Ask Joe: The Rivalry Edition

Before we get to your Ask Joe Questions, here’s one more reminder: I’ll be in Rockville, Maryland on Sunday at the Bender JCC of Greater Washington to talk a little football, a little baseball, whatever you want, and I think I might kick the thing off with my favorite all-time story, the one that sort of explains my whole reason for being as a writer. As Squiggy says in A League of Their Own: Come on down and bring the kiddies, why don’tcha? The whole thing starts at 11 a.m. with hot dogs and other munchies. Tickets are $25. 

Oh, and speaking of baseball: We’re just a couple of weeks away now from the release of the WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL paperback (with new essay!).

Had a fantastic final Charity Sports Card Opening podcast … with the hilariously wonderful and wonderfully hilarious Flula! We’re talking early 1990s basketball! And please, if you can, join our sports card giveaway contest by donating to our good friends at Team Gleason, who keep doing incredible work supporting people with ALS. We’ve raised $50,000! And there’s a lot more to come, especially after Mike pulled a numbered Tom Brady rookie card!

Hey, we all had a much, much better showing in Thursday’s Hall of Fame Trivia contest!

Q: Who is the first African American who did not play in the Negro Leagues to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame?

A: Bob Gibson in 1981. I love this trivia question because, at least for some old-timers like me, 1981 wasn’t that long ago. Like that was the year Ronald Reagan was shot, and I vividly remember being on the school bus when it happened — I have no idea how we learned about it on a school bus in those years before iPhones — and I remember someone saying that this was our generation’s Kennedy moment. It was not, Reagan was fine. I think our actual Kennedy moment (the one everyone my age remembers like it was yesterday) was the space shuttle explosion.

But I’m getting away from the point here. Gibson was your top answer at 41%. Your No. 2 answer was Frank Robinson, which was a sound choice since he was elected the next year.

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