Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 5/30/2007

5/30/1955:
Unable to avoid a four-car pileup on the track in front of him, Bill Vukovich is killed in a fiery crash in the Indianapolis 500. It all starts when Rodger Ward spins into the wall and catapults end over end. In quick succession, the cars of Johnny Boyd, Al Keller and Ed Elisian crash as they try to avoid Ward's wreckage, and Vukovich-winner of the 1953 and '54 Indy 500s-has no plance to go. Bob Sweikert eventually wins the race.

Birthdays
Turk Lown b. 1924
Gilles Villemure b. 1940
Gale Sayers b. 1943
Lydell Mitchell b. 1949
Manny Ramirez b. 1972

QUIRKY HISTORIES

Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in 1553. His heretical book, Christianity Restored, was so offensive to the Catholic Church that all copies had to be hunted down and destroyed. But were they? The Goldstones, rare-book dealers (and husband and wife), have traced the fates of three copies that escaped the pyre. Their fascinating account of a free thinker and the consequences of dissent in a time of obedience is a testament to the potency of books as well as an entertaining pop-history read.

OUT OF THE FLAMES: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF A FEARLESS SCHOLAR, A FATAL HERESY, AND ONE OF THE RAREST BOOKS IN THE WORLD, by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone (Broadway, 2003)