Answers to bonus quizzes
Answers to Bonus Baseball Quiz
1. A rally towel is a towel about 12” square given out free to fans for big important games, that fans wave to generate hype for the home team. A rally cap is when players or fans wear their baseball cap upside down, sideways or inside out, as part of a silly baseball superstition that supposedly invokes good karma when the game is on the line.
2. A pick off is when a pitcher or catcher throws out a baserunner when that runner is leading off toward the next base before a pitch is thrown.
3. The ABS system was new in 2026. It’s the Automated Ball/Strike System that determines balls and strikes when a batter, catcher or pitcher challenges the call of the human umpire at home plate.
4. A strikeout swinging is displayed as a forward letter K. A strikeout where the batter does not swing, but watches the third strike, is displayed as backward letter K.
5. The Count is how many balls and strikes have been thrown in an at-bat. For instance, a Count of 2-1 means there are two balls and one strike so far. The Pitch Count is how many pitches the current pitcher has thrown so far in the current game.
6. 1B, 2B and 3B can be a reference to the first baseman, the second baseman or the third baseman, but these can also be a reference to when a batter hits a single, a double or a triple.
7. RBI stands for runs batted in. A batter gets credit for runs scored as a result of his at-bat, whether he walks, gets a hit, hits a sac-fly etc.
8. HBP stands for hit by pitch.
9. LOB stands for left on base. This is the number of baserunners who made it safely to base in an inning but did not score when that inning was over.
10. Heart of the Order refers to batters #4, 5 and 6 in the batting order. These are often the best, most reliable hitters in a lineup.
Answers to Bonus Football Quiz
1. An NFL player needs to have both feet in bounds when he catches a ball, in order for it to be counted as a catch. In college, it’s one foot.
2. A sack is when the quarterback is tackled with the ball behind the line of scrimmage. A tackle for loss is when another offensive player is tackled with the ball behind the line of scrimmage.
3. Forward progress is the farther point reached by an offensive player with the ball before he is tackled. Even if, at some point during the play, he was dragged backwards, he still gets credit for having reached the point of his farther forward progress.
4. A two-point conversion is when, after a touchdown, the offense tries to gain two additional points by running or passing the ball into the endzone.
5. PAT is point after touchdown, or just the extra point. After scoring a touchdown, a team has a chance to gain an additional point by kicking the ball through the uprights.
6. The red zone is the area from the 20-yard line to the endzone. When a team is in the red zone, they are close to scoring.
7. The back field is the area from the line of scrimmage back to the goal line behind the offense.
8. In football, Go For It means to try to convert a fourth down to a first down, rather than punting the ball away to the other team.
9. The orange pylon marks the corner of the end zone. It helps officials know if a player scored a touchdown because if the player with the ball touches the pylon, usually it counts as a touchdown.
10. When you watch football on TV, the virtual blue line is the line of scrimmage. The virtual yellow line is the first-down line.
Answers to Bonus Basketball Quiz
1. During timeouts, there are likely to be entertainers on the court, including possibly dancers, jugglers, trained dogs, acrobats, drummers etc.
2. Sometimes players end up crashing into the laps of fans sitting in the first few rows at NBA games.
3. In the NBA, the term “big” usually refers to a player who near or over 7 feet tall.
4. They line up at the free-throw line which is part of the key, or the paint.
5. When a team has good ball movement and passes the ball to each other, they are likely to use a lot of the shot clock and achieve a good shot, rather than rushing and taking a crappy shot.
6. On an NBA scoreboard, TO can mean turnover and also timeout.
7. In an NBA box score, DNP means that player did not play.
8. A heat check is when a player who is having an excellent game takes a shot to see if he is still hot.
9. A charge is when an offensive player runs into a defensive player whose is stationary and whose feet are planted. If the defensive player is not stationery or his feet are not planted when the offensive player runs into him, the defensive player gets charged with a block.
10. NBA players sometimes hug an opponent mid-game when they are purposely committing an obvious – but gentle – foul, in order to stop the game clock.
