from the movie.



Jack Keefe, bombastic hero of Ring Lardner's 'You Know Me Al', pitched for which team?

Baseball Literature


Chicago White Sox. Holden Caulfied, hero of 'The Catcher in the Rye', was a fan of Lardner's - he especially liked the short story 'Some Have Smiles'



Who was not on the roster of the Mudville team in Thayer's 'Casey at the Bat'?

Baseball Literature


Sanders. Blake (the much despised) tore the cover off the ball. Flynn let drive a single. Barrows died at second. And we all know what happened to poor Casey.



'Summer of '49', a non-fiction book describing the pennant race between the Red Sox and Yankees was written by which noted historian?

Baseball Literature


David Halberstam. The pennant was decided on the last day of the season. The Yanks won, and went on to win the World Series, beating the Dodgers in five games.



'Bang the Drum Slowly' by Mark Harris is narrated by a pitcher known as Author to his team, since he authored a book. What is his real name?

Baseball Literature


Henry Wiggen. In the excellent movie adaptation, Michael Moriarty plays Author, and a very young Robert DeNiro plays dying catcher Bruce Pearson.



In 'The Great Gatsby', Nick Carroway is introduced to Meyer Wolshiem - an associate of Gatsby's. Gatsby reveals that Wolshiem was responsible for what baseball event?

Baseball Literature


Fixing the 1919 World Series. I'll bet you didn't even consider 'The Great Gatsby' to be Baseball Literature. Now you know better.