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This MLB trivia quiz covers Major League Baseball from the rules of the game to its record books in 163 free questions with answers: how many innings, what a balk is, who holds the home run record, which team has the most World Series titles, Jackie Robinson's debut, the Curse of the Bambino, Cal Ripken's streak and the Cy Young winners. More than half of the questions are easy MLB trivia that a new fan or a kid at the ballpark can answer, and the rest climb to the sort of thing only a box-score reader knows. Every answer has been checked against a reliable source and each question shows its citation once you have answered, so use it for a family game night, a classroom or a sports bar round.
30 of 163 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On a Major League Baseball diamond, what is the distance from one base to the next?
90 feet
90 feet a side is fixed for every big-league infield, even though no two outfields share the same dimensions; the pitching rubber sits 60 feet 6 inches from home plate.
Q 02Which National League club has the most World Series titles?
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals have won 11, the first in 1926, when Babe Ruth was thrown out trying to steal second base for the final out of Game 7.
Q 03Who set the MLB single-season record for hits, with 262 in 2004?
Ichiro Suzuki
Ichiro Suzuki broke George Sisler's 84-year-old record of 257 in Seattle, then walked over to the stands to shake hands with Sisler's 81-year-old daughter.
Q 04Per The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, baseball's term for a bases-loaded home run was borrowed from which card game?
Contract bridge
Contract bridge uses the same term for taking all thirteen tricks, the biggest prize a hand can bring; baseball's version brings the most runs possible on one swing.
Q 05Which teammate of Jackie Robinson won the first Cy Young Award in 1956, when one trophy covered both leagues?
Don Newcombe
Don Newcombe won it with 27 victories and was the National League MVP too; the award was split in two only in 1967, after its creator, Commissioner Ford Frick, had retired.
Q 06Which city fielded baseball's first all-professional team, the Red Stockings of 1869?
Cincinnati
The Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 were the first openly all-salaried club; they went unbeaten that season, lost at last to the Brooklyn Atlantics in June 1870, and had broken up by the end of that year.
Q 07Who holds the Major League Baseball career record for most home runs?
Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds hit 762 and was feared like no other hitter: in 1998 Arizona walked him on purpose with the bases loaded, giving up a run rather than pitch to him.
Q 08Which pitcher has won the most Cy Young Awards, with seven?
Roger Clemens
Roger Clemens won seven between 1986 and 2004, yet after a 2007 steroids report named him he fell short of the Hall of Fame in all ten years on the writers' ballot.
Q 09Which Major League Baseball team has won the most World Series championships?
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees have won 27, more than twice as many as any rival, yet none came in their first two decades: the first arrived in 1923, and 19 more followed by 1962.
Q 10Jackie Robinson made his historic Major League Baseball debut with which team?
Brooklyn Dodgers
Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, starting at first base; MLB retired his number 42 for every club in 1997.
Q 11Which stadium is famously known as 'The Friendly Confines'?
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs since 1916, had the ivy on its outfield walls planted by a young Bill Veeck, a club employee years before he owned teams of his own.
Q 12What does the abbreviation 'ERA' stand for in baseball statistics?
Earned Run Average
Earned Run Average counts the runs a pitcher gives up per nine innings, but it flatters anyone with great fielders behind him, since their best plays never show up in it.
Q 13What is a 'balk' in baseball?
An illegal motion by a pitcher with runners on base
Q 21What is a pitch deliberately thrown high and wide so a base stealer can be thrown out called?
Pitchout
A pitchout is called when the defence guesses a runner is about to go; thrown well beyond the hitter's reach, it can also wreck a hit-and-run or a squeeze play.
Q 22Which Baltimore Orioles shortstop set the record for consecutive games played, at 2,632?
Cal Ripken Jr.
Cal Ripken Jr. passed a record that had stood for 56 years on September 6, 1995, then ended the streak himself in 1998 by asking his manager to leave him out of the last home game.
Q 23What is the term for an out made by catching a batted ball before it hits the ground?
Flyout
An illegal motion by a pitcher with runners on base is penalised because it is judged an attempt to deceive them: every runner is waved up one base while the batter stays at the plate.
Q 14The 'Curse of the Bambino' is a famous superstition associated with which MLB team?
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to a New York rival after the 1919 season and then went 86 years without a title, a wait that fans blamed on the sale until it ended in 2004.
Q 15Who holds the MLB career record for most hits?
Pete Rose
Pete Rose finished with 4,256 hits, yet his 1989 ban for betting on baseball kept the game's hit king out of the Hall of Fame for the rest of his life.
Q 16Since 2020, what starts each regular-season MLB extra inning?
Runner on second
A runner on second starts each extra half-inning, a rule brought in for the pandemic-shortened 2020 season to make scoring likelier and bring long games to a quicker end.
Q 17What must a 'walk-off' home run do?
Put the batting side ahead so the game ends
Put the batting side ahead so the game ends: only the home team can do it, because it bats last and the visitors have no turn left to answer.
Q 18Which uniform number did Roberto Clemente wear for nearly all of his Hall of Fame career?
21
He switched to 21 after a few weeks in 13, reportedly because 'Roberto Clemente Walker' has 21 letters; the Pirates retired the number after his death.
Q 19MLB baseballs are rubbed before games with what, to remove their factory sheen?
Mud
Mud dug in New Jersey, first supplied by coach Lena Blackburne, is rubbed into every ball because a brand-new one is too slick for pitchers to grip.
Q 20Which pitcher, drafted as a first baseman, built a 19-year knuckleball career mostly in Boston?
Tim Wakefield
Tim Wakefield, drafted by Pittsburgh as a first baseman, took up the knuckleball once it was clear he would never hit his way to the majors, then won the 2004 and 2007 World Series with Boston.
A flyout is what pitchers who work high in the strike zone are hunting, a risky habit because the fly ball that carries a little further is a home run.
Q 24Which player is known as 'The Iron Horse'?
Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig earned the name by playing 2,130 games in a row, a streak he ended himself in May 1939 by taking himself out of the lineup, weeks before he was diagnosed with ALS.
Q 25Who stole more bases than anyone in MLB history?
Rickey Henderson
Rickey Henderson's 1,406 steals are almost 50 percent more than the old record of 938; on the day he broke it in 1991 he told the crowd he was now the greatest of all time.
Q 26What is the term for a batter hitting a home run with a runner on first, second, and third base?
Grand slam
A grand slam scores four runs, yet Robin Ventura's in the 1999 playoffs went into the books as a single: mobbed by teammates after clearing the fence, he never got past first base.
Q 27A pitcher wins the 'Triple Crown' by leading the league in wins, ERA and which other category?
Strikeouts
Strikeouts complete the set, as batting average, home runs and RBIs do for hitters; after 1967 no hitter managed that version again until 2012, while pitchers won theirs ten times in between.
Q 28Who was the last American or National League player to hit .400 in a season, finishing 1941 at .406?
Ted Williams
Ted Williams, offered the chance to sit out the final day of 1941 and protect a rounded .400, played both games of a doubleheader, went 6-for-8 and finished at .406.
Q 29Which player, later MLB's first Black manager, was the first to win MVP in both leagues?
Frank Robinson
Frank Robinson was National League MVP in 1961, was traded away by an owner who called him old for 30, and answered with the Triple Crown and the American League award in 1966.
Q 30Besides the pitcher, which position player may initiate a pickoff throw?
Catcher
A catcher's snap throw to a base rarely gets the out, but it is worth making: a runner who knows it may come takes a shorter lead before the next pitch.