50 free Baseball Opening Day trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Opening Day is baseball's unofficial holiday, the one day every team is in first place and half the country calls in sick. This baseball Opening Day trivia quiz covers the traditions (Cincinnati's Findlay Market Parade and its right to open at home, presidential first pitches from William Howard Taft onward), the records (Tom Seaver's 16 Opening Day starts, Walter Johnson's nine shutouts, Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Robinson's eight homers, the only Opening Day no-hitter), and the oddities: a 1907 forfeit over snowballs, a pitcher who won two openers in one year, and seasons that began in Tokyo, Sydney, Monterrey and, in 2020, late July. Questions run from easy (which team always opens at home?) to genuinely hard (which fan-favourite outfielder hit three homers off Dwight Gooden on Opening Day 1994?), so it works for a bar quiz the week the season starts, a ballpark tailgate, or settling arguments in the group chat about who threw out the first pitch when. Every answer was checked against the encyclopedia entries on Opening Day, the players and the seasons involved, and each question links to its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which MLB team is the only one scheduled to open every season with a home game?
Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati fielded the sport's first all-professional team; the only exceptions since 1900 came in 1966, 1990 and 2022.
Q 02What is the name of the annual parade that makes Opening Day an official city holiday in Cincinnati?
Findlay Market
Young and old take the day off to cheer the Reds; for decades the season's first pitch was officially thrown in Cincinnati.
Q 03Which team has visited Cincinnati for 36 Reds season openers, more than any other?
Chicago Cubs
The Cubs and Pirates rotated as the opponent from 1899 to 1916, then shared duties with the Cardinals until 1952.
Q 04Who was the first US president to throw out a ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day, in 1910?
William Howard Taft
He did it at the Washington Senators' home opener; twelve presidents have since done the honours.
Q 05Which president threw Opening Day first pitches with both his right and his left arm in 1950?
Harry S. Truman
He is the only ambidextrous entry on the presidential first-pitch list.
Q 06Which president threw the first pitch to open Cleveland's Jacobs Field on April 4, 1994?
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush did the same for Nationals Park in Washington in 2008.
Q 07Which 20th-century president never threw an Opening Day first pitch while in office?
Jimmy Carter
Carter did throw one after leaving office; Trump and Biden also went without through 2025, while every other president since Taft managed at least one first pitch of some kind.
Q 08Who threw the only no-hitter in Opening Day history, for Cleveland in 1940?
Bob Feller
He beat the Chicago White Sox; nobody has matched it in more than eighty years.
Q 09Which Hall of Famer holds the record for most Opening Day starts by a pitcher, with 16?
Tom Seaver
He did it for the Mets, Reds and White Sox, passing Walter Johnson's 14 in 1983.
Q 10In 14 openers for the Washington Senators, Walter Johnson pitched a record how many shutouts?
Nine
One of them was a 15-inning 1–0 marathon against the Athletics' Eddie Rommel.
Q 11Hank Aaron's 714th home run on Opening Day 1974 tied whose all-time record?
Babe Ruth
He passed Ruth four days later at home in Atlanta and finished with 755.
Q 12Ted Williams hit an astonishing .449 in openers, with a hit in each of how many Opening Day games?
14
He added three home runs and fourteen RBIs across those games.
Q 13Who hit three home runs on Opening Day 1994 for the Cubs, a National League first?
Tuffy Rhodes
He connected three times off Dwight Gooden at Wrigley Field, then finished the year with eight homers total.
Who was the first player to hit three home runs on Opening Day, in 1988?
Q 21How many innings did the longest Opening Day game in MLB history, Toronto at Cleveland in 2012, last?
16
Cleveland also lost the previous record-holder, a 15-inning game against Detroit in 1960.
Q 22The first Opening Day interleague game, in 2013, saw Cincinnati host which AL team?
Los Angeles Angels
The Angels won 3–1 in 13 innings, in the first year of year-round interleague play.
Q 23In 1968, minor-league pitcher Greg Washburn achieved what unique feat?
He pitched and won two Opening Day games in the same year
George Bell
Tuffy Rhodes (1994) and Dmitri Young (2005) came in between.
Q 15Ken Griffey Jr. shares the record for career Opening Day home runs with Adam Dunn and which other player?
Frank Robinson
All three hit eight; Robinson's included one in his first at-bat as a player-manager.
Q 16In 1975, Cleveland's new player-manager homered in his first at-bat and broke which barrier?
The colour line for big-league managers
He had openly campaigned for a managing job while with the Angels, who traded him to Cleveland in 1974.
Q 17Which position did Jackie Robinson play for Brooklyn on Opening Day, April 15, 1947?
First base
He later moved to second base, the position he is best remembered at.
Q 18Who hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium on its opening day, April 18, 1923?
Babe Ruth
The park was quickly dubbed the House that Ruth Built; its short right-field fence was designed with him in mind.
Q 19In 1907 the New York Giants forfeited their opener at the Polo Grounds after fans did what?
Threw snowballs onto the field
With no police to restore order, umpire Bill Klem awarded the Phillies a 9–0 win.
Q 20Which team was the first to open its home season with a night game, in 1950?
St. Louis Cardinals
They beat the Pirates 4–2 at Sportsman's Park on April 18.
He won 2–0 for the San Jose Bees and then again for the Quad City Angels, in two different leagues.
Q 24The Astros' record ten straight Opening Day wins (2013-2022) is shared with which 19th-century club?
Boston Beaneaters
The Mets have the best overall Opening Day record, at 42–23.
Q 25Which team had MLB's best all-time Opening Day winning percentage (.646) through 2026?
New York Mets
That was a 42–23 record after the 2026 opener; their broadcasters have often served as masters of ceremonies for the home opener.
Q 26Which Hall of Famer launched a 2014 White House petition, backed by Anheuser-Busch, to make Opening Day a holiday?
Ozzie Smith
The Wizard used the We the People site; the holiday remains unofficial.
Q 27Which writer titled a book Why Time Begins on Opening Day?
Thomas Boswell
For fans the day is a symbol of rebirth, arriving after a month of spring training exhibitions.
Q 28Which Hall of Fame pitcher said of openers, "when you win the first one, you can't lose 'em all"?
Early Wynn
Wynn pitched for the Senators, Indians and White Sox and won exactly 300 games.
Q 29In 2000, the Cubs beat the Mets in the first MLB game outside North America at which stadium?
Tokyo Dome
The next day Rickey Henderson stole a base to become the second player with a steal in four different decades.
Q 30The Padres played which team in MLB's first regular-season game outside the US or Canada, in Monterrey in 1999?
Colorado Rockies
The Rockies won 8–2 before an overflow crowd of 27,104.