Baseball, Opera and Apple Pie

The classical radio station emailed this quiz out because this Friday night the San Francisco Opera – not the Giants - play at AT&T Park. It’s a free simulcast of ‘Samsom and Delilah,’ live from the Opera House at 8pm. SF Opera has started doing simulcasts of some of their productions in order to make opera more accessible to everyone. Today’s SF Chronicle says about 20,000 of the free tickets have been pre-registered.

I thought the quiz was cute. Both E and I are opera and baseball fans. We have season tickets to both the Giants and the SF Opera.

Baseball, Opera and Apple Pie: The KDFC Quiz

1) Which of these gents was not a baseball-playing DiMaggio brother?
A) Joe
B) Dom
C) Vince
D) Placido

2) What came first, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on stage or Babe Ruth in the major leagues?

3) What’s older, La Boheme or Cracker Jacks?

4) One of these men was not referring to the other’s nickname when he wrote The Flying Dutchman. Name the two Wagners.

5) The Giants, then in New York, last won the World Series in 1954, the year of Bobby Thompson’s pennant-winning home run against the Dodgers. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Opera was belting out what hit that Sunday afternoon?

6) Who was not in the cast of Tosca for the SFO’s very first performance, in 1923? Dino Borgioli, Rocco Domenico Colavito, or Al Gandolfi?

7) TRUE OR FALSE
A) Enrico Caruso threw out the first pitch at the San Francisco Seals baseball game, April 17, 1906.
B) Beverly Sills attended Vassar on a softball scholarship.
C) Fiero Francis Rizzuto played shortstop for the Yankees.
D) Maria Callas was married briefly to screen actor Lee Marvin.


Quiz Answers
1-D;
2-Butterfly 1904, Babe 1914;
3-Cracker Jacks 1893, La Boheme 1896;
4-Honus (baseball) and Richard (opera);
5-Manon Lescaut;
6-with apologies to Alfredo Gandolfi, the answer is Rocky Colavito, a 6-time All Star for the Cleveland Indians;
7-A, B, and D are False, C is True.