Round 1: The Rules Everybody Half-Knows
Start here. Eight questions that nearly everyone in the room can reach, which is the point of a first round — it gets the quiet people answering before the questions start punishing them. These are also the questions that settle arguments at cookouts, because most fans have watched thousands of innings without ever hearing the number read aloud.
Read them quickly and do not let the room debate. If you want to hand out half points, give one for a guess inside five feet on the distance questions.
Q1.How many players does one team have on the field when it is on defense?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nine
Eight fielders plus the pitcher, and scorers number them 1 through 9 with the pitcher as 1.
Q2.How many feet apart are the bases on a regulation diamond?Tap to reveal
Answer: 90 feet
The 90-foot base path dates to the 1850s and is the single number the whole game is balanced on.
Q3.How far is the front of the pitcher's rubber from the back point of home plate?Tap to reveal
Answer: 60 feet 6 inches
Set in 1893, when the pitcher's box was replaced by a slab and the distance moved back from 50 feet.
Q4.How many balls does a batter need to draw a walk?Tap to reveal
Answer: Four
Four balls became the standard in 1889; before that it took as many as nine.
Q5.A batter who is struck by a pitch he did not swing at is awarded what?Tap to reveal
Answer: First base
He must have made an attempt to avoid it; leaning into the pitch means the umpire can refuse the base.
Q6.What is a batter credited with when his caught fly ball lets a runner score from third?Tap to reveal
Answer: A sacrifice fly
He is not charged an at-bat, which is why a sacrifice fly cannot drag a player's batting average down.
Q7.A double play scored 6-4-3 travelled through which three fielders?Tap to reveal
Answer: Shortstop, second baseman, first baseman
Six is the shortstop, four the second baseman, three the first baseman — the standard grounder-to-short double play.
Q8.How many outs must a pitcher record to complete a perfect game?Tap to reveal
Answer: 27
Nine innings of three outs with nobody reaching base by hit, walk, error or hit batsman.
Round 2: Rules the Broadcast Never Explains
This round is the reason baseball trivia survives the arrival of a know-it-all. Every one of these is written down in the rulebook, and almost nobody can state it cleanly. If a team gets six of eight here, they genuinely know the sport.
Expect arguments about the infield fly and the dropped third strike. Both have conditions attached, and a team that names the condition deserves the point over a team that only names the outcome.
Q1.When the umpire calls the infield fly rule, what happens to the batter?Tap to reveal
Answer: He is out immediately, whether or not the ball is caught
It applies with runners on first and second, or the bases loaded, and fewer than two outs — it stops a fielder dropping the ball on purpose to get two.
Q2.The catcher drops the third strike with first base empty. What may the batter do?Tap to reveal
Answer: Run to first base
The uncaught third strike makes him a runner when first is unoccupied, or when it is occupied with two outs.
Q3.What is a balk?Tap to reveal
Answer: An illegal motion by the pitcher with runners on base
Every runner advances one base — the deterrent that keeps the stretch honest.
Q4.A fair ball bounces once in the outfield and then over the wall. What does the batter get?Tap to reveal
Answer: Two bases — an automatic double
A ball that bounces over is a double by rule, not a home run, which is what fans mean by a ground-rule double.
Q5.How wide is home plate?Tap to reveal
Answer: 17 inches
Five-sided and 17 inches across the front, which is why a pitch an inch off the black is a strike for some umpires and not others.
Q6.Which league adopted the designated hitter in 1973?Tap to reveal
Answer: The American League
Ron Blomberg of the Yankees was the first man to bat as a DH, on Opening Day that April.
Q7.How is the vertical strike zone defined in the rulebook?Tap to reveal
Answer: From the midpoint between the shoulders and the top of the pants down to the hollow beneath the kneecap
It is set by the batter's stance as he prepares to swing, which is why crouching shrinks it.
Q8.By rule, how high above home plate may the pitcher's mound be?Tap to reveal
Answer: 10 inches
Lowered from 15 inches for 1969 after the 1968 season, when pitching had become so dominant that scoring collapsed.
