Your Saturday Sporcle: The Quest for 3,000 hits

Before we get to that, last week’s Sporcle was another active one, with 200 people taking a shot at naming the 20 active pitchers with 100 or more victories for their career. The average score was a decent 12/20, though only seven managed to name all twenty pitchers. Just about everyone got Justin Verlander - six misses there - with Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw also being named correctly by north of 90%. There was only one player named on fewer than 38% of entries. That was poor 108-97 Scott Kazmir, whom only 15% could name. Admittedly, his last major-league victory was back in 2016. So it’s understandable people might not have figured him as “active”, despite four starts for the Giants in 2021.

Now, on to this week’s quiz. 3,000 hits is often seen as the benchmark of a Hall of Fame career. Right now, there’s just one active player in that club, but with the next up having 2,987 and having two years left on his current contract, it seems almost certain there’ll be a new member coming soon. Below him though... 2,624 hits is next: that player is already 38, and his hopes were dealt a severe blow by missing all of 2021 due to a failed drugs test. He’ll need at least two or three more seasons, though also has two years remaining on his current deal. After that, there’s no-one even at 2,200 hits, so we need to look at the younger players who might have a chance.

That’s why, for this chart, I’ve listed the players age as well as their number of hits. There are a couple of people who would seem to have a possible shot. A certain garbage-can tainted infielder might possess the best combination of age and hits so far. There are also three former Diamondbacks present: two you can probably guess, but the third - the one with the most hits - came as a bit of a surprise to me. Anyway, the quiz is below, or here’s the link. Let’s set the goal for this one at 50%, so 13 out of the 26. Have fun, and let us know your best hits and wildest misses in the comments.