Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 6/30/07

6/29/1986:
Argentina defeats West Germany, 3-2, at Aztec Stadium in Mexico City to win its second World Cup soccer championship. Although the team's prominent striker, Maradona, is held scoreless, the defensive manpower needed to keep him in check frees up his teammates for many scoring chances. Jose Luis Brown scores in the 22nd minute and Jorge Alberto Valdano in the 56th to give Argentina an early lead, but the West Germans rally to tie it at 2-2 on a pair of goals scored off corner kick scrambles. Finally, in the 84th minute, Jorge Luis Burruchaga scores for Argentina on a beautiful feed from a double-teamed Maradona, setting off a wild celebration throughout all of South America.

Birthdays:
Harmon Killebrew b. 1936
Dan Dierdorf b. 1949
Rick Honeycutt b. 1952
Pepper Johnson b. 1956
Theo Fleury b. 1968

A marriage is compromised when a wife confesses to having had a long and deep connection to another man. She is an English matron, and the other man was Gandhi. An enticing premise for a novel that enables Heller to explore postwar England and its relationship with India, a woman’s independence, and the fragile bonds of marriage. It’s a surprising sleeper of a novel, one that would make for an excellent discussion at a book club meeting.

THE WOMAN WHO KNEW GANDHI, by Keith Heller (Mariner Books, 2004)