Cubs Trivia

Which NL franchises did the Cubs have the best and worst records against from 2000-2009? Click on the links or check after the jump.

Best: .590% - Cubs lose the season series just twice in 2000 and 2006.

Worst: .403% - Cubs win the season series just twice in 2003 and 2008.

Complete list and other decade trivia after the jump.

I've gotten a bit addicted to Sporcle since someone posted that quiz of Cubs Opening Day Lineups in the comments. Since not a damn thing is happening, I created one on all the players to grace Cubbie uniforms or been associated with the team that have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Good luck.

The silly website won't let me add a note to the quiz or I just can't figure it out, but the asterisks next to their position indicate that the player, manager or executive played or managed less than two seasons with the Cubs(roughly). The year is the year the player was inducted. And although I did my best to put alternative spellings in there, since I don't think it should be a spelling contest, I think it's perfectly acceptable to look up the spelling of the name if you think you know an answer and it's not accepting it.

-edit- speaking of, I apparently have a typo on Joe Tinker, I put in Tinkers and it won't let me edit it, so there's one.

-edit #2- finally figured it out, the Tinkers/Tinker typo has been fixed.

Quite a night for the Cubbies, who looked nothing like the team with the best record in baseball, other than the final result. Errors, defensive miscues, bad starting pitching, bad relief pitching and yet they overcame all that thanks to Craig Hansen's pitching and Geovany Soto's hitting. Soto had been on a steady decline since his monstrous April putting up OPS numbers of 1.048, .868, .747, .740 heading in August. But things have turned around for him and he's put up a 1.014 OPS with 20 RBI's matching his April RBI total with five games still to go this month. His seven RBI outburst yesterday tops his 6 RBI game in April versus the Brewers and is the second most RBI's for a Cubs catcher in a game trailing the likes of Barry Foote, George Mitterwald and Ed Bailey (since 1956).

If you happen to be wondering who had the most RBI's in a game for the Cubs since 1956 like I was, the answer is after the jump.

-- Dayn Perry’s anti-All Star list–the worst National Leaguers, position by position–includes no Cubs, but two exes, Jason Kendall and Juan Pierre.

Congratulations, men.

-- Riffing off of Friday's Stat of the Day feature at Baseball-Reference.com, a list of players who went an entire season without a BB or HBP, here’s a list of Cub hitters who achieved the feat, in descending number of plate appearances:

Joe Carter (52 PA’s in 1983)
Dee Fondy (51 PA’s in 1957)
Mike Hubbard (39 PA’s in 1996)
Bubbles Hargrave (37 PA’s in 1914)
Don Young (36 PA’s in 1965)
Billy Cowan (36 PA’s in 1963)
Coaker Triplett (36 PA’s in 1938)
Rob Talbot (32 PA’s in 1953)
Sandy Martinez (30 PA’s in 1999)
Jeff Kunkel (29 PA’s in 1992)

Note: no Neifi Perez. Just doesn’t seem right. (And yes, Bubbles Hargrave is Pinky's brother.)

-- A tv-related note by way of the Muskrat: Comcast marks the 10th anniversary of Harry Caray’s passing with a day of Harry-related programming on February 18th. Included will be a documentary on Harry’s life and complete rebroadcasts of three big games from Caray’s time with the Cubs, including the NL East clincher in 1984.

--The sun is out in Chicago today for what seems like the first time in months. A fitting reason to point out that pitchers and catchers report to Mesa 5 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes and 26 seconds from now.

Slow news day.

I was reading The Hardball Times today, which eventually led me to this Retrosheet page of all known instances of a major league player batting out of order.

Care to take one guess at the former Cubs jersey-wearer who has been involved in not one, not two, but three instances of batting out of order in his career? (Yes, I'm being a bit legalistic in how I've phrased this...)

May 4, 1980, Dusty Baker hit in Ron Cey's place in the order for the Dodgers, hitting into a force out that also left runners on the corner and the inning still going. Ron Cey was called out, and who came back up to bat? Baker, again. Second time being the charm, he hit a three-run homer.

August 8, 1998, and Giants' manager Dusty Baker makes five (count 'em, five) substitutions in the top of the sixth. Long story short, Rich Aurilia batted out of turn. The Giants weren't the only ones confused - the Braves didn't figure it out, but it didn't matter. They beat the Giants 14-6.

April 16, 2004, One of the more famous Dusty Moments on the Cubs, as Baker thinks he has made a double switch, but fails to inform Mr. Congeniality, C. B. Bucknor. When Ramon Martinez comes up in the pitcher's position and the Reds object, Kent Mercker is called out. Baker leaves the field, but not before throwing his lineup card (hey, it's a bad carpenter who blames his tools), his hat, and a fit.

Like I said, slow news day.