Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 01/03/2008

1/3/1999:
Steve Young throws a 25-yard touchdown pass to Terrell Owens with three seconds left, giving the San Francisco 49ers a 30-27 victory over Green Bay in a thrilling NFC Wild Card playoff game at Candlestick Park. Young drives the 49ers 76 yards on nine pass plays (including seven completions to six different receivers) in the last two minutes to upend the Packers, who had gone ahead, 27-23, on a TD pass from Brett Favre to Antonio Freeman just before the Niners' last-ditch drive.

Birthdays:
Hank Stram b. 1924
Bobby Hull b. 1939
Darren Daulton b. 1962
Jim Everett b. 1962
Cheryl Miller b. 1964

1/3/1920:
The New York Yankees paid Boston Red Sox Harry Frazee $125,000 for the contract of 24-year-old pitcher-outfielder Babe Ruth.

"Where youth sees discovery, age sees coincidence, and perhaps the retrospect of years makes Ruth's arrival in Manhattan in 1920 seem only a fortuitous juxtaposition of man and place in time. Nonetheless, Ruth in that place at that time was discovery. And adventure. And excitement." -Robert W. Creamer, March 25, 1974

OTHER WORLDS

Don’t be fooled by the romance-novel trappings and cover: This is a serious political novel with a bit of a love story along the way. Set in 1977, the story unfolds in a tense Iran just before Ayatollah Khomeini overthrows the shah and changes everything. Mahastee, an upper-class housewife, and Reza, a Marxist revolutionary, meet again after many years. Both are looking for people who have become victims of the brutal secret police, and the two are united briefly just as their country is being torn apart. “Exile is its own country,” as Firouz writes.

IN THE WALLED GARDENS: A NOVEL, by Anahita Firouz (Back Bay Books, 2003)