Sporcle Saturday: Leadoff home runs since 1980ish

On Wednesday afternoon, Tim Anderson got the scoring started early when he blasted the 10th pitch of the at-bat into the left field seats for his second home run on the season. This was the 6th leadoff home run of Anderson’s career and puts him in fifth place in franchise history in career leadoff dingers. Barring black magic or a massive shift in ability, Timmy seems unlikely in the extreme to challenge Rickey Henderson for the career top spot.

Still, I thought 6 was pretty good in just the fifth season of his career (and a shortened one at that). And it got me thinking: who else has a hit a home run to lead off the game? Turns out there have been 68 players to hit a lead off home run in franchise history, but I’m not going to make you name the likes of Ollie Bejma (full name: Aloysius; I can see why he went with Ollie) or John Stoneham. No, today’s Sporcle will take you back to around 1980. I say “around” because there are a few players on this list whose White Sox careers went a bit into the ’70s but still batted leadoff for the team into the 1980s. So you get three extra guys for a total of 35 names. How many can you fill in? Good luck!

Quiz Parameters

• I’ve allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts.
• For hints I’ve provided the number of leadoff home runs, the player’s tenure with the team, and their position.

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

• The average triple-slash from all the players on this list in the leadoff spot; .259/.321/.466
• Anderson’s strikeout-to-walk ratio from the leadoff spot? 27 strikeouts against just 2 walks.
• Then again, you can’t really complain about his triple-slash at the top: .376/.391/.592

Direct link here

All data from stathead.com

(Photo Credit: Carl Skanberg)

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