Sporcle Saturday: Most hits against the Sox since 1973

Miguel Cabrera reached the edge of the infield Friday and kept jogging. He didn’t stop until the only thing under him was green grass. Not once did he envision his initial traipse into the majors taking him beyond the dirt. Yet here was Cabrera, who dreamed of following fellow Venezuelan countryman and shortstop Dave Concepcion’s path, playing a strange position with a strange glove on Friday. He looked as close to natural in his major league debut as anyone with four games of left field experience could.
In his final at-bat, he was the Natural. After going 0 for 4 with a strikeout and a double play, Cabrera filled the Marlins’ left field production void with one swing against the Devil Rays. He crushed Al Levine’s first offering over the center-field wall with a man on in the 11th to give the Marlins a 3-1 walk-off win.
-South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 21, 2003

Good morning!

As I put this together on Friday afternoon, Miguel Cabrera stands on the precipice of history: entering Friday evening’s game against the Rockies, Cabrera has logged 2,999 hits; unless you’ve been away from the internet recently, it’s a milestone you may have heard the longtime Tiger has been nearing. And it may be awhile before we see another 3,000 hit player. Best friend of the podcast, Dan Szymborski, says that ZiPS projects Jose Altuve to have the best chance of getting there with just a 34% chance. (My money is on Juan Soto, if he can get teams to stop walking him so much.)

At any rate, if I’m being honest as a baseball fan rather than a White Sox fan, Miguel Cabrera in his prime was a joy to watch even if it often came at the expense of the White Sox. 40 of his 502 home runs have come against the White Sox (third-most against any opponent), 26 of those dingers have come in Chicago which is also third-most of any stadium he has hit in. The other two? Dolphin Stadium when he was a Marlin and Comerica Park as a Tiger. And finally, though I could go on all day: of the 2,999 hits, a full 234 (7.8%) of them have been against the White Sox.

For today’s Sporcle, I thought it might be fun (?) to test your knowledge remembering who else has hit well against the White Sox over the course of their careers. To qualify, the hits must have come in the DH era (1973), and a player needed to have at least 150 hits against the White Sox. That leaves 39 names: how many can you get? Good luck!

Quiz Parameters

• I’ve allotted the full 20 minutes for completion attempts.
• For hints, I’ve provided the entire length of the player’s career (so note that extends past 1973 in some cases, but won’t include hits from before then) and the teams they played for over the course of their career (in rough chronological order, but not including any return stints to former teams).

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

• While Cabrera has the fifth-most hits against the Sox of any player on this list, he drops down to 68th all-time if you expand it to 1901.
• Ty Cobb has the most hits of any player against the White Sox, with 575.
• Factoring in only home runs, Cabera is 15th on the list. Babe Ruth, unsurprisingly, has the most of any player with 98 dingers.

Direct link here

All data from stathead.com

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