Round 3: The World Series
Eleven questions on finished business. A World Series cannot be un-won, which makes October the most reliable material in baseball trivia — the trophy was handed over, the film exists, and nothing a later season does changes it.
The questions run in chronological order, from 1903 to 2016, so the round doubles as a short history of the sport. If your room skews young, read the last four first.
Q1.Which two teams met in the first modern World Series, in 1903?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates
Boston won the best-of-nine five games to three; the franchise is now the Red Sox.
Q2.In 1919 the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the Series to which team?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Cincinnati Reds
Eight Chicago players were banned for life, among them Shoeless Joe Jackson and pitcher Eddie Cicotte.
Q3.Who was installed as baseball's first commissioner in 1920, in the wake of that scandal?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kenesaw Mountain Landis
A sitting federal judge, he took the job with near-total authority and banned the eight White Sox even after a jury acquitted them.
Q4.Who pitched the only perfect game in World Series history, in 1956?Tap to reveal
Answer: Don Larsen
Game 5 for the Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers; Larsen finished his career with a losing record.
Q5.Whose home run ended Game 7 of the 1960 World Series?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bill Mazeroski
The Pirates second baseman homered off Ralph Terry at Forbes Field — the first Series ever ended by a walk-off home run.
Q6.Which catcher waved his home run fair down the left-field line in Game 6 of 1975?Tap to reveal
Answer: Carlton Fisk
It won the game for Boston in the twelfth inning, and Cincinnati took Game 7 the next night anyway.
Q7.Whose error at first base in Game 6 of 1986 let the Mets win?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bill Buckner
Mookie Wilson's grounder went under his glove; the Red Sox had been one strike from the title and lost Game 7 too.
Q8.Who hit a pinch-hit walk-off home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of 1988?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kirk Gibson
He could barely run on two injured legs, and the Dodgers went on to win the Series in five.
Q9.Which World Series was interrupted by an earthquake?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1989, between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants
The Loma Prieta quake struck minutes before Game 3; play resumed ten days later and Oakland swept.
Q10.Why was no World Series played in 1994?Tap to reveal
Answer: A players' strike
The season was shut down in August and the Series cancelled in September — the only cancellation since 1904.
Q11.Which team ended a 108-year wait by winning the 2016 World Series?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Chicago Cubs
They beat Cleveland in seven games, in extra innings, after a rain delay — their first title since 1908.
Round 4: The Numbers the Game Is Built On
Baseball keeps better books than any other sport, and a handful of its totals have sat untouched for so long that they function as trivia rather than as records. These nine are the ones worth memorising.
The table below is the same nine numbers set out as an answer key, so whoever is reading can check a guess at a glance. Keep it face down until the round has been played — printed and passed round early, it hands the whole round away.
| Number | What it belongs to |
|---|---|
| 511 | Cy Young's career wins |
| 714 | Babe Ruth's career home runs |
| 755 | Hank Aaron's career home runs |
| .406 | Ted Williams's batting average in 1941 |
| 56 | Joe DiMaggio's 1941 hitting streak, in games |
| 2,632 | Cal Ripken Jr's consecutive games played |
| 1.12 | Bob Gibson's earned run average in 1968 |
| 5,714 | Nolan Ryan's career strikeouts |
| 4,256 | Pete Rose's career hits |
Q1.How many games did Cy Young win in his career?Tap to reveal
Answer: 511
He also completed 749 games, a total no modern pitcher will approach, and the award for pitching was named after him in 1956.
Q2.How many home runs did Babe Ruth hit in his career?Tap to reveal
Answer: 714
He hit 60 of them in 1927, in a season only 154 games long.
Q3.Which player hit 755 home runs across 23 seasons?Tap to reveal
Answer: Hank Aaron
He passed Ruth on 8 April 1974 with a swing off Al Downing of the Dodgers, having played through a winter of hate mail.
Q4.What did Ted Williams bat in 1941?Tap to reveal
Answer: .406
He went 6-for-8 on the final day rather than sit out to protect the number.
