Opening Day is drawing near. So hopefully you’re in the right frame of mind for baseball. If not, we’ll try to get you primed with the last few days of Spring Training Trivia.

Here was the last question:

What two-time All-Star first baseman for the Cubs actually began and ended his career with the Cardinals?

The Cardinals drafted Leon “Bull” Durham with the 15th pick in the first round of the 1976 amateur draft after he was named a high school All-American at Woodward High School in Cincinnati.

On Dec. 9, 1980, he was traded to the Cubs with Ken Reitz and a player to be named later for closer Bruce Sutter. The player to be named later was Ty Waller, who played in 63 games over a four-year career.

Durham made his big-league debut May 27, 1980, against the Mets, going 1 for 5 with an RBI. It was the start of a solid 10-year career in which he was named to the NL All-Star team in 1982 and ’83. His best year was 1984 when he hit .279 with 23 homers and 96 RBI, while helping the Cubs reach the NLCS.

However, he is remembered for an error in Game 5 of the NLCS against the Padres where he let a grounder by pinch-hitter Tim Flannery go through his legs. The tying run scored on the play and the Cubs ultimately lost the game and the series.

Durham signed with the Cardinals as a free agent in 1989 and played in 29 games, hitting .056. He retired after that season.

Now on to the next question:

Which former Cardinals catcher is one of only seven catchers in major league history to catch a no-hitter in both leagues?

Check back for the answer.

Although it often takes longer than anyone plans, sitting through a fantasy baseball draft or auction is an enlightening experience.

It makes you appreciate the nuances of the game.

Baseball is a stat-driven sport, but you have to study more than the numbers if you hope to put together a successful team. You have to understand tendencies, a manager’s reliance on his bullpen and who is hitting where in a team’s lineup.

Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter is one of the pitchers I'm counting on to give me an edge in our fantasy baseball league.

You wind up studying a lead-off hitter’s ability to steal bases and which pitcher’s he might struggle to get a good jump against if he’s on first base. You figure out which pitchers like throwing day games compared to night games.

Every ounce of information you gather helps you put together a winning combination.

Or you overthink things and you wind up fighting not to finish last in your league.

But more than anything, you follow the game.

Whether you’re a Cardinals fan or a Cubs fan doesn’t matter. You start to learn as much about every other team as you do your favorite.

Be honest, can you tell me who Austin Jackson is? Well, he’s going to be the starting center fielder for the Detroit Tigers and their lead-off hitter as a rookie. Or what about Jason Heyward? He’s the Braves’ outfield prospect who is turning heads with his thunderous bat.

These are players who someday, possibly one day soon, will be making headlines and you don’t have to ask, “Who does he play for?”

With that said, I play in one fantasy league and we held our auction Monday night. It’s a keeper league and you can keep anywhere from five to 15 players. And every strategy is different. The team with the most victories in our head-to-head league last year kept 14 players and was pretty quiet during the auction.

I kept just five players and had to piece together what I hope is a contender. The next five months will determine that. For now, I’m confident.

What do you think? Should I be?

My infield consists of Twins first baseman Justin Morneau, Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, Braves third baseman Chipper Jones and Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez. My outfield has Ichiro Suzuki, Curtis Granderson, Ryan Ludwick, Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells.

My rotation includes the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter, the Giants’ Tim Lincecum, the Phillies’ Cole Hamels, the Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano, the Tigers’ Max Scherzer with the Red Sox’s Jonathan Papelbon as my closer.

Here’s the funny thing: Until I typed those names in, I didn’t realize I was so overloaded with National League pitchers and leaning toward the American League with my hitters.

Now, I can’t wait for the games to begin.

The smell of fresh-cut grass. The crack of the bat. The crackle of the radio.

Ah, baseball season is nearly here.

Only a week left of Spring Training Trivia, so let’s get to the latest question:

Everyone knows the main components of the 1964 trade between the Cardinals and Cubs were Lou Brock and Ernie Broglio. However, there were two other players sent to St. Louis in the deal, one of which was originally signed as a free agent by the Cardinals in 1955. Can you name him?

And the answer is:

On June 15, 1964, the Cardinals and Cubs struck a deal that definitely impacted the Cardinals for the following decade. It made “Brock for Broglio” a common saying.

It wasn’t just a one-for-one deal. The Cubs sent Paul Toth and Jack Spring to the Cardinals, along with Brock, for Broglio, Doug Clemens and Bobby Shantz. None of the other players in the trade made much of an impact, but for one, it was sort of like coming home.

