Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 04/28/2008

4/28/1994:
After 65 unforgettable years, Chicago Stadium hosts its last hockey game as the Toronto Maple Leafs eliminate the Blackhawks from the Stanley Cup playoffs. Despite providing an electrifying experience for fans, great sight lines and a world-class organ, the fabled sports landmark is doomed to be razed and replaced by a sedate, pristine arena right across the street, the United Center. It will contain an abundance of "luxury boxes," fully cushioned seats and deep concourses, but inherit absolutely none of the character of its much-beloved predecessor.

Birthdays:
Pedro Ramos b. 1935
Tom Browning b. 1960
Mark Bavaro b. 1963
Barry Larkin b. 1964
John Daly b. 1966

1966:
The Boston Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, 95-93, and won their eighth consecutive National Basketball Association championship.

"The final margin of only two points is misleading, however, for the Lakers cut it down from double figures only in the last 30 seconds, when the Boston police lost their annual playoff with the Boston fans. Each time Celtic coach Red Auerbach lights his last victory cigar of the season the fans charge the court like Attila's Huns." -Frank Deford, May 9, 1966

Packers Fact:
Quarterback Brett Favre entered 2006 having started every game for the Packers since early in the 1992 season. The next-longest active streak was shared by three players who started their i49th consecutive game on Kickoff Weekend that year: tackle Chad Clifton, cornerback Al Harris, and tackle Mark Tauscher.


KILLER FICTION
“No single explanation . . . can account for the sheer power of this story. . . . Mosley has created an indispensable picture of the city in the ’60s. . . . Mosley has not so much written the story of Little Scarlet as detonated it.”—The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Easy Rawlins, unlicensed PI, stays cool and out of trouble as the 1965 Watts riots explode in L.A. But the police come looking for him anyway—to help them investigate the murder of a redheaded black woman known as “Little Scarlet.” Mosley writes about Los Angeles and Watts with a tight, evocative style, and he addresses American racial tensions head-on and with intelligence. Little Scarlet is the eighth Easy Rawlins novel and possibly the best of the series.

LITTLE SCARLET, by Walter Mosley (Little Brown, 2004)