And the answer is …
Ted Williams
For those looking to make – and, of course, win – a friendly wager, remember the name Carroll Hardy.
Sixty-three years ago today, Hardy pinch-hits for Ted Williams, but that is out of necessity after Williams drills a foul ball off his right ankle in the top of the first inning at Baltimore and cannot continue his at-bat.
Hardy, whose .217 batting average is nearly 100 points lower than that of the great Williams, promptly lines into an inning-ending double play against Orioles starter Hal Brown in a game the Orioles eventually win 4-3.
“Nobody thought a thing about it,” Hardy tells the Los Angeles Times years later. “It wasn’t a big deal, that’s for sure.”
Actually, yes, it is, considering no one other than Hardy ever pinch hits for Williams during his Hall of Fame career.
That, however, is not the answer here to the trivia question.
Less than nine months later – on May 31, 1961, to be exact – Hardy pinch-hits for Carl Yastrzemski to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning of the Red Sox’s game against the Yankees at Fenway Park.
This time, Hardy reaches safely on a bunt single against New York reliever Luis Arroyo in a game the Yankees win 7-6.
There you have it as Hardy now pinch-hits for two future Hall of Famers.
Definitely a good trivia question there.
Yet an even better one to ask is what player pinch-hits not only for Williams and Yastrzemski, but also for the future single-season home run champion?
That moment comes on May 18, 1958, when Hardy – then a 25-year-old rookie outfielder with Cleveland – hits a three-run, pinch-hit homer off Chicago’s Billy Pierce in the bottom of the 11th inning to lift the Indians to a 7-4 victory over the White Sox.
The home run is the first in the majors for Hardy, who in this game is hitting for the even-younger, 23-year-old Roger Maris, who three years later in 1961 launches 61 home runs to break Babe Ruth’s single-season record from 1927.
As for Hardy, less than three years before he hits for Maris, he is a halfback in the NFL for the 1955 San Francisco 49ers and catches four touchdown passes that season from pro football Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle.
Naturally, that tidbit could be part of another trivia question.
All you have to do is think of one.