Q5.In how many consecutive games did Joe DiMaggio get a hit in 1941?Tap to reveal
Answer: 56
The streak ended in Cleveland in July; he then hit in 16 straight games immediately afterwards.
Q6.How many consecutive games did Cal Ripken Jr play?Tap to reveal
Answer: 2,632
He passed Lou Gehrig's 2,130 in September 1995 and voluntarily sat down three years later.
Q7.What earned run average did Bob Gibson post in 1968?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1.12
He threw 13 shutouts that year, in a season so weighted toward pitching that the mound was lowered afterwards.
Q8.How many no-hitters did Nolan Ryan throw?Tap to reveal
Answer: Seven
The last came at 44 years old, and he struck out 5,714 batters across 27 seasons.
Q9.How many hits did Pete Rose finish with?Tap to reveal
Answer: 4,256
The record-breaking hit came off Eric Show of San Diego in September 1985, passing Ty Cobb, and Rose retired as a player the following year.
Round 5: Moments That Needed No Replay
Nine questions on single afternoons. Baseball's famous moments are unusually well suited to trivia because they are small — one pitch, one grounder, one man standing at a microphone — and because the room can usually picture them before anyone says the name.
This is a good round to read slowly. Give the date and the ballpark if a team stalls; it narrows things without giving the answer away.
Q1.Whose 1951 pennant-winning home run is called the Shot Heard 'Round the World?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bobby Thomson
He hit it off Ralph Branca to win a three-game playoff for the Giants over the Dodgers.
Q2.Who made the over-the-shoulder running catch with his back to the plate in the 1954 World Series?Tap to reveal
Answer: Willie Mays
He caught Vic Wertz's drive more than 400 feet from home and spun to throw, and the Giants swept Cleveland.
Q3.Which player is said to have pointed to the outfield before homering in the 1932 World Series?Tap to reveal
Answer: Babe Ruth
The called shot came at Wrigley Field, and the film has been argued over for ninety years without settling it.
Q4.Who called himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth" at Yankee Stadium on 4 July 1939?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lou Gehrig
He had retired weeks earlier with the disease that now carries his name and died less than two years later.
Q5.Which Kansas City third baseman had a home run taken away over the bat he used, in 1983?Tap to reveal
Answer: George Brett
Umpires ruled the pine tar too high up the handle; the league president reversed it and the game was finished a month later.
Q6.Who is the only pitcher to throw no-hitters in consecutive starts?Tap to reveal
Answer: Johnny Vander Meer
Cincinnati, June 1938 — the second came in the first night game ever played at Ebbets Field.
Q7.Which pitcher retired 36 batters in a row in 1959 and lost the game?Tap to reveal
Answer: Harvey Haddix
Twelve perfect innings for Pittsburgh against Milwaukee, then an error, a walk and a hit in the thirteenth.
Q8.Who hit three home runs on three swings in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series?Tap to reveal
Answer: Reggie Jackson
Three pitches off three different Dodgers pitchers, which is where the nickname Mr. October stuck for good.
Q9.Which pitcher sat out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sandy Koufax
He pitched a shutout in Game 7 instead, and retired a year later at 30 with an arthritic elbow.
Round 6: Ballparks
No other sport lets its venues differ this much. A fence 310 feet away in one city and 400 in another changes which players are stars, and the parks themselves are old enough to carry history. Nine questions on the buildings.
A round that travels well: ask the ballpark questions in a bar in any city and somebody has been to at least four of them.
Q1.Which is the oldest ballpark still in use in Major League Baseball?Tap to reveal
Answer: Fenway Park, Boston
It opened in April 1912, the same week the Titanic sank, and has been patched rather than replaced ever since.
Q2.What is the 37-foot wall in left field at Fenway Park called?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Green Monster
It is close enough to the plate that fly balls become doubles and line drives become singles off the wall.
Q3.Which ballpark has ivy growing on its outfield brick?Tap to reveal
Answer: Wrigley Field, Chicago
Bill Veeck planted it in 1937; a ball lost in the vines is ruled a double.
