Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 12/28/2007

12/28/1949:
Dr. Jack Lovelock, 1936 Olympic gold medalist with a world record time in the 1500 meters, faints and falls onto the subway tracks in Brooklyn and is killed by an oncoming train. A native New Zealander and Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Lovelock also once held the world record in the mile run, setting the mark at Princeton in 1933. A specialist in physical rehabilitation, he hadn't been feeling well in recent days and was on his way home from his hospital. He was 39 years old.

Birthdays:
Steve Van Buren b. 1920
Terry Sawchuk b. 1929
Ray Knight b. 1952
Ray Bourque b. 1960
Benny Agbayani b. 1971

CULT FICTION

Henry Spencer is the come-from-nowhere kid, a baseball natural who gets snapped up by the Oakland As. Benny Rhodes is a discontented MIT physics professor who has chucked academia and moved with his girlfriend to a trailer park in Needles, California. Henry, as it happens, is a mathematical genius. Benny has nursed a lifelong passion for baseball. Eventually these two meet up in Needles where they and their girlfriends experience a series of unpredictable events that involve baseball, higher math, and even reincarnation. A quirky, charming novel.

COYOTE MOON, by John A. Miller (Forge Books, 2005)