Oakland A’s trivia: A’s and Giants in the 21 century

The 2020 MLB season is on the way, but we’ve still got a few more days to wait for Opening Day. In the meantime, let’s play some trivia!

Before the delayed 2020 season gets started later this week, the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants are playing a pair of exhibition games to finish warming up. The Giants won the first edition at the Coliseum on Monday, and they’re going again tonight at 6:45 p.m. in the City.

The two teams made a major league trade in February, with the Giants sending pitcher Burch Smith to Oakland for cash considerations. That was their first MLB deal together since Darren Lewis and Ernie Riles in 1990. However, just because they haven’t worked together doesn’t mean they haven’t still shared many players in common.

Indeed, a total of 93 players have suited up for both teams since the A’s arrived in Oakland in 1968. That’s a bit too long for a single quiz, so in this edition we’ll just look at the names from the 21st century. There are a few extra notes to be aware of:

• Years given include their entire A’s-plus-Giants tenure. They may have played for other teams in between, or before or after.
• I’m not specifying which team they played for first, nor which one they played for longer, just that they played for some amount of time both within those year ranges.
• The 2020 season hasn’t started yet, so if they just joined one of the teams for the first time then they don’t count yet. That means no Burch Smith, no Trevor Cahill, and no Andrew Triggs.
• They don’t need to have played for both teams in the 21st century, just one to qualify as a 21st-century player.
• One player has a unique position that doesn’t fit into the five main groups I chose, so I put him in the group where he fits best.
• HINT: Within position groups, players are arranged in order of how many innings or at-bats they totaled in their A’s-plus-Giants careers (but those totals aren’t listed).

Without further ado, let’s get to it! The question is, how many of 42 players can you name from the 21st century who played for both the A’s and Giants? I have constructed a quiz on the website Sporcle to test your knowledge, with the following instructions:

• You can go in any order, with 15 minutes and unlimited guesses to fill 42 spaces.
• You only need to type the last names to register the answers.
• However, you do have to spell them right!
• Years encompass entire A’s and Giants career stints
• Read the next paragraph about how to not spoil the answers for everyone else in the comments section.

Share your results in the comments, BUT DON’T SPOIL ANYTHING!! There is an option in the comments for “spoiler text,” which will black out that particular text until the reader puts their mouse over it to reveal it. If you are going to share right/wrong answers, please use the spoiler option. It’s on the row of options like bold, italics, etc., all the way on the right side, in between the option to add a hyperlink and the option to add a smiley face; it looks like a black square.

DON’T BE THAT PERSON WHO SPOILS THE ANSWERS IN THE COMMENTS.

Alrighty, here is the quiz! It’s embedded below, or you can click here to play it on Sporcle’s site.

How did you do? Are there any that you can’t believe you missed?