Happy Memorial Day. Trivia Road dedicates today's quiz to Emma Morano of Pallanza, Italy. Not only is Emma 116 years old, and not only is she the world's oldest living person, (a distinction she gained about three weeks ago) she is also believed to be the last living person in the world born in the 1800s. She was born November 29th, 1899. Among Emma's secrets to longevity: thinking positively about the future, eating three raw eggs a day and remaining single since 1938.
Emma's longevity is impressive in historical perspective. She was born during the McKinley administration. The Spanish-American War and Second Boer War were fought during her birth year. Marconi broadcast the first radio signal across the English Channel in 1899.
Emma's also outlived an impressive roster of famous individuals also born in 1899. Hey, that would be a good topic for a quiz! Identify these people born in 1899:
1. d. 1957, he won his only Oscar for his portrayal of Capt. Charlie Allnut
Humphrey Bogart
2. d. 1961, this author's home in Key West, Fla. is still known for its colony of polydactyl cats
Ernest Hemingway
3. d. 1974, this bandleader has a bridge in Washington D.C. named for him, and he's on the back of the District of Columbia quarter
Duke Ellington
4. d. 1980, this director appears in some of his own films carrying a violin case, a double bass case, a trumpet case or two Sealyham terriers
Alfred Hitchcock
5. d. 1985, he authored a writing style guide with William Strunk in 1918 and wrote classic children's novels in 1945 and 1952
E.B. White, who wrote Stuart Little in 1945 and Charlotte's Web in 1952
6. d. 1986, he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1942; in the 1931 movie The Public Enemy, he smashes a grapefruit in co-star Mae Clarke's face
James Cagney
7. d. 1987, his iconic movie scene is from the 1951 movie Royal Wedding, where he dances on the ceiling
Fred Astaire
8. d. 1989, this businessman owned the St. Louis Cardinals for 36 years
August A. (Gussie) Busch
9. d. 1992, he won a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 and is famous for authoring The Road to Serfdom
Friedrich Hayek
10. d. 1994, this American cartoonist was the creator of Woody Woodpecker
Walter Lantz
Also born in 1899: 15-time Wimbledon champion Suzanne Lenglen (d. 1938), playwright Noel Coward (d. 1973), author Vladimir Nabokov (d. 1977), composer Hoagy Carmichael (d. 1981), actress Gloria Swanson (d. 1983), conductor Eugene Ormandy (d. 1985), and, on the notorious side, Bruno Richard Hauptmann (executed for kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son in 1936) and Al Capone (d. 1947). Finally, the legendary soccer club Barcelona FC was founded the very day Emma Morano was born, November 29, 1899.
A highly entertaining men's NCAA basketball tournament will come to an end tomorrow night when Villanova plays North Carolina for the national championship. Carolina's looked like the class of the tournament from the opening tip, but I've really enjoyed Villanova's scrappy play. Carolina's a 2.5-point favorite, and that feels about right. They're not really running away from opponents from the start of games and they haven't been beating you from the three-point line. This feels like a game that should come down to an interesting finish.
I doubt that "analysis" makes up for the fact I missed my self-imposed Friday deadline for this week, but it's the best I've got. This is a Final Four quiz, but with a twist - it's not about basketball. All of the answers will be school from this year's Final Four: the University of North Carolina, Villanova University, Syracuse University and the University of Oklahoma, though I wonder if losing by 44 in a national semifinal should really count as an appearance:
1. Which school in this year's Final Four was founded first?
North Carolina, in 1795. It's one of three schools that holds claim to the title of America's oldest public university.
2. Which is the only school in the Final Four with a U.S. President among its alumni?
North Carolina again: James Knox Polk
3. Which two Final Four schools represent Vice-Presidential couple Joe and Jill Biden?
Syracuse (Joe graduated from SU's law school) and Villanova (where Jill mastered in English)
4. Match the schools to their highly-successful but lesser-known sports programs:
A. 6-time men's crew national champions
B. 9-time and defending men's gymnastics national champions
C. 9-time women's cross-country national champions
D. 21-time women's soccer national champions
10. (Good luck with this one)
Match the school to a course title offered there this semester:
A. Contemporary Turkish Cinema
B. Facebook and Jesus
C. Hitler and Hollywood
D. Italian Oral Skills
I'll close with my favorite quote from North Carolina's course catalog: “Professor Glish is an analytical chemist. He cherishes that title because most people do not know what analytical chemistry is so he can do all kinds of different research and call it analytical chemistry.”
