As we await this month’s HoF balloting, here’s a little diversion in a bit different format from most of my quizzes.  Here are the clues:

1. I pitched primarily in relief in a career of more than both 10 seasons and 500 innings
2. I never pitched in the post-season, but was twice traded in mid-season from teams that made the playoffs
3. I pitched in both leagues, but played in the AL only for expansion teams

Congratulations to Jim! He knew that our mystery player was none other than Frank DiPino, (mostly) an NL reliever from the 1980s and early 1990s. More on DiPino after the jump.

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What do three HOFers have in common with several other less celebrated players? In fact, all of them share the distinction of a certain seasonal batting accomplishment of which no others can boast. What is it?

Congratulations to Voomo Zanzibar! He knew that these players have hit the most home runs in a season from each of the nine batting order positions.

The list of players is after the jump.

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This quiz is about players with a connection to another player. There are two lists of players with each player in the first list matching a player in the second. Your job is to figure out the connection.

Congratulations to No Statistician But! He knew that the matching players were teammates in a season when both (or all) hit their 300th home runs. Those details are after the jump.

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Royals speedster Paulo Orlando has most recently joined this group of mainly obscure players. But, only these live ball era players started their careers in an unusual way. What distinguishes the starts of these players’ careers among those of all other live ball era players? (Click on MORE to see the full list of quiz players)

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Here’s a list of some of the all-time great sluggers, plus a few others in a different class. Your task is to identify the career accomplishment shared only by these retired players.

1. Babe Ruth
2. Mark McGwire
3. Barry Bonds
4. Jim Thome
5. Adam Dunn
6. Russell Branyan
7. Dave Kingman
8. Rob Deer

Congratulations to Elkboy! (and welcome to HHS). He knew that only these retired players recorded Isolated Power higher than Batting Average in a 3000 PA career. More after the jump.
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All of these pitchers played for a division champion. But, they also did something else to distinguish themselves from all other relief pitchers since divisional play began in 1969. What is this unusual pitching accomplishment?

The pitchers are:

1. Wade Davis,
2. Santiago Casilla,
3. Zach Britton,
4. Koji Uehara,
5. Joaquin Benoit,
6. Rafael Betancourt,
7. Cla Meredith,
8. Michael Jackson,
9. Dennis Eckersley, and
10. Dick Hall.

Click MORE for links to these players’ Baseball-Reference pages.

The solution to the quiz is that these are the only relief pitchers on a division-winning team to face fewer than 3.75 batters per IP in a 50 IP season with zero starts. More on efficient relief seasons after the jump.

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The 2012 Minnesota Twins have the unfortunate distinction of being the only club in more than 35 years with some unusual position players on its roster. What unenviable characteristic distinguishes these clubs from among all other post-war teams?

Hint #1: There were twelve such teams from 1920 to 1941, and seven more from 1942 to 1945. Seventeen of those 19 teams were Braves, Phillies, Athletics and Reds clubs.

Hint #2: The recent passing of 1960s Giant third baseman Jim Davenport led me to this topic (though he wasn’t one of the players that put the 1968 Giants on this list).

Congratulations to bstar! He correctly identified that only these post-war teams had two players qualify for the league batting championship with ISO of 0.05 or less. More after the jump.

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The players in this quiz share the distinction of posting the only qualified seasons since 1961 with a certain batting accomplishment. What is it?

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2015 NL RoY Kris Bryant makes this list of modern batters who were not shy about taking their cuts. What is the unusual seasonal batting feat that only these players have achieved since 1901?

Our readers zeroed in on BABIP as part of the quiz answer, but didn’t get that only these players had a qualified season since 1901 with a .350 BABIP that was one-third higher than their overall batting average. Those seasons are after the jump.
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2015 NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta is one of the twelve pitchers below to record a certain single game pitching accomplishment in the past twenty seasons (since 1996). What is this unusual feat?

1. Jake Arrieta
2. John Danks
3. Brian Anderson
4. Kris Benson
5. Jamey Wright
6. Brian Moehler
7. Ross Detwiler
8. Aaron Laffey
9. Francisco Cordova
10. Glendon Rusch
11. Kevin Millwood
12. Esteban Loaiza

Hint #1: Roger Clemens is the only other Cy Young Award winner to accomplish this feat.
Hint #2: Since 1914, no pitcher has accomplished this feat on his birthday.

Looks like this one was a stumper. The key to the solution was observing that these twelve pitchers were born on only 6 dates, two pitchers per date. In fact, only these pitchers have started a game since 1996 in which the the two starters shared a common birth date (i.e. born same day and year). More after the jump.

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