Sports Trivia Game Gaining Popularity

To become a millionaire, see Regis Philbin. To occupy some spare time with brain teasers where correct answers pay off in satisfaction instead of dollars, try Box Score, a new computerized sports trivia game.

Created by longtime NBC Sports and thoroughbred racing executive Tom Merritt, the game includes over 2,300 questions in 10 categories and eight different computer opponents.

It started innocently enough as some idle doodling to pass time on a plane ride and evolved into a multicolored game grid that is best described as a sort of Jeopardy meets Bingo.

The game can be played 1-on-1, by teams of players or, for the adventurous, by human against computer. The wirehead challenge is intriguing. The trick is to outsmart the bits and bytes and make a statement for the human brain vs. all that circuitry.

This is not always easy, in real life or in the game.

Among the computer opponents is a character identified as Rugby Roger, whose screen picture makes him look like a mountain man. In the game profile, he is assigned with a 5.0 skill level, appealing since the other computer opponents are all equipped with higher ones.

OK, bring him on.

“He’s a Ph.D. chemist,” Merritt warned.

No problem. This is sports, not atomic weights.

The game opening coin flip--built into the software--gives Roger the first turn and he flubs an easy question. Time to seize the advantage.

The game asks what Hall of Fame hockey goalie introduced the face mask. Now, the logical answer would be Jacques Plante, who put one on in 1959 and changed the art of netminding forever.

But computers are sometimes devious. This could be a wiseguy chip, just waiting for the obvious answer--Plante--so it could spring the not-so obvious one--Clint Benedict.

It was Benedict, remember, who in 1929 while playing for the Montreal Maroons, briefly put on a crude leather contraption that technically was really the first goalie mask.

So what’s the answer?

Technically. That could be a clue. The computer is probably trying to pull a fast one anyway. Go for the obscure.

“Clint Benedict!”

The answer comes up on the screen.

“Jacques Plante!”

Burned, but there is a lesson to be learned here. Apparently, Box Score is not trying to trick anybody. The game is a straightforward test of sports knowledge with a dash of strategy and luck mixed in. It includes breaks that are common in sports--turnovers and double plays. There’s even the once-a-game grand slam that quadruples the value of correct answers.

Rugby Roger nails a couple of easy ones: Q: What WHA team did Bobby Hull sign with? A: Winnipeg Jets. Q: Ben Grieve was 1998 rookie of the year with what team? A: Oakland A’s.

Then he gets tripped up by a toughie: Q: What Boston Celtic player scored 25,000 points?

No, not Larry Bird. Try John Havlicek.

Aha. A chance for a comeback.

Go for the media category. It comes up grand slam, meaning this is a biggie. Go ahead, ask anything.

Q: Joe Buck is the son of what baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster?

This is not terribly tough. It’s not Red Barber or Mel Allen. Just use the last name as a clue. Of course, it’s Jack Buck.

A winner!

The game goes back and forth for a while with both sides hitting some, missing others and battling on fairly even terms. Eventually, gray matter takes the lead and is in position to run the board and finish off the computer/chemist.

One more question ought to close things out. Go for the knockout with a golf question.

Q: Tom Lehman and Lee Janzen were both born in Austin in what state?

Another hanging curve. Texas, of course.

If Regis were running this game, he’d say, “Is that your final answer?” No need for that, Austin is in Texas. That was taught in Geography 101.

Uh-oh. It turns out there’s also one in Minnesota, though, and that’s where Lehman and Janzen were born. A lesson learned in Box Score.

The Luddite comes up a loser.