Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 5/30/2008

5/30/1988:
Mercurial Frenchman Henri Leconte endures three rain delays before gutting out a five-set victory over Boris Becker in the fourth round of the French Open in Paris. Counting the interruptions, the match lasts more than seven hours before the talented but erratic left-handed Leconte can outlast the two-time Wimbledon champion. Plagued by inconsistency and a tendency to try for too many spectacular shots, Lecontte will treat the Roland Garros crowd to his finest week as a professional, advancing to the only Grand Slam final of his career before bowing to Mats Wilander.

Birthdays:
Turk Lown b. 1924
Gillees Villemure b. 1940
Gale Sayers b. 1943
Lydell Mitchell b. 1949
Manny Ramirez b. 1972

1982:
Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken started a consecutive-games-played-streak that would eventually stretch until 1998.

"For Ripken, ball games come not in sets of three or four or seven, but in sets of 162, in the age of the space shuttle, the tanning salon and the 20-second sound bite, how can this be? More important, how long can it continue?" -Ralph Wiley, June 18, 1990

Packers Fact:
Rookie guard Daryn Colledge got his first NFL start in week 2 of the 2006 season against the Saints. He took over that day for injured Jason Spitz, another rookie who started the opener against the Bears.


In The March, Doctorow follows General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 60,000 Union troops from Atlanta to the sea, bringing the demented chaos of war to every house, every family, every piece of livestock or blade of grass in the way. The March is a novel of great scope and richly painted characters, from Sherman himself to Pearl, a plantation owner’s slave daughter who passes for a white drummer boy, to the pair of rebel soldiers, Arly and Will, who change sides back and forth as they go. This is Doctorow at his best, and it won the Pen/Faulkner Award for 2006.

THE MARCH, by E. L. Doctorow (Random House, 2005)