Toth, a right-handed pitcher from McRoberts, Ky., signed a free-agent contract with the Cardinals in 1955 and toiled in the minors until 1962 when he won the only game he started in six appeareances for the Cardinals. He was traded to the Cubs later that year for Harvey Branch, going 3-1 in four starts during September.

In 1963, Toth started 27 games for the Cubs, going 5-9 with a 3.10 ERA in 130 2/3 innings. However, he made just four starts in 1964, going 0-2 with an 8.44 ERA before getting traded to the Cardinals. He never made it back to the big leagues.

Although Brock for Broglio is the most widely known transaction between the two NL Central rivals, they aren’t the only ones associated with deals between the two.

That brings us to our next question:

What two-time All-Star first baseman for the Cubs actually began and ended his career with the Cardinals?

Check back for the answer.

Quincy High School’s Zach Forbes, who was named The Herald-Whig Player of the Year, became the 20th player in school history to finish his career with 1,000 or more points.

Here’s a look at the 1,000-point club:

1. Bruce Douglas (1978-82)         2,040
2. Jack Kramer (1982-86)            1,878
3. Jeff Klingler (1981-85)             1,648
4. J.D. Summers (1996-00)         1,586
5. Kyle Cartmill (1991-95)            1,572
6. Jim Wisman (1971-74)             1,556
7. Dennis Douglas (1979-83)       1,524
8. Bruce Brothers (1949-52)        1,464
9. Keith Douglas (1975-79)          1,425
10. Marcus Medsker (1999-03)   1,345
11. Todd Wemhoener (1986-90)  1,295
12. Larry Moore (1969-72)           1,270
13. Gary Phillips (1954-57)           1,236
14. Tony Ball (1968-71)                 1,124
15. Michael Payne (1978-81)        1,123
16. Zach Forbes (2007-10)           1,095
17. Bill Gay (1965-67)                    1,067
18. Darrell Douglas (1972-75)     1,033
19. Tom Payne (1951-54)              1,022
(tie) Larry Gross (1960-63)         1,022

Baseball season is creeping closer. Colleges are into their conference seasons and high school diamonds are finally seeing action. Spring training is nearly complete. So we’ll try to wrap up Spring Training Trivia with some toughies.

First, let’s answer the last question.

Which pitcher gave up Pete Rose’s hit that broke Ty Cobb’s career record?

On Sept. 11, 1985, playing in Cincinnati, right-hander Eric Show gave up Pete Rose’s single to left field for hit No. 4,192, which broke Cobb’s record of 4,191 career hits.

Show sat on the mound during the delay as the Reds honored Rose for the accomplishment, something Padres teammate Garry Templeton said was “bush.” Show refused to stick around the clubhouse to answer post-game questions, drawing even more criticism.

Show pitched 10 season in the majors for the Padres and A’s, compiling a 101-89 record with a 3.66 ERA. After his playing career, Show become a drug addict and died of heart attack in 1994 after taking a speedball (a mixture of cocaine and heroin).

Show made his major league debut in 1981, but he got his start in the Central Illinois Collegiate League playing for the Quincy Rivermen during the summer of 1975.

Now it’s time to get prepped for Opening Day, so we’ll start with some Cardinals and Cubs trivia.

Everyone knows the main components of the 1964 trade between the Cardinals and Cubs were Lou Brock and Ernie Broglio. However, there were two other players sent to St. Louis in the deal, one of which was originally signed as a free agent by the Cardinals in 1955. Can you name him?

Check back for the answer.

The high school basketball season is complete, and it was the ladies’ year.

Three area teams reached their respective state tournaments, while Pittsfield advanced the furthest among area boys teams by getting to the Class 2A sectional championship game before losing to Decatur St. Teresa.

Quincy High School's Zach Forbes made big plays to help the Blue Devils grab a share of the Western Big Six Conference championship.

So how do we put the wraps on the 2009-10 season? Well, The Herald-Whig sports staff will do that next weekend when we unveil the boys and girls all-area teams as well as our Players and Coaches of the Year. The girls teams and honorees will be in Saturday’s paper, with the boys to follow in Sunday’s paper.

But I thought I’d get you thinking about who might be up for such honors by handing out some other awards, so here goes:

Flash Gordon Award: No one is quicker with the basketball — boy or girl — than Quincy Notre Dame point guard Leigh McLaughlin. I know there could be some arguments, especially from Quincy High School’s Isaiah Johnson, but McLaughlin can make defenses look non-existent at times, especially when she dashes coast-to-coast for a layin. She was the key to the Lady Raiders’ state tourney run.