Q4.In which year did Wrigley Field finally host a night game?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1988
It was the last major league park to install lights, 53 years after the first night game was played in Cincinnati.
Q5.Which horseshoe-shaped New York ballpark was home to the Giants until 1957?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Polo Grounds
Its foul lines were absurdly short and centre field nearly 475 feet away, which is what made Mays's 1954 catch possible.
Q6.Which stadium was nicknamed "The House That Ruth Built"?Tap to reveal
Answer: Yankee Stadium
It opened in 1923, three seasons after Ruth's arrival filled the Polo Grounds, which the Yankees had been sharing with the Giants, beyond capacity.
Q7.What was the first domed stadium in major league history?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Astrodome, Houston
It opened in 1965; when the painted roof panes blinded fielders, the grass died and artificial turf was laid the next year.
Q8.Which 1992 ballpark started the retro brick-and-steel era?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore
Its right-field backdrop is a surviving railway warehouse, and nearly every park built since has copied the idea.
Q9.Which ballpark was the first to store its baseballs in a humidor, in 2002?Tap to reveal
Answer: Coors Field, Denver
A mile above sea level the ball carries and breaking pitches flatten; MLB later put a humidor in every park.
Round 7: Cooperstown, the Negro Leagues and the Nicknames
The Hall of Fame is the one institution that makes baseball's history legible, and the Negro Leagues are the part of that history most trivia sets skip. Nine questions covering both, plus the nicknames that have outlived the men who carried them.
Nicknames are the easiest material on this page to turn into a speed round: read ten in a row and give one point each, no context, no conferring.
| Nickname | Player |
|---|---|
| The Iron Horse | Lou Gehrig |
| The Splendid Splinter | Ted Williams |
| The Say Hey Kid | Willie Mays |
| The Big Train | Walter Johnson |
| The Georgia Peach | Ty Cobb |
| The Wizard of Oz | Ozzie Smith |
| Mr. Cub | Ernie Banks |
| Stan the Man | Stan Musial |
| The Yankee Clipper | Joe DiMaggio |
| Rapid Robert | Bob Feller |
Q1.In which town is the Baseball Hall of Fame?Tap to reveal
Answer: Cooperstown, New York
The museum opened in 1939, built on a founding story about the village that historians have since dismantled.
Q2.Who were the five players in the Hall of Fame's first class, elected in 1936?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson
Cobb drew the most votes of the five, ahead of Ruth.
Q3.What share of the ballots does a player need for election to the Hall of Fame?Tap to reveal
Answer: 75 percent
Writers may name up to ten players per ballot, and a player failing to reach five percent drops off entirely.
Q4.Who founded the Negro National League in 1920?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rube Foster
A pitcher and manager first, he organised the owners in a Kansas City meeting and ran the league himself.
Q5.Which Homestead Grays catcher is remembered as the Negro Leagues' great power hitter?Tap to reveal
Answer: Josh Gibson
He died at 35 in 1947, three months before the colour line fell, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972.
Q6.Which pitcher reached the major leagues as a 42-year-old rookie in 1948?Tap to reveal
Answer: Satchel Paige
He had already been a Negro Leagues star for two decades; in 1971 he became the first of them inducted at Cooperstown.
Q7.Who was the first Black player in the American League, in 1947?Tap to reveal
Answer: Larry Doby
He debuted for Cleveland eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson, and is far less often named for it.
Q8.Which position did Jackie Robinson play in his 1947 rookie season?Tap to reveal
Answer: First base
He moved to second base the following year, and in 1947 won the first Rookie of the Year award ever given.
Q9.Which Pittsburgh right fielder finished with exactly 3,000 hits and died in a plane crash on 31 December 1972?Tap to reveal
Answer: Roberto Clemente
He was flying relief supplies to Nicaragua after an earthquake; the Hall of Fame held a special election for him within months.
Round 8: The Hard Round
Seven questions for the table that cleared the first seven rounds without hesitating. None of these needs a current standing or a live statistic — they are old, closed and genuinely difficult.
