Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 01/30/2008

1/30/2005:
Marat Safin of Russia spoils the party Down Under, beating crowd favorite Lleyton Hewitt of Australia in the finals of the Australian Open at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. After Hewitt briskly wins the first set, 6-1, Safin takes control with his powerful serve and volley and runs out the match, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Safin was a losing finalist here in 2002 and '04, but today he prevents Hewitt from becoming the first Aussie to win the title in three decades.

Birthdays:
Walt Dropo b. 1923
Davey Johnson b. 1943
Curtis Strange b. 1955
Payne Stewart b. 1957
Jalen Rose b. 1973

1999:
Michelle Akers scored the 100th international goal of her illustrious soccer career as the U.S. women's national team blanked Portugal, 6-0, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"Forget Margaret Thatcher. If there was ever a woman deserving fo the nickname Iron Lady, it's U.S. midfielder Michelle Akers. In her fourteen yeras with the national team, Akers, 33, has been the Lenny Dykstra of women's soccer, crashing into defenders, cross-checking attackers, hurtling headlong for the good of the team-and the bad of her body. -Grant Wahl, May 3, 1999

Packers Fact:
With 53,615 career passing yards entering 2006, Brett Favre trailed only Dan Marino (61,361) on the NFL's all-time list.


Few writers have so utterly taken possession of a particular niche as Alan Furst has of the shadowy corners of World War II Europe. In Furst’s sixth journey into 1940s darkness, Jean Casson, a movie producer, negotiates the difficult Paris terrain between the French Resistance and its momentary allies, the Communists. How did he do it? “He pulled Hélène tighter against him. Crazy to take off all our clothes—to make love like aristocrats.” Furst gives us the war as it should have been, a romantically gritty world that’s easy to live in for some 200 pages.

RED GOLD, by Alan Furst (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001)