Sporcle Saturday: Opening Day dingers

(Keith Allison/Flickr)

Thursday’s opening game against the Royals, unfortunately, didn’t do much to excite White Sox fans outside of the ninth inning. Last year’s game was a more pleasant experience, what with the 14-7 blowout and multiple home runs.

Back then, I had wanted to write this Sporcle up, but with a different quiz already scheduled it didn’t feel like the opportunity was really there more than a week after the events occurred. Thus, this Saturday gives us that opportunity. In White Sox history, who has hit a home run on Opening Day? I was surprised to learn there are 61 instances dating back to 1915: how many can you get? Good luck!

Quiz Parameters

  • I’ve allotted 15 minutes for completion attempts.
  • For hints, I’ve provided the date and the position of the player in question.

Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:

  • Two players have homered on three separate Opening Days, but no player has done it on four dates.
  • Cleveland and Kansas City are the opponents most often victimized by the long ball (11 apiece); surprisingly, the Sox have done it just twice against Minnesota, but then I looked at how many times they’ve played the Twins on Opening Day, and it’s just three times. Two out of three ain’t bad!
  • Position-wise, first base is the spot with the most home runs (12). Fewest is tied between shortstop and pitcher (1).

Direct link here

All data from baseballreference.com


Take a second to support Sox Machine on Patreon
11 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
roke1960

54/61. Got em all after 1961.

KenWo4LiFe

49. Did a bad job. Embarrassed. Even boomer beat me with 51. This is like the time the 1-2-3 kid beat razor Ramon. 

roke1960

Really nice to get a Razor Ramon reference into Sporcle Saturday!

Josh Nelson

4/1/1997 PH – Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time.

roke1960

I only got him because I was typing a longer name, which of course, wasn’t on the list.

Patrick Nolan

I remembered that one.

Right Size Wrong Shape

I got that one, so I don’t feel bad about only getting 46.

Foulkelore

I cheaply got that one correct when trying

Spoiler
Martinez
, as I had forgotten him. Although, I’m not sure how I didn’t remember a guy who
Spoiler
hit .350 in a partial, but not insignificant, amount of at bats in 1996.

asinwreck

55/61. Missed everyone from 1936-51, also 1915, and I could not remember that

Spoiler
Paco Martin was the pinch-hitter. Then again, I have no memory of Paco Martin ever hitting a home run
.

Took about a minute of remembering 1969 pitchers before I got that answer. When his name came up, I was as delighted as I can recall during one of these quizzes. Thanks, Ted.

Patrick Nolan

Got 38…everyone from 1990-on.

Foulkelore

45/61 – Got everybody after 1982.