Join the Major Leagues @ your library®
Contact: Deborah Davis, Manager
312-280-2148
For Immediate Release
October 3, 2003
Join the Major Leagues @ your library® wraps up another winning season
On Friday, September 26, 2003, at Wrigley Field, representatives from the American Library Association (ALA) and Major League Baseball were on the field to draw the grand-prize winner of the “Join the Major Leagues @ your library®” contest.
Before a sold-out crowd awaiting the Cubs vs. Pittsburgh Pirates game, Sharon Robinson, Consultant, Major League Baseball Educational Programming, and Chicago Cubs’ manager Dusty Baker drew the winner, Madeline Barnicle, 11, of Eagan, MN. Also participating in the pre-game ceremony were ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels and Associate Executive Director of Communications and Marketing Gerald Hodges.
Barnicle will receive a pair of tickets to a 2003 Major League Baseball World Series game.
Barnicle’s entry was made possible by resources from her local library, the Westcott Library Branch in Dakota County, MN, and the Join the Major Leagues @ your library program.
“We are so delighted with the success of this program and the excitement created by the online trivia contest,” said Sharon Robinson.
“There are incredible resources available at America’s libraries; this program served as a fun and effective way to bring people to their libraries.”
The Join the Major Leagues @ your library contest was a nationwide, online baseball trivia competition that challenged participants to answer four questions -- one for each base on a baseball diamond -- by utilizing the resources available at their library.
Contestants who answered four questions from the playbook correctly were entered into a national drawing.
The program included a Web site in both English and Spanish and was promoted at libraries and ballparks across the country.
“The Join the Major Leagues @ your library program has been a great way for people of all ages to develop their information literacy skills,” said ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels.
“These skills are critical for finding, using and evaluating information whether it’s in print or online.”
The library staff at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., in consultation with ALA members, developed this year’s baseball trivia questions.
Questions were divided into four “playbooks” corresponding to different age groups and were organized by increasing difficulty to test a variety of information literacy levels.
In addition to the grand-prize winner, 12 first-prize winners also were drawn before the grand-prize ceremony.
Each winner will receive a copy of “Jackie’s Nine” by Sharon Robinson, a Join the Major Leagues @ your library T-shirt and an ALA READ poster featuring Jackie Robinson.
First-place winners include: Matthew Furato, 10, Hoover, Ala; Jaylon Hughes, 7, Freeport, Ill; Aaron Jordon, 9, Darien Ill; Chris Holte, 13, Farmington, Minn; Talynthia Mitchell, 13, Kansas City, Kan; Carter Rummage, 12, Seattle; DeAnna Baden, 17, Birmingham, Ala; Jean-Paul Piette, 14, Granada Hills, Calif; Robert Witt, 14, Colorado Springs, Colo; Gary Coble, 48, Liberty, N.C; Scott Parker, 41, Paducah, KY; and Patricia Smith, 62, Hoover, Ala.
Join the Major Leagues @ your library is a program developed by Major League Baseball, the Major League Baseball Players Association and the ALA.
The program celebrates and promotes two of America’s oldest institutions baseball and libraries while heightening awareness of 21st Century literacy skills the use of computers and other media to obtain information and improve communications.
Major League Baseball is a founding partner in The Campaign for America’s Libraries.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a campaign supporter.
For more information on the Join the Major Leagues @ your library program, visit the campaign’s Web site at
www.ala.org/@yourlibrary/jointhemajorleagues.