Baseball History Comes Alive Now Ranked #2 by Feedspot Among All Internet Baseball History Websites and Blogs!

Guest Submissions from Our Readers Always Welcome!

Welcome to the “Mystery Player World Series Tournament!”

The 2022 major league baseball season has almost completed one month, while here on Baseball History Comes Alive our Mystery Player “Regular Season” tournament is well underway.

Here’s What It’s All About!

There’s nothing like a little friendly competition to get the juices flowing! I’ve decided to turn the weekly Mystery Player game into a three-round tournament.

To use as much baseball logo as possible, I’ll be referring to each of the three rounds as the East, Central, and West Divisions. The divisional play will consist of six weekly contests. Each division winner and two wild card players will advance to the Mystery Player World Series tournament!

Central Divisional Play, Week Three

We’re currently in Week Three, with competition for the Central Division championship. If the same player wins more than one division, the second-place player will advance to the World Series.

To mix things up a bit, I’ll be throwing some “curves”: the posting of each weekly entry will always be on the weekend (Friday to Sunday), but the time will be varied and unannounced…I’ll be “mixing it up,” so that no one will be sitting on my “fastball” anticipating the post at a set time!

The weekly entries will go out automatically to all the subscribers of the Baseball History Comes Alive website, so you don’t have to do anything…just be ready each weekend!

And to be clear…the tournament is “open book.” Feel free to use any resources you want. As always, the underlying objective is to enhance our knowledge of baseball history while having some fun with a little competition.

Tournament Prizes

The winner of the tournament will receive a $25 Amazon gift card and a complimentary copy of my new book, soon to be published, The Best of Baseball History Comes Alive. The runners-up will also receive complimentary copies of my new book.

As you send me your answers, I will grade them and return them to you with your score for the round. As each round progresses, I’ll keep a running tally of players’ scores and weekly standings.

Participation is open to all readers of Baseball History Comes Alive and our Old-Time Baseball Photos Facebook page. Also, please extend an invitation to any friends or relatives who might enjoy playing.

So as to give everyone a chance to participate without the player’s identity being immediately revealed, send me your answers via e-mail instead of leaving your answers in the comments section.

Send your answers to me at: Livac2@aol.com.

******************************************************************************

“The Mystery Player World Series Tournament!”

Let’s Play Ball!

Central Divison, Week Three

Please note: This week there are a total of nine points available – One for each of the three players in the featured photo (three points total), one each for each of the bonus questions (five points total), and one for the first person to get all the players and the bonus questions correct.

This week’s Mystery Players:

This week’s mystery players’ photo might be a little tougher. Today, we see three players from the 1930s grouped together by photographer Leslie Jones. This photo was found unidentified as part of the Leslie Jones Boston Public Library collection. I did the identifications of this one for the SABR project.

Leslie Jones was known for his unusual, often humorous, groupings of players together. For instance, he would put players together who were from the same town, former teammates, former roommates, same ethnic group, brothers, and even players he thought looked alike! I’m not kidding about this last category. That was probably his favorite grouping, and there were literally hundreds in the collection of players put together because he thought they looked alike.

The reason for the particular grouping of these three players is the fifth bonus question.

Who are the three Mystery Players? (1 point awarded for each correct identification)

This week’s bonus questions:

One of the players is well known for his hit in Game Four of the 1947 World Series. Which player? (1 point)
One of the players was a coach for Al Lopez in both Cleveland and Chicago. Which player? (1 point)
One of the players had two brothers that also played in the majors. Which player and what were the names of the brothers? (1 point)
Within five years, what year was this photo taken? (1 point)
Photographer Leslie Jones was known for his unusual reasons for the grouping of players together for photos. Why do you think he put this group of three together? (1 point)

Good luck! Remember you don’t have to answer everything to submit an answer. Just give it your best shot!

Send your answers to me at: Livac2@aol.com

************************************************************

Last Week’s Results for Central Division, Week One:

The Mystery Players were

Larry French, Freddie Lindstrom, and Phil Cavarretta

Answers to the Bonus Questions:

Freddie Lindstrom is in the Hall of fame, Cavarretta managed the Cubs, French was in the Navy, Lindstrom was the youngest layer in a postseason game, and Cavarrettta won an MVP award.

Congratulations to:

Bob Rambo

He was the first to identify last week’s Mystery Players correctly and also answer all the bonus questions correctly. He received 10 points.

The following also correctly identified the Mystery Players and correctly answered all or some of the bonus questions:

Paul Doyle (5), James Pearn (9), Mark Moreno (9), William Carter (9), Cary Seidman (6), George Curcio (9), Mike Bresina (9), Fred Holbrook (9), Kevin Barwin (9), Everett Shockley (9), Pat Hanson (9), Russ Bravender (9), Ed Cassidy (), Tom Marshall (6), Michael Keedy ().

Appeal Plays: If you think I’ve made a mistake with your score, you can request an appeal, just like an appeal in a major league game. Send me your appeal request at: Livac2@aol.com. It won’t go to New York, but I’ll address the issue as fairly as I can…and probably quicker than most major league appeals!