Q 01/05

In which New York village is the Baseball Hall of Fame located?

A) Cooperstown

B) Hyde Park

C) Canton

D) Saratoga Springs

Answer · why

A) Cooperstown

The village's name is used as shorthand for the Hall itself.

Q 02/05

In what year was the Baseball Hall of Fame established?

A) 1939

B) 1946

C) 1955

D) 1961

Answer · why

A) 1939

The building was dedicated on June 12, 1939, to mark baseball's supposed centennial.

Q 03/05

Founder Stephen Carlton Clark was heir to which company's wealth?

A) The Standard Oil fortune

B) The Singer sewing fortune

C) The Eastman Kodak fortune

D) The Heinz ketchup fortune

Answer · why

B) The Singer sewing fortune

He wanted tourists back in a village hit hard by the Depression and Prohibition.

Q 04/05

Which Civil War general was wrongly credited with inventing baseball in the Hall's home village?

A) Joshua Chamberlain

B) Ulysses S. Grant

C) Abner Doubleday

D) George Meade

Answer · why

C) Abner Doubleday

The Mills Commission made the claim in 1908, fifteen years after his death; he never said it himself.

Q 05/05

Who was NOT among the 'first five' elected to the Hall in 1936?

A) Honus Wagner

B) Ty Cobb

C) Babe Ruth

D) Lou Gehrig

Answer · why

D) Lou Gehrig

Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson were the inaugural class.