Each year The Crimson challenges its readers to take a Baseball quiz at the start of the major league season.

A more rigorous test of your knowledge of the arcanery of the national pastime cannot be found anywhere else.

This year's edition of the quiz appears below. Each question is worth a total of 10 points.

If you score over 200, you are assured that you will never have to go near Duluth, Minn; if you score 150-200, your stay in Duluth will be short, no more than a weekend; 100-150 means at least a month in that fair city; and less than 50 consigns you to a lifetime there.

Photos are reproduced from The Ultimate Baseball Book.

1. Don Mattingly burst upon the American League scene last year, winning the batting title and establishing himself as one of the finest fielding first basemen in the game Five points each for (a) and (b)

(a) Before Mattingly, who was the last (non-pitcher) home-grown player to crack the Yankee starting lineup?

(b) Who was the last Yankee to win a batting title?

2. Mattingly also led the American League in doubles last year, smacking 44 two-base hits. He did not come close to the major league record for doubles in a year (67), established in 1931. Five points each for (a) and (b).

(a) Who holds that major league record?

(b) What active player has come closest in to equalling that mark?

3. Player-managers have become rarities in modern baseball, even though such men as Lou Boudreau, Frank Chance, and Joe Cronin had prosperous careers in both roles in the game's early years. Pete Rose last year became the third man since 1960 to serve as a player-manager. Five points for each of the other two you can name.

4. How good is Dwight Gooden? His rookie statistics show that the Met right hander has almost unlimited promise, and he's one of only four players ever to pitch 200 innings in a season before age 20. Of the other three one-Bob Feller-is in the Hall of Fame, but the other two ended their careers in obscurity. Five points for identifying:

(a) The man who retired in 1970 after joining the Kansas City Royals, who took him in the expansion draft from his original team, the Orioles.

(b) The onetime ace of the Reds' pitching staff, who ended his career with California in 1977.