Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 02/02/2008

2/2/1960:
Playing their fifth game in five nights with a coast-to-coast trip thrown in for good measure, the Philadelphia Warriors defeat the Cincinnati Royals, 109-107, at Convention Hall. Rookie sensation Wilt Chamberlain leads the Warriors with 34 points; Jack Twyman paces the Royals with 30. Showcasing the Big Dipper on the West Coast in a pair of soon-to-become league cities, the NBA had the Warriors play a two-game series with the Minneapolis Lakers in San Francisco and Los Angeles before returning to the East Coast for tonight's game. Such a grueling schedule in today's unionized era would be unthinkable.

Birthdays:
Red Schoendienst b. 1923
Gary Dornhoefer b. 1943
Arturs Irbe b. 1967
Sean Elliott b. 1968
Scott Erickson b. 1968

1970:
Louisiana State University guard (Pistol) Pete Maravich pumped in 49 points against Mississippi State and became the first college basketball player in history to score more than 3,000 career points.

"Many long, lost and unexplainable 50-point nights hence, when he finally gets to the pros and is able to play with men who can complement him and against men who can't afford to collapse on him, he will be so good he will indeed scare people. -Curry Kirkpatrick, March 4, 1968


In 1956, John Ames, a pastor in small-town Iowa, learned that he had heart disease and had not long to live. The father of a young boy by a May-December marriage, the dying man hoped to communicate something of his life and beliefs to his son, and Gilead is the letter Ames wrote to him—a combination of family history, meditation, a bit of theology, concern for the boy’s and his mother’s future, and the earnest examination of a Midwestern minister’s life. The book is quite simply a masterpiece, beautifully constructed, thematically rich, and with writing that is at once tranquil and powerful. Gilead won the Pulitzer in 2005.

GILEAD, by Marilynne Robinson (Picador USA, 2006)