Sporcle Saturday: Opening Day lineups, 1980-2018

Today marks the end of the Opening Day lineup series as we move into the regular season next week. Over the last several Saturdays, we’ve studied who’s started at each position on Opening Day for the Sox going back to 1980. Hopefully you took some notes along the way, as this cumulative exam (not open book) tasks with you filling out all the lineup cards for the past 39 years. That’s a total of 390 entries! How many can you name? Good luck!

Quiz Parameters

  • Note that you’ll need to take two separate quizzes, which I’ve linked to each below. Sporcle only allows for 300 entries in a quiz, so 1980-1989 had to be separated from the rest of the years.
  • For each quiz, I’ve allotted the full 20 minutes for completion attempts.

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

  • On Opening Day since 1980, the Sox have gone 25-14. Their best run was from 1981-1993, when they won 11 of 13. They’ve never lost more than three Opening Days in a row, which happened once, from 1994-1996.
  • Since 1980, the most runs they’ve scored on an Opening Day was 15, which came in a 15-10 win against the Indians in 2011. (The largest margin of victory was a 9-1 drubbing of the Orioles in 1991)
  • The largest margin of defeat is tied at 9: a 12-3 loss against the Brewers in 1995, and the embarrassing 10-1 loss versus the Royals in 2015.

Direct link to 1980-1989 lineups here

Direct link to 1990-2018 lineups here

All data from baseballreference.com



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Ted Mulvey
Ted Mulvey

White Sox fan, homebrewer, academic librarian. Not necessarily in that order, but quite possibly.

Articles: 325
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KenWo4LiFe

100/100 on the 80s portion! Let’s get to the 90s and beyond.

KenWo4LiFe

290/290 on the 90-present. Perfect score. Fantastic. 

KenWo4LiFe

What jealous bitches voted that comment down!? 

Right Size Wrong Shape

I did. I’m jealous. You’re the bad guy, you should love it!

tommytwonines

I vote down you and the Marc Hill you rode in on. Whom I knew, by the way. Just a tinge of jealousy.

Trooper Galactus

It’s really depressing to look at these lists and see how many really shitty players made our opening day rosters.

roke1960

95/100 and 287/290. Should have had them all. Nice job Ken!

MrTopaz

Only 60/100 for the 80s. There’s a good dozen that I should have gotten, just on account of taking these quizzes, but since I don’t have a lot of solid White Sox memories before 1990 or so, the results are appropriate.

 Aced the other one, though, thanks exclusively to having taken that one, like 20 times over the last few weeks as a time killer/memory exercise. I have no real memory of you 

Spoiler
Lyle Mouton
, but you didn’t trip me up this time!

Right Size Wrong Shape

I thought that guy was going to be great.

asinwreck

Young prospect who was the return in a trade of a Cy Young Award winner. What could go wrong?

Right Size Wrong Shape

279/290 on the last part (I took it first). Missed the same ones I always miss. Only 78/100 on the 80’s. I think I just got burned out, because I missed quite a few that I would have got had I stuck with it.

asinwreck

Missed this yesterday as I was traveling for work.

1980s: 100/100 with 16:59 left. 1990-2018: 290/290 with 1:43 left. This is very long, but I think it is easier than some of the position-specific component quizzes that require you to know that

Spoiler
Fisk played LF, Lyons played 2B, and guys named Hill started at C and 2B
.

Hardest part for me was remembering

Spoiler
how to spell the name of that disappointing pitcher that cost us Semien
.

Patrick Nolan

288/290. I missed

Spoiler
Craig Wilson
and
Spoiler
Marcus Semien.
. Can never seem to remember either guy on these.