Multi-Talented Major Leaguers Online Quiz | Baseball

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Not much more than a journeyman ball player, he played for parts of seven seasons in the majors mostly with the N.Y. Giants, only hitting .252 with seven HRs over a career total of 289 games. He was one of the very first genuine professional football heroes and is enshrined in the Football Hall of Fame. Even more, he is actually best known for his 1912 performance in another athletic competition altogether. Who was he?

Answer: Jim Thorpe

All these athletes were significant stars during the earliest years of the NFL, and Thorpe's football stardom even predated the formation of that league. He was a college All-American in 1911 and 1912, then played professionally for the Canton Bulldogs prior to the formation of the American Professional Football Association, the forerunner of the NFL, and becoming its first president in 1920.

In 1912, he won gold medals for the decathlon and pentathlon at the Summer Olympics in Sweden leading King Gustav V to remark that Thorpe was the greatest athlete in the world. Grange and Nagurski never played major league baseball, but Nevers played parts of three seasons from 1926-28 as a pitcher for the St. Louis Browns compiling a 6-12 record and a batting average of .200.

2. Another early professional football player later entered the NFL Hall of Fame primarily for coaching an NFL championship team for two consecutive years in 1948 and 1949. As a baseball player, he broke in with the Cincinnati Reds in 1916, playing 138 games in the outfield and stroking .262 at the plate. He played for seven more seasons before retiring to devote his energies to football coaching. Who was this athlete?

Answer: Alfred (Greasy) Neale

Of this group, other than Neale, only Halas had a taste of big league baseball with games, 22 at-bats, 2 hits, and a .091 B.A. for the 1919 New York Yankees. The highlight of Neale's baseball career was being part of the World Series winning Cincinnati team in 1919 and batting .357 for the eight games.

Unfortunately, that was the tarnished series when eight members of the opposing Chicago White Sox were implicated in a gambling scandal and accused of throwing the series. Even while playing baseball, Neale coached football at the college level at a number of institutions from 1916 to 1940 before taking on the task of coaching a perennial loser, the Philadelphia Eagles, in 1941. Within three years, he turned them into a winning club then shut out the Bears 7-0 and the Rams 14-0 to win those two NFL championships in 1948 and 1949.

As a pro football player, his career was short-lived, playing with Jim Thorpe and the Canton Bulldogs for one season in 1915.

3. In 2005, former Pittsburgh Pirate pitching star, Rick Rhoden, qualified through Q-School to join the Champions Golf tour. A former Yankee pitcher accomplished the same feat in the late 1980s. Although he won 23 games in 1962 and 107 games over his 12 year career, he is best remembered for just one pitch in the 1960 World Series. Who are we talking about?

Answer: Ralph Terry

Terry served up the gopher ball that Mazeroski hammered out of Forbes Field to win the World Series for Pittsburgh in 1960. Solace would come when he earned World Series rings as a result of Yankee wins in 1961 and 1962. Terry was always an accomplished golfer maintaining a handicap close to scratch during his baseball playing days from 1956 to 1967.

He first qualified for the then PGA Seniors Tour in 1987, and was a regular competitor on tour for four years. His best years on tour were 1987 and 1989, finishing 57th on the money list both years and earning more as an old golf pro than as an established pitcher on the best team in baseball years earlier.

4. In the mid-1940s, the subject of this question played in a bowl game, then within four years was a baseball star and playing in the World Series. Who was this fine athlete?

Answer: Alvin Dark

Mantle didn't break into the big leagues until 1951. Marion was a rookie in 1940, and although Robinson fit the time-line to some extent and was a great football player at UCLA, he didn't match the criteria expressed in the question. Alvin Dark starred at LSU and played in the 1944 (inaugural) Oil Bowl game, a 24-7 win over Aransas A&M.

He then joined the Boston Braves, and in 1948 won the NL Rookie of the Year award hitting .322, and participated in the World Series where his team lost to the Cleveland Indians, 4 games to 2. Dark went on to complete his career by hitting .289 lifetime with 126 HRs.

Not bad for a shortstop. He also managed for several years, winning the World Series in that capacity with Oakland in 1974.

5. In the early 1950s, twins from South Amboy, New Jersey would become standout guards for the Seattle University basketball team. Upon graduation, they turned to baseball and were signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, making their major league debuts in 1953. Unfortunately, neither was a particularly accomplished ball player and they largely filled utility infielder roles for the balance of their careers that were over by the end of the decade. Who were those twins?

Answer: Johnny and Eddie O'Brien

The Burgess' were not related. The Coveleski's were brothers but not twins. Stan was an outstanding pitcher for the Cleveland Indians in the 1920s, and Harry was no slouch himself for the Tigers from 1914 to 1916. Arm troubles curtailed his promising career. Walker Cooper, a Hall of Fame catcher and his older brother, Mort, a pitcher, both played together with the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 1940s. Both the O'Brien's were decent field but no hit type players, and when it was clear they didn't have the hitting prowess to stick in the majors, they both tried to extend their careers as pitchers. Those experiments were short lived with Eddie playing his last major league game in 1958, then Johnny a year later.