The “Play it again, Sam” Award: Area basketball fans were treated to seeing Brad Hamilton at his best when he’s healthy. They didn’t get that opportunity last year when he was sidelined until February. The Pittsfield junior was good enough to earn second-team all-state honors and will improve. The Saukees may want to up the ticket prices next season. Hamilton will be worth the price of admission.

The Diehard Award: In every one of the Diehard movies, Bruce Willis winds up bloody and bruised and still able to get the job done. Zach Forbes must be following that script. Forbes can get pummeled and poked all season, ending up with a concussion at the Collinsville Schnucks Holiday Classic and enough bruises from getting knocked to the floor they could have become body art.

In the end, though, he led the Western Big Six Conference in scoring and Quincy High School to a share of the league championship.

The Don’t Look Back Award: Their careers were record-setting, and it’s going to be a long time before a collection of talent spread across the area is going to be as good as we saw with QND’s Karlee Gengenbacher, Canton’s Tori Niemann, West Hancock’s Marley Hall and South Shelby’s Jenna Mueller. Their high school careers will be celebrated, but they have the potential to do special things in college. Their futures are as bright as can be.

The Sun Is Rising Award: Regan Bruenger put up dazzling numbers this season for Southeastern, averaging 25 points per game and stepping on the floor as the best player on nightly basis. He might just do the same next year. Bruenger is heading to John Wood Community College and will only get better because he will have a complete cast of talented players around him. He has the chance to be a juco star.

The Biggest Regret Award: It goes to the Hamilton School Board, which will regret firing Ken Schuster as the West Hancock girls basketball coach. In three seasons as a co-op, the Titans made three Sweet 16 appearances and two state championship game appearances. That wasn’t good enough as Schuster was told the board wanted the program to go in a “new direction.”

Schuster’s demanding, hard-edged coaching style can rub some people wrong, and apparently it has with someone with a vote. Those sort of politics could make it difficult to convince a quality coach to take the job.

The I Won’t Forget That Moment: Again, give Forbes credit for his toughness and grit. The 3-pointer he buried with Rock Island all-stater Chasson Randle right in his face gave Quincy the edge it needed to beat the Rocks and finish off a run to the WB6 title. Alex Miklius helped complete the Blue Devils’ comeback from being a game behind Rocky the second half of the season when he made the game-winning 3-pointer at East Moline, but Forbes’ shot over Randle is the kind of shot that makes you say, “Wow.”

Is it coincidence?

Norm Stewart epitomized the way Missouri faithful feel about Kansas.

During his Hall of Fame career as the Mizzou basketball coach, Stewart wouldn’t use the word “Kansas” during press conferences or interviews. If he was forced to talk about the Jayhawks, he referred to them as “the school to the west” or at times as “that school over there.”

So it seemed like coincidence Saturday night that Northern Iowa knocked Kansas, the top-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament, out in the second round with one of the biggest upsets in recent tournament memory.

Stewart, who won more 700 games in his career, coached Northern Iowa from 1961-67. At the time, the Cedar Falls school was known as State College of Iowa, and it gave Stewart his first college job. Stewart led the Panthers to a 97-42 record in six seasons.

Stewart and the Tigers also fell victim to the Panthers. In the first round of the 1990 NCAA Tournament, Northern Iowa’s Maurice Newby hit a 3-pointer from the left wing with four seconds left in regulation to beat the third-seeded Tigers 74-71.

Coincidentally, Missouri was ranked No. 1 that season, including beating top-ranked Kansas in Lawrence when the Tigers were ranked No. 2.

Who does he remind you of?

The more we watch St. Mary’s play and see Omar Samhan put up big numbers, the more we have to wonder: Is he better than a one weekend wonder?

There have been other players who have carried their teams into the Sweet 16 because of huge efforts and rarely heard from again. Go back four years when Bradley made its run to the Sweet 16 and remember the play of Patrick O’Bryant. The 7-footer averaged 14.7 points and 10.3 rebounds in the tournament, including a 28-point performance against Pittsburgh in the second round.

O’Bryant went on to be drafted ninth in the NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors. Although he’s still in the NBA, can you name the team he is with? That’s the Toronto Raptors.

And there’s Adonal Foyle, who led Colgate to the only two NCAA Tournament appearances in school history in 1995 and ’96. Foyle was a shot-blocking machine who has sustained a career in the NBA, although he was never more than a key reserve and averages 4.1 points per game for his career.

Samhan might not be like that. He might be better. The fact he quoted himself when talking to the media after upsetting Villanova makes him a fan favorite no matter what.

The not-so-beastly Big East

Overrated. That’s what you keep hearing from fans after teams from the Big East Conference such as Georgetown and Villanova were upset. And honestly, the Big East has been a disappointment, but I don’t think you can go as far as calling the league overrated.

