Welcome to Trivia Tuesday!

In a perfect world, the first Trivia Tuesday would have been last week. However, I didn’t anticipate picking up a nasty case of Yinzer Death Flu on an innocent visit to Lowes last weekend. Nothing like hearing someone hork up some deeply embedded internal organ and moan “I must be coming down with something” in your immediate vicinity. I’m wearing a hazmat suit next time I have to go there.

But I’m on the mend, and in response to your suggestions I’ll be hosting Trivia Tuesdays from now until spring training. I’m not here to really stump you—I assume that you’re all on the same internet that I am—but I hope everyone has fun with it. Also, if you have any subject ideas, hit me up in the comments or on Twitter.

For our first couple of quizzes, we’re going to travel across the pond and talk about European Pirates players. The reason I’m splitting it up is because one country provided the Pirates with a lot of players, so there’s enough to do another quiz just on them. My rules of thumb is that the player had to have been born in his country of origin with at least one parent from that country, and that he played for the Pirates and/or Alleghenys. Remember, back in the day there were the Burghers, and I did find a couple of players who only played for them, so they won’t be included.

The quizzes will be multiple choice for those too lazy to Google or Wiki or just want to have fun guessing.

Let’s go.

In total, how many European players have the Pirates/Alleghenys had?

A. 45 B. 13 C. 21 D. 30

Before Dovydas Neverauskas, who was the last European player on the Pirates?

A. Victor Cole B. Jason Bay C. Bert Blyleven D. Rick van den Hurk

Speaking of Victor Cole, he remains the only MLB player born in the Soviet Union. His mother was Russian, but his father came from:

A. Sierra Leone B. New York C. France D. Curacao

This country provided the Pirates with nine players:

A. England B. Ireland C. Germany D. The Netherlands

Two of the Pirates’ European players only played one game in their MLB careers, a day apart. What year did this take place?

A. 1897 B. 1948 C. 1933 D. 1902

Answers will be posted here on Thursdays to keep up with the T theme.