Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 7/25/2007

My mom would have been 70 today.

7/25/1976:
Mac Wilkins of Oregon wins the gold medal in the discus at the Olympic Games in Montreal. The burly and bearded muscleman tosses the discus (about 4.4 pounds) 221'5" to defeat Wolfgang Schmidt of East Germany by four feet. Now training full time in San Jose, California, Wilkins ruffles the feathers of the stodgy USOC by arriving late at the Olympic Village after some private workouts in nearby Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. Miffed by his differences with the American track hierarchy, Wilkins takes the gold medal with a final toss that is full 11 feet off his current world-best mark of 232'6".

Birthdays:
Whitey Lockman b. 1926
Nate Thurmond b. 1941
Walter Payton b. 1954
Doug Drabek b. 1962
Billy Wagner b. 1971

MEMOIRS

Goldsby sings like a canary in this lively, original memoir of her 30 years as a cocktail-lounge piano player. She’s played seedy bars, upscale lounges, Third World venues, and castles in Europe, and her revelations on music, human nature, and the value of pursuing your dreams are sparkling. PIANO GIRL: LESSONS IN LIFE, MUSIC, AND

THE PERFECT BLUE HAWAIIAN, by Robin Meloy Goldsby (Backbeat Books, 2005)