Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/21-2/24/09

2/21/2000:
In the final seconds of a 5-2 Canucks victory, NHL goon Marty McSorley of the Boston Bruins goes way past the bounds of propriety with a stick-swinging attack from behind on fellow enforcer Donald Brashear of the Vancouver Canucks, sending him to the hospital with lacerations and a concussion. McSorley, a thug on skates for many years in the league but usually with his fists, face to face, is universally condemned in the hockey community. He'll draw a one-year suspension from the league office, receive no offers to resume his career when his period of banishment expires and never play in the NHL again.

Birthdays:
Tom Yawkey b. 1903
Jack Ramsay b. 1925
Alan Trammell b. 1958
Brian Rolston b. 1973
Steve Francis b. 1978

2/22/1971:
Julius Erving celebrates his 21st birthday in style, scoring 36 points, grabbing 32 rebounds and leading the UMass Minutemen to an 86-71 rout of Syracuse at the Curry Hicks Cage in Amherst. Before leaving for the pros next season after his sophomore year, Erving will enter the exclusive 20-20 club, averaging 26.3 ppg and 20.2 rpg in his two seasons at UMass. He'll join Walter Dukes, Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Paul Silas and Artis Gilmore in that select group.

Birthdays:
Julius Erving b. 1950
Amy Alcott b. 1956
Vijay Singh b. 1963
Pat LaFontaine b. 1965
Michael Chang b. 1972

Packers Fact:
The Rams originally drafted defensive tackle Ryan Pickett in the first round in 2001. After five years in St. Louis, Pickett signed with the Packers as a free agent in 2006.

2/23:
Hall of Fame goaltender Lorne "Gump" Worlsey, who excelled at his craft but didn't exactly look forward to going between the pipes each night, once admitted: "The only job worse than mine is a javelin catcher at a track-and-field meet."

Birthdays:
Dante Lavelli b. 1923
Fred Biletnikoff b. 1943
Ed "Too Tall" Jones b. 1951
Flip Saunders b. 1955
Bobby Bonilla b. 1963

Packers Fact:
Before Korey Hall in 2007, no Packers' rookie had started at fullback on Kickoff Weekend since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.

2/24/2002:
The Canadian Olympic men's hockey team wins a gold medal for the first time in 50 years (1952 at Oslo, Norway) with a 5-2 victory over Team USA in Salt Lake City, Utah. Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla each score twice for the Canadian squad, and Martin Brodeur turns aside 31 of 33 shots the Americans fire his way. Team Canada's win in the men's competition duplicates the gold medal won earlier this week by the Canadian women's team in just the second Winter Olympics to present women's hockey as a medal sport.

Birthdays:
Honus Wagner b. 1874
Alain Prost b. 1955
Eddie Murray b. 1956
Simeon Rice b. 1974
Lleyton Hewitt b. 1981

Packers Fact:
Cornerback Al Harris entered the 2007 season with a string of 144 consecutive games played. The streak began while he was with Philadelphia in 1998.




A haunted house, family secrets, feral twins, a famous author who rewrites her biography every time she’s interviewed, an abandoned baby, and a bookseller’s daughter caught up in the middle of it all. Diane Setterfield, whom reviewers have compared to the Brontës, has written a gothic beauty of a novel that, besides being a good, twisty yarn, is imbued with her own love of reading. Just the kind of mystery for a book lover to curl up with.

THE THIRTEENTH TALE, by Diane Setterfield (Atria, 2006)

RADIO DAYS AND NIGHTS

When television first came along, the “experts” immediately started predicting the demise of radio. Some experts. Some demise. Before they could say “frequency modulation,” radio had reinvented itself into a juggernaut for American pop music, and the medium continues to this day to adapt to whatever technology and culture throw at it. Marc Fisher has been listening since the days when he slept with a little transistor radio under his pillow and the glories of the Top 40 as lullabies. A totally absorbing read.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR: RADIO, ROCK, AND THE REVOLUTION THAT SHAPED A GENERATION, by Marc Fisher (Random House, 2007)

FULL-COURT PRESS

Though the focal point of this fascinating history is the 1779 murder of the mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, the fine points are in the examination of how the press treated the case. They speculated wildly and made things up as they went along, and the inevitable parallels to modern media circuses provide valuable insight into the coverage of today’s scandals.

