Good morning!
As the fellas outlined on Monday's podcast, the chances seem rather small that a White Sox batter will reach twenty home runs this season. Entering Thursday's contest against the Red Sox, Paul DeJong is the team leader with 10 dingers, halfway to the mark.
Considering DeJong is likely to be traded by the deadline he'd have to go on an unholy, Jose Abreu-in-August level of tear to get there. The 2022 squad was the first White Sox team to not have a member of the 20-dinger club since the 1990 iteration, and should 2024 play out the way we think it will, that's two seasons in the past three without a 20 home run batter. (1989-1990 would be the historical precedent for meeting two seasons in the past three; otherwise we'd be looking at 1979-1980)
For today's Sporcle, though, let's remember happier times: those players who have logged 20 or more home runs in a season, dating back to 1950. That's 153 player-seasons: how many can you name? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- I’ve allotted 15 minutes for completion attempts
- For hints, I’ve provided the season and the number of dingers hit.
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:
- Eventually this will go back far enough, but for now he isn’t a spoiler: Carl Reynolds logged the first 20 home run campaign in franchise history in 1930, with 22 dingers.
- The first player in baseball’s modern era to log a 20 home run season is Frank Schulte in 1911, while playing for the Chicago Cubs. If your immediate thought was that it would be Babe Ruth, you weren’t far off: he was third in MLB history in 1919 with 29. (Gavvy Cravath is the middle child, hitting 24 for Philadelphia in 1915)
All data from stathead.com
