This weeks Tuesday Trivia contest is brought to you by It Takes More Than Balls: The Savvy Girls’ Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Baseball, a fantastic new book by Deidre Silva and Jackie Koney.  Silva and Koney clearly love baseball, and their philosophy that there really are no “true or second-class fans” is a refreshing twist.  Sure some folks know their team inside and out –most of you reading this probably feel that way– while others show up at the stadium intermittently and might even zone out during the 6th inning.  The point is we all love baseball, the game, the sounds or the activities surround it.  That’s the leaping off point for the book. The ladies tell you the story of baseball, as someone who has often overheard the debate of the designated hitter or the wild-card but doesn’t quite understand might want to hear it.  Their fresh style makes all the history light and accessible.  Want to understand desegregation in a two page conversation, here it is. Don’t understand the play-off system or don’t know how to explain it to someone else?  Here it is.  Want to know why no one knows who founded baseball– yep, told in a just a couple of paragraphs.  The authors don’t start at the beginning either… they move through the history of the game as if they were sitting at the ballpark, chatting with the folks next to them.  The discussions are conversational, and when they know they are making it confusing, you get a roll of their eyes.  There are a couple of tiny factual mistakes, but nothing that will make the person reading it fail to get the gist of what they are saying… after all they cover a lot of ground.  The book is great for someone who doesn’t know a ton about the history of the game, and could be a great gift for a partner or spouse who willing goes to the park with you, but doesn’t quite get it.  I have to say, even though much of it is a repeat of things I already know, I greatly enjoyed reading it.

For a copy of It Takes More Than Balls: The Savvy Girls’ Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Baseball email me the answer to the following quesiton.

Tuesday Trivia:

Who made the final out when the Phillies won the World Series in 1980?  If you know the answer, and have not won a prize in the last two weeks, please send me your answer in the text box at the bottom of this page, and be sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you are the winner. Good Luck!