If you're a St. Louis Cardinals fan and haven't read it already, I happily recommend Pitch By Pitch: My View of One Unforgettable Game, written by Hall-of-Famer Bob Gibson and Lonnie Wheeler. It's a pitch-by-pitch account of game 1 of the 1968 World Series with a lot of background information and good story-telling. (I'm only up to the 7th inning, so don't spoil the ending for me.) Gibson and Pitch By Pitch are the inspirations for today's quiz:
1. Bob Gibson played college basketball at Creighton University and went on to play for what pro basketball team?
That's a gimme for Cardinals fans; the Harlem Globetrotters
2. Gibson won the National League MVP and Cy Young awards in 1968 and led his team to the World Series. Who duplicated those feats in the American League that year?
Denny McLain, who won 31 games
3. Name the two pitchers since 1968 to win the MVP, win the Cy Young and pitch in the World Series in the same season.
Roger Clemens (1986), Willie Hernandez (1984)
4. What team did Sandy Koufax shut out the most times?
Koufax shut the Cardinals out 10 times. Three of those came against Gibson.
5. Major League Baseball lowered the pitcher's mound to its current height after pitchers dominated the 1968 season. What was the previous height and what is the current height?
It went from 15 inches down to 10.
6. Who led the National League in hitting in 1968 with an impressive .335 average?
Pete Rose, and shouldn't that have been talked about a lot more than it has? Hitting .335 in the Year of the Pitcher?
7. And what two relatives finished second and third?
Matty (.332) and Felipe (.317) Alou
8. Who claimed the American League batting title in 1968 with a record-low .301?
Carl Yastrzemski
9. Gibson's league-leading 1.12 ERA in '68 is a well-known stat for long-time baseball fans. Who won the American League title that year with an impressive 1.60?
Luis Tiant
10. Oh, OK, spoiler alert for those reading the book: how many Detroit Tigers did Bob Gibson strike out in game 1 of the 1968 World Series (still a WS record)?
Though this article will begin with a couple of Sports Illustrated links, and contains mostly sports trivia questions, man does not live by sports trivia alone, and Trivia Road in turn won't limit itself to any one type of trivia. The mission here is to become an educational and entertaining source of trivia facts and quizzes (and just maybe to post more often than once a month). In that spirit, Trivia Road (@TriviaRoad) will live-tweet tonight's Academy Awards show with possibly interesting, and maybe even relevant, trivia facts.
Possibly interesting links:
Max McGee's life might be worthy of movie treatment. The 38-year-old last-string wide receiver was a most unlikely hero of Super Bowl I and went on to even greater success as a businessman in his post-NFL career: The man behind the legend: McGee's story goes well beyond SB hangover
Earlier this month SI excerpted part of the book This Is Your Brain On Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can Learn from the T-Shirt Cannon, by L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers. The quarterback is very frequently considered the golden boy, the best-looking player on the team; the article featured a study that set out to prove or disprove that long-held generalization. The authors showed photos of NFL and NCAA players to several hundred people who rated them on good looks and also how they perceived the player as a leader. They weren't told they were looking at NFL players, but seriously, did they expect people not to recognize Peyton Manning? The study found out that QB is actually not the best-good-looking position on the team at all. Raters found defensive backs, wide receivers and linebackers physically better-looking on average. (Linemen and kickers were not included.) QBs, however, won on almost all of the leadership traits. The authors ultimately proposed that QBs are considered better-looking than their teammates because of facial traits that make them look more like leaders. Handsome Is As Handsome Does: Are QBs really the best-looking players?
The study didn't find much correlation between perceived good looks and championships. Tom Brady (2nd) and Aaron Rodgers (7th) were the only top-10 best-looking QBs to have won Super Bowls. The rest of the top 6 is pretty hilarious as far as QB accomplishments are concerned: 1 – Alex Smith; 3 – Ryan Tannehill; 4 – E.J. Manuel; 5 – Matt Cassell; 6 – Nick Foles. Manuel also received the highest marks for having the look of a leader. The study was done in 2014; Manuel wasn't even a starter by the time 2015 rolled around. Very successful QBs rounded out the top 5 in leadership looks, though, with Matt Ryan, Smith, Brady and Carson Palmer. Jay Cutler, Matthew Stafford and Titans draft bust Jake Locker (last) were among the low-scorers.
#32?
Seriously?
