Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 06/09/2008

6/9/1984:
Swale, son of Seattle Slew, sweeps to a four-length victory in the Belmont Stakes over Pine Circle. It's the third straight Belmong victory for Swale's trainer, Woody Stephens, and jockey Laffit Pincay Jr., who had teamed up to win with Conquistador Cielo in 1982 and Caveat last year. Swale's time of 2:27-1/5 for the mile-and-a-half test is the fourth fastest in Belmont history. Tragically, only a week from now, he'll collapse after a morning workout and cannot be saved; his death is attributed to an irregular heartbeat.

Birthdays:
Bill Virdon b. 1931
Dick Vitale b. 1939
Dave Parker b. 1951
Wayman Tisdale b. 1964
Tody Bruschi b. 1973

1991:
The London Monarchs blanked the Barcelona Dragons, 21-0, in the first World League of American Football championship game.

"There was something wonderfully honest, low-rent and delicious about World Bow I. ... The game was dreadful and terrific at the same time. You didn't know whether it was the beginning or, who knew, the end of something." -Rick Reilly, June 16, 1991

Packers Fact:
Safety Marquand Manuel is the ninth of 18 children in his family. The age span is 25 years from odest to youngest.

WALT WHITMAN, MUSE

Walt Whitman presides over these three interrelated novellas. Unlike Virginia Woolf in Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours, however, Whitman is not a major character. Rather, his spirit, ardent and sprawling, permeates the book: “It avails not, neither time or place. . . .” Whitman wrote. “I am with you, and know how it is.” Three characters, an older man, a young woman, and a boy—appear in all three novellas, seemingly reincarnated in the separate stories’ different time periods. It is a daring experiment that has won over many readers.

SPECIMEN DAYS, by Michael Cunningham (Picador USA, 2006)