Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 11/09/2007

11/9/2002:
Freshman quarterback Reggie McNeal throws four touchdown passes to lead Texas A&M to a 30-26 upset of top-ranked and unbeaten Oklahoma before more than 84,000 fans (including former president George H.W. Bush) at Kyle Field in College Station. Although the injury-depleted Aggies were supposed to be a soft touch for the Sooners, McNeal puts on a one-man show to spark A&M's first victory ever against a No. 1-ranked opponent.

Birthdays:
Bob Gibson b. 1935
Tom Weiskopf b. 1942
Teddy Higuera b. 1958
David Duval b. 1971
Adam Dunn b. 1979

Alice Munro may be one of the best short story writers who has ever lived. Her stories are usually set in Canada, and they usually concern love in some form—lost, damaged, imperfect, tenuous, consuming. But it really doesn’t matter what the details of the story are, Munro somehow always manages to convey essential truths about what it is to be human. The Los Angeles Times says that you read Munro “to have your premises altered and deepened.” She’s dazzling, and Runaway is as good as it gets.

RUNAWAY, by Alice Munro (Knopf, 2004)