If you need a single question to decide a tie, use the Merkle one. It is the rare piece of trivia that is both obscure and consequential.
Q1.Who won 31 games in the 1968 season?Tap to reveal
Answer: Denny McLain
The Detroit right-hander went 31-6; no pitcher has won 30 in a season since.
Q2.Who hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season?Tap to reveal
Answer: Barry Bonds
It broke a mark set only three years earlier, when Mark McGwire hit 70 and Sammy Sosa 66.
Q3.Who collected 262 hits in the 2004 season?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ichiro Suzuki
The Seattle outfielder passed George Sisler's 257, which had stood since 1920.
Q4.What is the Mendoza Line?Tap to reveal
Answer: A .200 batting average
Named for Mario Mendoza, a shortstop good enough with a glove to keep a job while hitting around that figure.
Q5.In pitching statistics, what does WHIP stand for?Tap to reveal
Answer: Walks plus hits per inning pitched
It measures how many runners a pitcher allows rather than how many score, so defence and luck move it less than ERA.
Q6.Which Giants player's failure to touch second base in 1908 cost his team the pennant?Tap to reveal
Answer: Fred Merkle
The tied game was replayed, the Cubs won it and then the World Series — their last for 108 years.
Q7.Which four franchises joined the major leagues as expansion teams in 1969?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Kansas City Royals, Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres and Seattle Pilots
The Pilots lasted one season before moving to Milwaukee as the Brewers.
How to Run a Baseball Trivia Night
Eight rounds is more than one evening needs. For a single sitting pick four: the rules round as a warm-up, the World Series round for the people who only watch in October, one of the ballpark or nickname rounds as a breather, and the hard round last. That is 35 questions and runs 45 minutes with scoring.
Pacing matters more than difficulty. Read each question twice, then move — a question that needs a third reading is a question for the next round, not this one. Collect answers on paper rather than shouting them out, because the first voice in the room stops nine other people from thinking.
Scoring that works: one point a question, no negatives, and a number question to break ties so the night ends on a guess instead of an argument. The two below are built for exactly that. If you want more sport, the NFL round and NBA round are built the same way, and the broader sports trivia set mixes all of them for a crowd that does not share one league.
Printing this page works fine — nothing here expires between now and the night you use it, which is the whole reason the questions were chosen the way they were.
Q1.Tiebreaker: how many stitches are there on a regulation baseball?Tap to reveal
Answer: 108 double stitches
That is 216 individual stitches, all sewn by hand in red waxed thread.
Q2.Tiebreaker: who wrote the lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in 1908 without ever having attended a game?Tap to reveal
Answer: Jack Norworth
He set them to Albert Von Tilzer's music; by his own account he did not see a major league game until decades later.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many baseball trivia questions are on this page?
72, in eight rounds plus two tiebreakers: basic rules, rulebook oddities, the World Series, career and season numbers, famous moments, ballparks, the Hall of Fame and Negro Leagues, a hard round, and the two tiebreakers at the end. The rounds get harder roughly in that order.
Are these questions going to go out of date?
Nothing here depends on a current season, an active career or a league leader. Every answer is settled — a rule in the book, a finished World Series, a retired player's final totals, a ballpark's opening year — which is why the page is safe to print and reuse.
What are good baseball trivia questions for people who do not follow the sport?
Use Round 1 and the nickname table in Round 7. The distances, the number of fielders and the nicknames are all things a casual fan has absorbed without noticing, so the round feels winnable. Skip Rounds 2 and 8 entirely for that crowd.
Which question here is the hardest?
Fred Merkle in Round 8. Most tables know the 1908 Cubs won a title and nobody knows why there was a replayed game. The Johnny Vander Meer back-to-back no-hitters question is the second hardest, because people guess Nolan Ryan or Sandy Koufax.
Can I use these questions at a bar or a fundraiser?
Yes. The page is free to read, print and run from, and the questions were written for reading aloud — each one is a single sentence, and each answer has a line of context you can add after the point is awarded.
