{"id":873681,"date":"2026-10-07T07:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T07:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/873681\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T07:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T07:38:19","slug":"justin-verlander-david-ortiz-put-their-mlb-memories-to-the-test-in-fact-or-splat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/873681\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Verlander, David Ortiz Put Their MLB Memories To The Test In ‘Fact Or Splat’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between the two of them, David Ortiz and Justin Verlander have a combined five World Series rings, 20 All-Star appearances and 3,088 games played in MLB. So, recalling facts about their own illustrious careers shouldn’t be too hard for them, right?<\/p>\n

Their memories were put to the test in a new game called “Fact Or Splat,” with some help from Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. The rules are simple: If you get the answer right, you get to drop a fruit on a giant cutout of your opponent’s face; if you get it wrong, your opponent gets to drop the fruit.<\/p>\n

How did Verlander and Big Papi do? Let’s see the results:<\/p>\n

Big Papi & Justin Verlander Take on MESSIEST MLB Trivia Challenge \ud83e\udedf FACT or SPLAT \"Big<\/a> \"David<\/a>Who did Big Papi hit his first HR off of in Fenway Park?<\/p>\n

Jeter gave the hint, “It\u2019s someone that\u2019s in the family.” Ortiz immediately knew the answer: former Dominican right-hander Ramon Martinez.<\/p>\n

The cake was a direct hit.<\/p>\n

\"Justin<\/a>Who was Justin Verlander’s first strikeout victim?<\/p>\n

Next, it was Verlander\u2019s turn to answer his first question.<\/p>\n

Jeter asked, “Who was your first strikeout victim ever in your career?”<\/p>\n

The recently retired right-hander did not hesitate: “Travis Hafner.”<\/p>\n

It was a fast answer, but Verlander\u2019s toss did not make nearly as impressive contact with Ortiz\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>Who was Big Papi’s longest-tenured teammate?<\/p>\n

Next up: “Papi, this one\u2019s for you. Who was your longest-tenured teammate?”<\/p>\n

Ortiz played 20 years in the majors, 14 of which came in Boston. It could have been any number of players.<\/p>\n

The answer? Dustin Pedroia. Ortiz\u2019s guess was knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.<\/p>\n

Verlander got better on his second toss and made a direct hit on Ortiz\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\"Justin<\/a>Which of Jeter, A-Rod and Big Papi had the best batting average against Verlander?<\/p>\n

Verlander looked around and said, “I\u2019m going to go with Derek.”<\/p>\n

The ace nailed it, and down went a pumpkin onto Big Papi\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>Who were the three World Series MVPs on Big Papi’s title teams?<\/p>\n

Papi didn\u2019t need much time to answer this one.<\/p>\n

“Manny Ramirez, Mikey Lowell and myself,” he answered before cake went falling on Verlander\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\"Justin<\/a>Which eight of Verlander’s teammates have won the Cy Young award?<\/p>\n

Verlander got Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello, Tarik Skubal (he got a generous hint from A-Rod to get him) and Gerrit Cole.<\/p>\n

The four players who Verlander missed: Dallas Keuchel, Zack Greinke, David Price and Robbie Ray.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between the two of them, David Ortiz and Justin Verlander have a combined five World Series rings, 20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[29502,13090,363,99],"class_list":["post-873681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-justin-verlander","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}