Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 5/26/2007

5/26/1929:
Before more than 35,000 Sunday onlookers at the Polo Grounds, Pat Crawford of the Giants and Les Bell of the Braves each produce a pinch-hit grand-slam home run. If that weren't enough for the crowd, sandwiched between the two clutch clouts (Crawford, bottom sixth; Bell, top seventh) is a rare muff of an infield fly by colorful Braves shortstop Rabbit Maranville using his patented basket catch. (No, Willie Mays did not invent the basket catch!)

Birthdays:
Cliff Drysdale b. 1941
Darrell Evans b. 1947
Dan Roundfield b. 1953
Wesley Walker b. 1955
Travis Lee b. 1975

The little idea that could. Dubner is a journalist who in 2003 wrote a New York Times Magazine profile of Levitt, a University of Chicago economist with unorthodox interests. That article became this bestseller, which then became a column in the magazine. What’s so interesting about Freakonomics (besides the name)? Levitt creatively uses economic methods to explain different outcomes in such varied areas as cheating, crime, and parenting. Revolutionary reading.

FREAKONOMICS: A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING, by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt (William Morrow, 2005)