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Welcome to the New “Mystery Player World Series Tournament!”

Spring Training for the 2022 major league baseball season may be delayed, but not here on Baseball History Comes Alive! Our Mystery Player “Spring Training” is over. So today we start the “Regular Season.” So let’s “Play Ball!”

Here’s What It’s All About!

There’s nothing like a little friendly competition to get the juices flowing! As I mentioned last week, 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 entries. Each division winner and one wild card player will advance to the four-player Mystery Player World Series tournament!

East Divisional Play

We’ll start the tournament today with competition for the East Division championship. After six weeks, I’ll announce the East Division winner. Then we’ll start over in the Central Divison, followed by the West Division. If the same player wins more than one division, the second-place player will advance to the World Series.

Player Identities: Gavvy Cravath and Tris Speaker

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.

Tournament Scoring

As each round progresses, I’ll keep a running tally of players’ scores and weekly standings. Scoring will be as follows:

Three points: The weekly winner – the first player to correctly identify the Mystery Player(s) and answer all bonus questions correctly.
Two points: All the other players who correctly identify the Mystery Player(s) and answer the bonus questions correctly.
One point: Players who correctly identify the Mystery Player(s) only.

Participation will be open to all readers of Baseball History Comes Alive and our Old-Time Baseball Photos Facebook page. Please extend an invitation to any friends or relatives who might also 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.

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OK…It’s time to kick off the

“Mystery Player World Series Tournament!”

Let’s Play Ball!

East Divison, Entry One

This week’s Mystery Players (info from Wikipedia):

Mystery Player on the left was one of the sport’s most prolific power hitters of the

dead-ball era. In the seven years from 1913 to 1920, he led the National League in home runs six times, in runs batted in, total bases, and slugging percentage twice each, and in hits, runs and walks once each.

Mystery Player on the right is considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball. He compiled a career batting average of .345. His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth on the all-time hits list.

Who are the two Mystery Players?

This week’s bonus questions:

What year did the photo have to be taken?
What was the occasion of the photo?
What was the nickname of the Mystery Player on the left
What was the nickname of the Mystery Player on the right?
The Mystery Player on the right managed ______________ to a World Series Championship in what year?

Good luck!

If you’d like to take a stab at identifying these players, please send me your answers via email. But feel free to add any thoughts or personal reflections you might have about him in the comments section below. 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 Winners:

Congratulations to:

Everett Shockley

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

The Mystery Players were:

Monte Irvin and Larry Doby

Answers to the Bonus Questions:

Monty Irvin went to two World Series with the Giants; he mentored Willie Mays; Larry Doby and Satchel Paige were the first African-Americans to win a World Series Championship; Larry Doby managed the White Sox; he served in the front office of the New Jersy Nets.

The following also correctly identified the Mystery Players and correctly answered the bonus questions:

Terry Farmer, Mike Bresina, Ed Cassidy, Bob Rambo, Nick Snider, Paul Doyle, Russ Bravender, William Carter, Steve Cline, Al Citro, Ralph Hudnall, Bill Cunniff

The following identified the Mystery Players correctly but not all the bonus questions:

Bryan Hanson, Thomas Hine, Don Stokes, Fred Holbrook, Dennis Knight, John Alcamo, Cary Seidman

“Spring Training” Grapefruit League Champion

The official Spring Training Mystery Player Champion was Terry Farmer with 5 wins, followed by Paul Doyle (4), Don Stokes (2), and William Carter (2).