Good morning!
Last week the White Sox family lost a member of its family, with the sad news that former third baseman Pete Ward passed away at the age of 84. Ward came over in a January 1963 White Sox-Orioles trade along with Ron Hansen, Hoyt Wilhelm and Dave Nicholson in exchange for Luis Aparicio and Al Smith.
Ward wasted no time making his presence felt, slashing .295/.353/.482 with 62 extra-base hits: good for a 134 OPS+ and a 4.1 WAR season, and a second place Rookie of the Year finish behind teammate Gary Peters. Ward followed up in his sophomore year with an even stronger campaign, logging 6.3 WAR.
Unfortunately, as Jim and Josh noted on the podcast last week, in 1965 Ward was involved in a car accident and was never quite the same: neck problems hampered his production and ultimately cut short a promising career.
Still, for White Sox fans of a certain age --and anybody who participates in these Saturday Sporcles-- Ward logged some impressive seasons that have stuck around both in memories and franchise leaderboards. Consider: prior to Ward's 4.1 WAR 1963 season, the last year a Sox third baseman accumulated that much was...1928. Heck, he's just one of five Sox third baseman to log a 5+ WAR season and just one of two to log a 6+ WAR season.
So let's appreciate some of those magical Pete Ward seasons, and see how they compare to other White Sox third baseman seasons. Today, you're tasked with naming any White Sox third baseman to log a WAR of 2+ in a single season. That elicits 60 such player seasons: how many can you name? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- To qualify, a player must have logged 2+ WAR and also have played third base in at least 70% of games in which they appeared.
- I've allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts.
- For hints, I've provided the season and amount of WAR logged during that season.
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:
- Only a few guys have led the league in notable offensive categories: triples (2018), home runs (1971), and walks (1925).
- Other categories where guys were leaders: intentional walks (1998), sacrifice hits AND caught stealing (1966), and strikeouts (1902).
- Out of curiosity, I looked up the highest WAR logged by a third baseman in MLB history. First, no third baseman has logged 8 WAR or more since Evan Longoria did it in 2010. Second, I guessed Alex Rodriguez would be near the top and while he came close with two separate 9.4 WAR seasons, the winner is 1953 MVP Al Rosen, with the only 10 WAR season by a third baseman in baseball history, with 10.1.
All data from baseballreference.com and stathead.com