Do you do the same for the Big 12 Conference now that Kansas is out? If Ohio State gets beat is the Big Ten overrated? OK, that’s not going to happen because no one was giving the Big Ten that much credit as a rugged conference, but you get the point.

You could make the argument the Big East didn’t deserve as many teams in the field of 65 as it received, but based on regular season play, it was a tough conference and I don’t think you can call it overrated.

I think other leagues were underappreciated.

My apologies for a few days without trivia … but I promise we’re going to finish the spring on a strong note.

So let’s get to the last question.

It was:

Which former Quincy Rivermen outfielder hit a home run in an All-Star Game?

In his first seven all-star appearances, Kirby Puckett had no extra-base hits and was 4 for 16 with two runs scored.

In 1993, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, everything changed. The National League took a two-run lead on Gary Sheffield’s first-inning two-run homer before Puckett delivered a solo home run in the second inning.

The game was tied at 2 in the fifth when the American League scored three times, including an RBI double by Puckett, to take control. The AL won 9-3 and Puckett was named the game’s MVP.

A Chicago native who played collegiately at Bradley, Puckett spent the 1981 summer with the Quincy Rivermen, setting a CICL record in his very first game and displaying all of the raw tools that made him so successful during a 12-year Hall of Fame career with the Minnesota Twins.

One day after arriving in Quincy from Bradley, Puckett and the Rivermen opened the season at Danville. He went 0 for 5 with five strikeouts in the 16-7 loss. His five-strikeout performance stood as a CICL record.

The next day, Puckett got redemption. In the first game of a doubleheader with Danville, he went 2 for 3 with three RBI as Quincy lost 5-3. He hit his first home run in Game 4 of that series, and displayed his all-around talent in the home opener against Galesburg.

Puckett went 2 for 4 with two stolen bases and two runs scored in Quincy’s 11-6 victory. He lead the Rivermen in stolen bases that season.

Puckett isn’t the only Rivermen product to have an impact in the major leagues, which leads us into our next question.

Here it is:

Which pitcher gave up Pete Rose’s hit that broke Ty Cobb’s career record?

Look here Sunday for the answer.

Thanks for playing along.

Catching up from a wild weekend of basketball (especially for those who follow the Quincy University men’s basketball team) means it’s time for another dose of Spring Training Trivia.

Here was the last question:

Quincy native Jim Finigan started at third base for the American League in the 1955 All-Star Game, but who hit the game-winning home run for the NL team?

Finigan, who was representing the Kansas City A’s, went 0 for 3 in the game before being replaced by the Indians’ Al Rosen, who went 0 for 2. So Finigan was on the bench when the game went to extra innings.

Tied at 5 after the National League scored twice in the seventh and three times in the eighth, the game wasn’t decided until the 12th inning.

Leading off the bottom of the 12th inning against Red Sox pitcher Frank Sullivan, who led the American League with 18 victories in 1955, Cardinals left fielder Stan Musial belted a first-pitch fastball out of the park for a 6-5 victory.

It was Musial’s only hit in four at-bats after he replaced Del Ennis in the fourth inning.

Since we’re on the topic of home runs, let’s get to the next question:

Which former Quincy Rivermen outfielder hit a home run in an All-Star Game?

Check back Tuesday for the answer.

We’re going to finish the week on a high note with back-to-back questions about All-Star Games.

First, we need to catch up.

Here was the last question:

Which first baseman who played for the Quincy Gems in the 1950s was involved in the trade that brought Roger Maris to the Yankees?

The answer:

There were two former Gems who were involved in the transaction. Hank Bauer, a right fielder, was the cornerstone piece the Kansas City A’s wanted. Bauer had played in Quincy in 1946, hitting .323 in 109 games with 12 home runs and 24 doubles.

However, the other key piece to the trade was first baseman Marv Throneberry.

A first basemam who struggled with the glove, Throneberry played for the Gems in 1952 and ’53. He hit .276 in 84 games in 1952 and .286 in 124 games in 1953.

He played his first season in the big leagues with the Yankees in 1958 and was shipped to Kansas City in 1960. He wound up playing seven seasons for four teams, hitting .237 with 53 homers and 170 RBI in 480 career games.

Throneberry is best remembered as the starting first baseman for the 1962 New York Mets; a team which set the modern record for most losses in a season with 120.

Now, on to more questions.

Here is the latest:

Quincy native Jim Finigan started at third base for the American League in the 1955 All-Star Game, but who hit the game-winning home run for the NL team?

Check back here Sunday for the answer.

Thanks for playing along.