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Trivial Pursuit Tries to Pull a Fast One

Ariele and I have been playing some Trivial Pursuit 90’s Edition over dinner for a few nights recently. It’s been fun and a good way to a learn a little bit of trivia here and there. Unless, of course, Trivial Pursuit is wrong. Which it was in at least one instance.

I rolled the die and moved my piece to a blue position. According to the Trivial Pursuit website, this is the “hanging” category that covers “leisure time fun”. For me, it means that’s where the sports questions are, and if I can mop the floor with Ariele in one category, it’s the sports questions. Though she did get that damn Pete Sampras question right…but that’s another story.

Each card has one question for each of the six categories, and the year on which these questions are based is written on this card as well. So, for the year 1990, here was my “hanging” question:

Who was the first athlete to win a second Sports Illustrated “Sportsman of the Year” award: Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods?

Um, are you kidding me? Let’s see, Lance Armstrong didn’t know how to ride a bicycle in 1990, Tiger Woods was still crapping his diapers…um, I’ll go with Michael Jordan.

Bzzt! The answer was Tiger Woods. Really? Fifteen year old Tiger Woods won “Sportsman of the Year” twice before he ever won an amateur championship?! Bull-honkus.

Consulting the all knowing Wikipedia article on the award, I saw that Joe Montana won in 1990, and Michael Jordan won in 1991. It turns out Tiger Woods won in 1996 and again in 2000. Looks like someone at Trivial Pursuit was off by ten years on this one. And I answered the question incorrectly to boot…not cool Trivial Pursuit, not cool.