Problem: Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old.

Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.  Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."  Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.  Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.

So he was a good runner, but could he bat?

Answer with quotes: Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,


Problem: Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 - 14 March 2014), originally known as Anthony Wedgwood Benn, but later as Tony Benn, was a British politician, writer, and diarist. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 47 years between the 1950 and 2001 general elections and a Cabinet minister in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1960s and 1970s. Originally a moderate, he was identified as being on the party's hard left from the early 1980s, and was widely seen as a key proponent of democratic socialism within the party. Benn inherited a peerage on his father's death (as 2nd Viscount Stansgate), which prevented his continuing as an MP.

Benn's father had been created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill increased the number of Labour peers to aid political work in the House of Lords; at this time, Benn's elder brother Michael was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However, Michael was later killed in an accident while on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir to the peerage. He made several unsuccessful attempts to renounce the succession.  In November 1960, Lord Stansgate died. Benn automatically became a peer, preventing him from sitting in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, did not allow him to deliver a speech from the bar of the House of Commons in April 1961 when the by-election was being called. Continuing to maintain his right to abandon his peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in a by-election caused by his succession on 4 May 1961. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and declared the seat won by the Conservative runner-up, Malcolm St Clair, who was at the time also the heir presumptive to a peerage.  Benn continued his campaign outside Parliament. Within two years, though, the Conservative Government of the time, which had members in the same or similar situation to Benn's (i.e., who were going to receive title, or who had already applied for writs of summons), changed the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing lifetime disclaimer of peerages, became law shortly after 6 pm on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, doing so at 6.22 pm that day. St Clair, fulfilling a promise he had made at the time of his election, then accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, disqualifying himself from the House (outright resignation not being possible). Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August 1963.

Was he succesful retaining his seat?

Answer with quotes:
he was disqualified from taking his seat, he was re-elected.