6. Who was the first player to have played in both a Super Bowl and a World Series?

Answer: Deion Sanders

Although widely criticized as being a self-promoting and obnoxious egomaniac, no one can deny his obvious talent on the ball field and even more so, the football pitch. He played Super Bowl XXIX with the victorious San Francisco 49ers who drubbed the San Diego Chargers 49-26, but was on the losing Atlanta Braves team in 1992 when the Toronto Blue Jays won. Sanders broke into MLB with the Yankees in 1989, and into the NFL the same year with the Atlanta Falcons. That year he was the first person ever to hit a home run in the majors and score an NFL touchdown during the same week of play. For seven years, he would play baseball until the football season started then either play baseball sparingly or give it up entirely to concentrate on football.

He last played in the majors with the Reds in 2001 and was expected to retire from football in 2004. However, he did sign a contract with the Baltimore Ravens for the 2005 season.

7. Who was the first player to pitch in a World Series game for a winning team and play on an NBA Championship team?

Answer: Gene Conley

All the others played in the NBA and the major leagues, but only Conley can lay claim to this feat, and just barely as he only pitched 1.2 innings on behalf of the Milwaukee Braves in one World Series game. Lew Burdette, Warren Spahn, and Bob Buhl carried most of the load as the Braves upset the Yankees in 1957, four games to three. Conley played full time for the Boston Celtics for four years and was with three championship teams from 1959 to 1961.

He ended his six-year NBA career with the Knicks in 1964, and retired from baseball in 1963 as a member of the Red Sox after completing 11 seasons.

8. Who was the first player to be a MVP in the majors and a basketball All-American for two years at Duke University?

Answer: Dick Groat

Groat earned his All-American honors at Duke in 1951 and 1952, and was awarded the Helms Player of the Year Award as a junior in 1951. Upon graduation in 1952, he skipped the minors altogether and jumped right to the Pittsburgh Pirates, hitting .284 in 95 games.

After the baseball season, he took a turn with the NBAs Ft. Wayne Pistons, averaging 11.9 points in 26 games before being drafted into the military. Discharged in 1954, he chose to stick to just baseball and ultimately led the Pirates to their World Series victory in 1960 over the Yankees, the year he was voted MVP.

He also was one of the mainstays of a 1964 St. Louis Cardinal team that also defeated the Yanks in the World Series. He finally retired in 1967 with a lifetime BA of .286 over a 14-year career.

9. The first Heisman Trophy winner to play in the Major Leagues was Vic Janowicz. Who was the second?

Answer: Bo Jackson

Aren't you glad I didn't ask you to name Janowicz! As a junior, he won the Heisman Trophy in 1950 for Ohio State playing tailback, but his Major League baseball career didn't amount to much in 83 games over two years in 1953-54, with the Pirates hitting a meager .214. Aware that he wasn't likely to make the grade in baseball, he turned to the NFL and played with the Washington Redskins in 1954 and 1955 and showed promise as a halfback and field goal kicker. An auto accident in early 1956 left him with a brain injury, and although he did recover fully, it effectively ended his professional sports career. Jackson on the other hand became a genuine sports legend, thanks to his performances as a two-sport athlete in the late 1980s.

He was originally drafted by the New York Yankees in 1982, but chose to defer his baseball career and attended Auburn University starring in baseball and football, winning the Heisman in 1985 in his graduation year. By 1987, he became a regular outfielder with the Kansas City Royals and amazed fans with his power. That fall, he decided he wanted to play football again "as a hobby", and joined the Los Angeles Raiders.

He suffered a serious hip injury in 1991 that necessitated a hip replacement that all but ended his professional aspirations in both sports. In something of a miracle, he actually returned to the big leagues in 1993 and 1994 but although the long ball power was still there, he couldn't run very well and wisely retired.

10. The 1945 Indiana Hoosiers boasted a two tight end offense that struck fear in the Big Ten Conference. One was Pete Pihos who ultimately became a football pro Hall of Famer with the Philadelphia Eagles from 1947 to 1955. The other turned to baseball and in his prime with the Cincinnati Reds during the early to mid-1950s, was a home run hitting machine. Can you name him?

Answer: Ted Kluszewski

Surely "Big Klu" might have made the Cooperstown Hall of Fame had it not been for a chronic back injury that stalled his career in 1957 and hampered him until he retired in 1961. From 1953 to 1955, he blasted 136 homers, more than anybody else over that three-year period.

In 1955, he hit 47 HRs while only striking out 40 times. Kluszewski also hit .300 or more seven times and led the league in fielding for first baseman five consecutive years, setting another record. He retired with 279 HRs and a lifetime BA of .298.

While coaching for the Reds in 1986, he suffered a major heart attack and he died in 1988 following continued problems with heart disease.

Source: Author maddogrick16

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Nightmare before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Multi-Talented Major Leaguers Trivia Quiz

A little quiz on baseball players who were more than just that. These fellows were good enough athletes to make their mark in other athletic endeavors at the professional or university level.

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