Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 6/3/2007

Kudos must go to the Boston Traveler for this headline about four-time National League home run champion Big Johnny Mize: "To Criticize Mize Is Unwise; His Bat Supplies the Best Replies."

Birthdays:
Jim Gentile b. 1934
Billy Cunningham b. 1943
Barry Beck b. 1957
Carl Everett b. 1971
Rafael Nadaz b. 1986


It bothered Osborne, a journalist living in New York, that he knew so little about wine and that he was intimidated by the stuff. So he set out on a quest to educate himself. He traveled from California to Europe to understand the grape trade as well as to discover what makes a wine great. Earthy and open, with crisp humor yet with notes of sweetness underneath, The Accidental Connoisseur is a refreshingly palatable book on wine.

THE ACCIDENTAL CONNOISSEUR: AN IRREVERENT JOURNEY THROUGH THE WINE WORLD, by Lawrence Osborne (North Point Press, 2005)