Baseball on the Brain

There's trivia, and then there's knowledge—deep, extensive, obsessive knowledge—masquerading as trivia. It's the kind of trivia that, if you know the answer, makes you feel triumphant, and if you don't, gives you an education. The kind of trivia based not on what we shouldn't be expected to know, but on what we should—if we're to consider ourselves true fans.

Dennis Purdy, author of the just-published Team-by-Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, has been collecting baseball trivia since before he could shave, and now presents the best of the best: a massive collection of over 1,000 trivia games. Not solo questions, but half-page games, every one involving matching multiple players to their accomplishments, or evaluating multiple clues to discover a mystery subject's identity, or digging deep into a round-up of terms, nicknames, phrases, awards, events, individual teams, locations, and more. The games cover three centuries of baseball history. Home run calls and the announcers who made them famous. The peculiar geography of a baseball field— where's the garden? the gateway? the firing line? Inimitable slang: cackler, chucker, clinker, and squibber. The lesser-known career feats of baseball's “Big 3,” Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds. World Series potpourri—They won the first night game in World Series history. . . . The team that lost the most World Series—13 . . . The only American League team to lose the World Series in three consecutive seasons . . . And much, much, much more.