Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 10/29/2007

10/29/1949:
Connie Mack didn't make many mistakes while managing the Philadelphia Athletics for half a century, but he makes a lulu when he trades second baseman Nellie Fox to the White Sox for catcher Joe Tipton. Satisfied with Pete Suder at second base and intrigued by Tipton's minor-league hitting stats, Mack parts with a future Hall of Famer who will lead the American League in hits 4 times, singles 8 times, defensive chances 8 times and putouts 10 times, and becomes one of the toughest batters to strike out in baseball history.

Birthdays:
Frank Sedgman b. 1927
Pete Richert b. 1939
Denis Potvin b. 1953
Jesse Barfield b. 1959
Mike Gartner b. 1959


“Intense, memorable...magnificent.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Extraordinary...a vast, ambitious, spiritually lusty, all-guzzling, all-encompassing novel.”—The New York Times Book Review

Alessandro Giuliani is a Roman citizen, soldier of World War I, mountain climber, prisoner of war, aesthete, lover. His life story, as he recounts it to a young man on a journey to a distant village, is glorious and triumphant. A dazzling, memorable, deeply satisfying novel.

A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR, by Mark Helprin (Harvest Books, 2005)