Life of the Scoreboard Stumper: How a single force powers a Reds institution

CINCINNATI – If you’ve been to a Reds game at any point in your lifetime, you know the Scoreboard Stumper. The Reds’ daily trivia is as much a part of the night at the ballpark as “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

The Stumper causes debate. It creates and settles bets. It stands against the soundtrack of the home game as a nightly milepost.

It represents, undeniably, a Cincinnati Reds institution.

This much you probably know.

What you likely don’t know, however, is that one man is the keeper of the Stumper flame. Incredibly and improbably, Rich Linville has been the only one quizzing Reds fans since 1991, almost never repeating a question.

Over 28 seasons, give or take a strike-shortened year and a postseason berth, you have in the area of 2,300 unique Stumpers in the books.

Well, some are in books. Others are in yellow legal pads. And scrap paper. And Word documents. And spreadsheets. And Post-Its. And scorebooks. And some ripped off old Riverfront Stadium printers, taped to paper and placed into weathered manilla folders.

They all live in piles and cabinets of Linville’s home office in Montgomery.

“I figure I’ll be buried with this,” Linville says, laughing while holding an old notepad, open to the page where he jotted down all the first-ballot Hall of Famers broken down by what letter their last names start with. “I write everything down. But I don’t always know where it is.”

Rich Linville spreads out a few of his recent Scoreboard Stumper notes across the floor of his home office. (Paul Dehner Jr. / The Athletic)

Linville grew up a Reds fan with a fierce baseball addiction. Stories of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the ’50s and the Big Red Machine blanketed his youth. As did George Brett. His connection to the best player from the Royals, sparked by their frequent appearances on national TV as his baseball passion blossomed, led to what he dubs an “unchecked obsession.” How unchecked? Well, if you find the other four in the set of 10 George Brett macaroni & cheese boxes, forward him a link. Or pass it along to Linville’s 8-year-old son, Brett.

This all led to an impossible bank of baseball knowledge living off the top of his head and the perfect partner for this Reds fixture since his first day working for the stadium videoboard team on April 29, 1988.

What’s evolved over the past three decades gave a unique life to every Stumper to show up on the board at Riverfront Stadium or Great American Ball Park. Linville slaves over each one with his self-imposed criteria.

“Ideally, my best questions tie in both teams where there is somebody on the opposite team, there is somebody on the Reds team and then there are a couple more,” Linville said. “But that’s hard. That’s hard to do that, especially if you are trying to come up with 81 unique questions. So, that’s where the challenge comes in. Trying to come up with 81 unique questions that are good. And by good, I mean, in my mind with between four and six answers, I want one or two everybody should be able to reasonably get, one or two they might be able to guess and have a pretty good idea. Then one or two, they are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about him or would have thought about him.’” That’s a tough sweet spot to hit considering the target audience can be 30,000-plus fans of varying levels of baseball knowledge and age.

“If it is too hard and you go 0-for-5, why even bother looking at it? You don’t enjoy it,” he said. “If you go 5-for-5 maybe you feel good about yourself, but it is too easy and you rattle them off. I try to find the appropriate level of difficulty.”

The Scoreboard Stumper displayed Friday night at Great American Ball Park. (Paul Dehner Jr. / The Athletic)

Oh, and he tries to keep most questions (barring Big Red Machine exceptions) within the past 30 years. Now take all those criteria and do it nine times a year for every NL Central team, too.

The trivia machine can never quit.

“I think about them year-round,” he said. “I never stop thinking about it. I don’t always actively think about it, but if I am watching the World Series and I see that or see something, I wonder how that would tie in. That is interesting. I never really turn it off.”

He could, but the obsession won’t let him. Every eventual question begins as a seed. It takes on a life of its own from there.

“I probably over the course of a year come up with probably about 120 questions. And I hate most of them. Because I’m self-loathing,” he said, acknowledging that in the pre-Internet days he was just happy to come up with one after digging through media guides and record books. His self-challenge has increased dramatically. “Of the 120 I come up with, I am probably really, truly enthusiastic about 20 of them. Then there are another 40 I think aren’t bad. Then 20 I am constantly trying to improve.”

That means the frustration of coming close to improvement never stops, either. These fall into a few different categories.

