Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 01/10/2008

1/10/2006:
The Phoenix Suns lose their second triple-overtime game on the road in nine days, bowing 139-137 to the Denver Nuggets. Carmelo Anthony scores 43 points, including the game-winning basket for Denver with three seconds left in the third overtime. Pint-size point guard Earl Boykins chips in with a career-high 33 points for the Nuggets, who are forced to play without starting frontcourt men Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin, both sidelined by injury. Just last week, the Suns were beaten by the Knicks in New York, 140-133, also in triple overtime.

Birthdays:
Frank Mahovlich b. 1938
Willie McCovey b. 1938
Bill Toomey b. 1939
Glenn Robinson b. 1973
Felix Trinidad b. 1973

1996:
Detroit Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman earned his 943rd career victory (a 4-0 win over Dallas) and coached his 1,613th game, both National Hockey League records.

"Bowman isn't easy to read. His ruminations on hockey can't even be described as stream of consciousness, because you can at least paddle down a stream; Bowman's mind portages a lot. He walks around the Wings video room in his slippers. He can be abrupt. But as impersonal as Bowman may be in his dealings with players, no coach ever has been as sensitive to what might work at any given moment on the ice. -Michael Farber, April 29, 1996


“Mesmerizing: a comic tour of the underbelly of Bangkok in pursuit of both a murderer and the sublime.”—The New Yorker

Bangkok 8’s Buddhist cop, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, returns in another dark, witty, and suspenseful excursion into the seedy precincts of modern Bangkok. Bar girls, the CIA, Yakuza toughs, and Muslim extremists all mix it up in Burdett’s keen and clever novel. Mystery writing doesn’t get any better than this.

BANGKOK TATTOO, by John Burdett (Vintage, 2005)