Also on the humorous side, at least to me as a former Rams fan, Sam Bradford (left) was rated the least-good-looking QB in the league (among the projected starters for the 2014 season). Less appealing than Peyton Manning, Brian Hoyer (right),Joe Flacco or Andrew Luck? Huh. Those are not handsome dudes. One caveat: the head shot the authors used for Ryan Fitzpatrick, who came in 31st, was without his Civil War-era beard. Bradford, though, also finished near the bottom for visually giving off the aura of a leader. Well, it played out on the field. Maybe teams should run photos of each year's draft prospects at QB by the people who audition cheerleaders, just in case. Cleveland could have avoided Brandon Weeden AND Johnny Manziel had they just taken the time to conduct proper "Hot or Not" tests.
On to the quiz, inspired by the many trophies and awards that have been in the news the past few weeks (or will be in the news soon):
1. The Super Bowl winner obviously receives the Vince Lombardi trophy, obviously named for the Green Bay Packers' coaching legend, but Lombardi was the head coach for another NFL team besides the Packers. Which one?
Lombardi coached the Washington Redskins from 1969-1970
2. Who's the most recent recipient of the Harley Earl Trophy?
Denny Hamlin; the Harley Earl Trophy goes to the winner of the Daytona 500
3. What was the name of the first yacht to win the America's Cup?
America. The trophy is actually named for the first yacht to win it
4. For whom are the Tony Awards named?
Antoinette Perry, an actress/director/philanthropist who co-founded the American Theatre Wing, which sponsors the award.
The most successful Tony in Tony Awards history I could identify is Tony Walton, who won three Tonys for Scenic Design. He was married to Julie Andrews for eight years.
5. Who receives the BorgWarner Trophy?
The winner of the Indianapolis 500
6. What was the sad fate of the Copa del Rey trophy in 2011?
It was crushed by a bus. Specifically, the bus carrying the victorious Real Madrid players. Defender Sergio Ramos dropped it from the top deck of the bus.
7. What trophy is named for the 16th Earl of Derby?
The Stanley Cup. Lord Stanley, also the 16th Earl of Derby, was the Governor-General of Canada when the Cup was named for him in 1897.
8. What two NFL wide receivers have won Lombardi Trophies as well as the coveted Dancing With the Stars Mirrorball Trophy?
Hines Ward and Donald Driver
9. Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam were 2015 co-winners of this trophy (left) for excellence in what scholastic endeavor?
spelling
10. What trophy is modeled after New York University athlete Ed Smith?
The Heisman Trophy. Smith himself didn't learn the sculpture he'd posed for in the 30's became the Heisman until 1982. The Downtown Athletic Club presented Smith his own Heisman Trophy in 1985.
Tickets to the inaugural "AFL-NFL World Championship Game", which was not called the Super Bowl until what we now know as Super Bowl IV, cost, as you can see on the left, a whopping $10. Adjusted for inflation, that is around $70 in 2016 prices, still a pretty great deal.
And a much better deal than anything a ticket-buying fan is going to get attending today's game. The lowest face value for a Super Bowl 50 ticket is $850. (The NFL did make 1,000 tickets available in a fan lottery for a mere $500.) The $10 bill that got you into the game in 1967 wouldn't even get you a beer at today's game; the cheapest brew goes for $13.
USA Today
And, of course, everyone knows you can't actually get Super Bowl tickets anywhere at face value. Ticket brokerages SeatGeek.com and StubHub.com both report average prices for seats for the big game in the $4,800 range. This makes Super Bowl 50 the most expensive sports event to attend in history. Two 50-yard-line seats for the game went to a San Jose buyer for $20,500! Each! (As I type this up, SeatGeek's "cheapest" seats are going for $3,255.)
In a sight that should become routine again in L.A. in the 2016 season, the Los Angeles Coliseum was about 2/3 full for the first Super Bowl. It's officially the only Super Bowl that didn't sell out, though Super Bowl XLVIII reportedly came close.
I think it's also fair to say the sideline entertainment has changed just a little over the years...
Actual cheerleaders at Super Bowl I (CNN.com)
Here's a trivia question for Super Bowl Sunday:
The Super Bowl has had 43 different Most Valuable Players in its 50-year history, and 42 of them are still alive to see today's game. Who's the only Super Bowl MVP no longer living?
He passed away in 2001 and was one of the only Super Bowl co-MVPs
Harvey Martin
Sources: CNN, ESPN, K99.com (Denver), MyFox8.com (Charlotte), Seatgeek.com, Wikipedia
