Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 10/16/2007

10/16/1960:
Californian Billy Casper wins his third straight golf tournament on a profitable West Coast swing, capturing the Orange County Open by one stroke over Charlie Sifford. In his last two outings he won at Portland, Oregon, and Hesperia in his home state. Casper's trifecta duplicates Arnold Palmer's three straight wins in the South at San Antonio, Baton Rouge and Pensacola earlier this spring.

Birthdays:
Dave DeBusschere b. 1940
Tim McCarver b. 1941
Juan Gonzalez b. 1969
Kordell Stewart b. 1972
Paul Kariya b. 1974

The events leading up to World War I are explained with breathtaking clarity, elegance, drama, and authority in Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history. Read it to learn about WWI or to understand what makes a book on history truly great.

THE GUNS OF AUGUST, by Barbara W. Tuchman (1962; Ballantine Books, 1994)