Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 6/22/2007

When asked what it's like to play a low-scoring game at high-altitude, hitter-friendly Coors Field in Denver, Colorado Rockies manager Clint Hurlde observed: "It's like eating spaghetti in a white shirt."

Birthdays:
Carl Hubbell b. 1903
Davey O'Brien b. 1917
Pete Maravich b. 1947
Clyde Drexler b. 1962
Champ Bailey b. 1978

QUIRKY HISTORIES

Practical jokes are not a recent phenomenon, as college professor Rowland proves in her entertaining history of a doozy of a gag from Renaissance Italy. Bored, rich Tuscan teenager Curzio Inghirami forged some documents that linked Tuscany to the ancient Etruscan civilization and buried them at his family’s villa in Scornello. For an extra dash of authenticity, he placed the documents in scarith, a container made of hair and mud. Tuscany was in a furor over the discovery and eventually so was Rome. How long could the trickster keep up his charade? How would false documents be exposed? Read this delicious history to find out. THE SCARITH OF SCORNELLO: A TALE OF

A RENAISSANCE FORGERY, by Ingrid D. Rowland (University of Chicago Press, 2004)