Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Trivial pursuits: On a Wednesday much like this one...

The best trivia questions are ones that, at least before baseball-reference.com, could not be looked up in a reference book.

Here's one: Thirty-nine years ago today, April 22, 1970, Tom Seaver had a record 19 strikeouts against the San Diego Padres, ending the game with 10 consecutive K's. Who was the last Padre to put the ball in play? (Blue Jays fans, you know this one.)

Answer: Cito Gaston. The future Blue Jays skipper was responsible for Seaver's second, sixth and 18th punchouts on that Wednesday afternoon at Shea Stadium. However, with one out in the sixth, Gaston managed to fly out to the immortal Art Shamsky in right field (hey, Shamsky was good enough to get a guest appearance on Everybody Loves Raymond once, uh, so I'm told).

Gaston, of course, had his best season that season for a 99-loss Padres team, hitting .318/.364/.543 with 29 homers for the San Diegans. Seaver had a terrible season (for him), finishing with a 2.82 ERA and only 283 strikeouts. Now you know the rest of the story.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Nate,

Cat got your tongue about your buddy, Frank D'Angelo! You havent said anything about his trial. You had somuch to say about him a couple years ago, but now that he got of in court and was found innocent, you don't have anything to say?! To me, that shows that you were a huge pusssy all along and tat you got what you deserve, you fuckin loser. Good luck with this shitty blog, why do you move out of mom's basement and try getting a job.

Pattington said...

WTF Neate? I didn't realize Frank read your blog, let alone commented on it! Kudos!

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous

I'll drink to that! Make mine a Steelback®!

Anonymous said...

Hey Nate, further to the first guy's point, like frank says this is a great country, it would be ever better if you left. You deserve whatever you have coming to you for rattling the cage of someone who was going to bring a NHL team to Toronto.

Pattington said...

Phhft! Steelback = ram's piss.