Good morning!
During the offseason, I often turn to Baseball Reference's "On this day" calendar for inspiration in deciding what the week's Sporcle theme will be. Occasionally, Sporcle Saturday will happen to fall on a particular player's birthday, but other times it has more to do with a particular event or transaction which occurred on that date.
In today's case, it's the latter of the two: for on this date in 2002, the Atlanta Braves, Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies began a three-team trade. The particulars:
- The Rockies trade starting pitcher Mike Hampton and outfielder Juan Pierre to the Marlins;
- In exchange, the Marlins send catcher Charles Johnson, outfielder Preston Wilson, reliever Vic Darensbourg and infielder Pablo Ozuna to Colorado;
- To complete the trade, the Marlins send Hampton to the Braves on November 18th in exchange for pitching prospects Tim Spooneybarger (surely a made up name) and Ryan Baker.
It's those first two bullet points which caught my eye in reading up on that trade. Because eventually, Charles Johnson, Vic Darensbourg, Pablo Ozuna and Juan Pierre all ended up playing for the White Sox: Charles Johnson and Juan Pierre are favorites of mine to use when attempting an all-White Sox Immaculate Grid which involves the Marlins.
While Ozuna can claim superiority in that he won a ring with the White Sox, it's Juan Pierre who has the flashiest statistics out of that quartet. Pierre, of course, stole 68 bags for the Sox in 2010 giving him the second-most in franchise history. And, so, the tenuous tie-in: today's Sporcle will test you on those other White Sox players who have stolen 40 or more bags in a season. In all, that's 31 player-seasons: how many can you name? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- I’ve allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts.
- For hints, I’ve provided the season, the position of the player, and the number of stolen bases.
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:
- One player on this list also hit 22 home runs (1966, 44 SB); the next highest home run total is 12 (1987).
- The oldest players on this list were both 37 (1924 and 1911/45 SBs)...
- ...While the youngest were both 23 (1986 and 1966/44 SBs).
All data from stathead.com
