Good morning!
On Monday, the Baseball Hall of Fame released the players to be considered for induction via the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot. For those who may need a refresher, the Era Committee looks at candidates worthy of consideration prior to 1980: the ballot is comprised of eight players, managers, executives, and/or umpires.
This year's ballot contains several players with White Sox ties: most notably to me, though, is Dick Allen. Allen has fallen one vote shy two elections in a row; if you want a terrific profile, Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs has you covered. When looking at Allen's Baseball Reference page, my eye is always drawn towards just how much black ink covers his 1972 MVP campaign. Traditional counting stats? Covered there, leading the AL in home runs and RBI, and the majors in on-base percentage and OPS. He also logged 8.6 WAR, just behind Joe Morgan's position player-leading 9.3 WAR. (Pitchers are another story; Steve Carlton led everybody with 12.5 WAR while Gaylord Perry accrued 11.0 and fellow Sox teammate Wilbur Wood had 10.3 WAR)
Those home runs, though, were an impressive total in a relatively offensive-challenged environment, especially for a franchise like the White Sox who were generally unused to such totals. Allen's 37 that season were helped in part because he had a bunch of multi-home run games. Four in total which is tied for third-most in franchise history. (Five guys have had seasons with five such games; one guy had six such games)
Today's Sporcle will be examining those other multi-home run games (2+ HRs, just to be clear), dating back to 1970. There have been a total of 465 player-games over that span: how many can you name? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- Given the sheer volume of answers in today’s quiz, I’ve allotted the full 25 minutes for completion attempts.
- For hints, I’ve provided the date of the game, as well as the position of the player in question (at the time in which he started that game).
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:
- The first White Sox batter to record a multi-dinger game was Jack Fournier, who hit two in a 4-3 extra-inning win over the Washington Senators on August 31, 1914.
- The White Sox are 455-138-1 in such games.
- The lone tie was in the second game of a doubleheader against the Tigers, 7-7, on April 30, 1950; Hank Majeski was the batter.
All data from stathead.com