First, there is the category of sweating it out. A good question has been constructed and it’s dependent on that player being active and on the team coming to GABP later in the season.

“Will he get hurt? Oh, that’s the worst,” Linville said. “That’s one way it’s really changed over the years. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like there is a lot more player movement now than there was 30 years ago. Maybe not in the offseason as much as in season, now guys are on the disabled list more … between that and guys being traded or sent down to the minors, it just seems like there is a lot more instances where I have a question and then say, ‘Oh, screw.’”

Next comes the unfortunate Reds transaction trouble. If a specific Reds player is the tie-in for a great question and there is a chance he won’t be on the roster in the near future because of a possible trade or free agency, there’s a drive to get him in as soon as possible. Questions with Billy Hamilton and Zack Cozart, for example, were pushed up the priority list in recent years.

Sadly, this year, two pages of yellow legal pad paper devoted to DFA’d offseason acquisition Matt Kemp were victimized.

That includes one earmarked for the Giants series. Linville plotted it for Sunday, and Kemp was released Saturday.

“Thirty-five homers, 35 steals and a Gold Glove in the National League. For the Giants, this is a great question,” Linville said. “Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds, Wilie Mays, Eric Davis and … Matt Kemp. Never sees the light of day. Gone forever.”

A saved Stumper question and answer from Riverfront Stadium. And a Linville favorite because it includes George Brett in elite company. (Paul Dehner Jr. / The Athletic)

Finally, there are those great questions sitting in the wings and waiting to be finalized. These bring the most personal gratification. A great question, but missing one more player to complete the group.

“A couple years ago, I thought what about pitchers to play for the Reds at GABP who had thrown a no-hitter in their career,” Linville recalls. “Not necessarily a no-hitter for the Reds, but a Reds pitcher at GABP with a career no-hitter. I had Homer Bailey and Kent Merker — who threw one on my birthday — and Eric Milton. But it was just those three. I write that question down, and I am just laying and waiting. Somebody. Throw a no-hitter.”

Then, two years of waiting later …

“Edinson Volquez does it,” he said. “He threw a no-hitter, so now I’ve got my question. And next time Edinson Volquez came to town, there is my question.”

Even if people aren’t at the game, there’s still an audience. Jamie Ramsey, the Reds’ director of media relations for digital content, tweets the Stumper out every home game. The guesses come flowing in.

The reading of the Stumper question is a regular, sponsored element on the Reds’ radio broadcast. The discussion follows. Sunday’s involved Marty Brennaman giving Jeff Brantley a hard time for forgetting Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. as one of the five father-son duos with at least 1,500 hits.

#ScoreboardStumper There have been 5 Father/Son duos in which each player collected 1,500 or more Major League hits. Who are they?

— Jamie Ramsey (@Jamieblog) June 16, 2019

“If Marty reads it on the air and says that’s a good question, that is as good as it gets,” Linville said. “That’s high praise.”

Other teams may attempt trivia at their home games, but none like this. None with the depth and non-repetitive nature. None that go back half a century. That’s because, to pull something like that off, it has to really matter to a person or organization.

You need a Rich Linville thinking about them. Constantly. Purposely not writing a few question ideas down because he knows a truly great question would never leave his mind. So, if it survives, it was good enough.

The Stumper as a concept goes back to the early days of Riverfront Stadium, but the seriousness with which it exists now is a tribute to Linville.

He doesn’t view it that way, of course. He views it as just another day at the ballpark.

“I don’t think of it as this great responsibility except I always feel like, when I’m trying to come up with something that fits this criteria, the challenge is challenging myself,” Linville said. “If I am satisfied with it, then that’s really all you can do is whatever you think your best is and maybe somebody else appreciates it. And maybe also somebody recognizes that the questions are all unique.”

(Top photo of Rich Linville: Paul Dehner Jr. / The Athletic)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kGlqaW1manxzfJByZmluX2aFcLjIn5xmp5ZiwamxjKyaqKqVl7yivsNmqq2tnaWys3nHqK5mmV2otq%2Bzy55kn6eimLJuvM6wnKurXZZ6s7HDrGSipqOptrXB06Kmp2c%3D