A SENTIMENTAL MURDER: LOVE AND MADNESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, by John Brewer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)

REVOLUTION

A novel written by a poet, Doctor Zhivago is lyrical, dense, and beautiful. Yury, Lara, and Strelnikov are extraordinary characters, caught in the path of the train wreck that is Russia’s history—as, indeed, was Pasternak himself. You say you’ve seen the movie at least 12 times? It doesn’t matter. The book is a different experience altogether.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, by Boris Pasternak (1958; Pantheon, 1997)

On Rhyming Song, Lyrics, Lyrical:

I don't like cities but I like New York

Other places make me feel like a dork

from Madonna's "I Love New York" (thanks to Lisa Barry)

On Top 5 Lists, Too Long:

And now here's number 6 on the Top 5 at t.

radio dj, KICX, Ontario (thanks to Dan Cousineau)

On Resume Accomplishments, Not Too Accomplished:

* Accomplishments: The Marines is and probably will be the biggest accomplishment I've ever had, even though I wasn't able to join.

* Accomplishments: None.

items on actual resumes

On the Department of Redundancy Department:

This is all about historical events in the past.

British prime minister Tony Blair

WHEN NATURE CALLS

OFF-FENCE-IVE MANEUVER

“A Shinnston, West Virginia, woman called for help on her cell phone Wednesday after a camel sat on top of her while she was painting a fence. Firefighters and the camel’s owner helped move the animal off the woman, who was having trouble breathing, according to ambulance driver Brent Hicks. ‘There is no protocol on something like this,’ he said. The names of the woman and the camel’s owner were not released.”

—Houston Chronicle

IN POKER, A CARD COMBINATION OF A 9 AND A 5 IS CALLED A “DOLLY PARTON.”

TWO DUMB CROOKS

• A woman in Memphis, Tennessee, saw what she thought was a large bag of cocaine in her neighbors’ refrigerator . . . and decided to steal it. First, she hired a hit man to kill the four men who lived there. Except it wasn’t a hit man—it was an undercover cop. And it wasn’t even cocaine—it was queso fresco, a type of Mexican cheese.

• In 2006 a man in Wisconsin was arrested for burglary after a woman found her house in disarray—and her computer on. Apparently the thief had checked his e-mail while robbing the place and had forgotten to log out of his account.

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION IS THE ACTION OF ESTIMATING SOMETHING AS WORTHLESS.

POT-POURRI

TWO RANDOM LISTS

5 Foreign Names for Colonel Mustard (from Clue)
• Oberst Von Gatow (Germany)
• Si. Mustardas (Greece)
• Colonel Moutarde (France)
• Oberst Gulin (Norway)
• Madame Curry (Switzerland)
7 Most Shoplifted Items
• Pain relievers
• Pregnancy tests
• Disposable razors
• Film
• Baby formula
• Preparation H
• Decongestant

IT IS UNUSUAL: TOM JONES WAS ON CHARLES MANSON’S HIT LIST.

TODAY IS MARDI GRAS

. . . BUT IT’S ALSO KNOWN AS “PANCAKE DAY.”

Many families in Catholic areas traditionally make large batches of pancakes on this day, both to gorge before the fasting of Lent and to use up lots of eggs, milk, and flour (that might spoil during the 40 days of Lent). Mardi Gras is from the French for “Fat Tuesday.”

AMERICAN CHILDREN SPEND 6.3 BILLION HOURS COLORING WITH CRAYONS ANNUALLY.

GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE

See the answer tomorrow.

Q: True or False? Great white egrets share their habitat in Florida’s Everglades National Park with hundreds of other species of birds and animals, including alligators, manatees, panthers, and pythons.

Answer: True. Alligators, manatees, and panthers are native, but Burmese pythons, bought as pets and released by their owners, are now established in the Everglades.

HUAHINE

SOCIETY ISLANDS, FRENCH POLYNESIA

With splendid beaches, ceremonial temples, and tiny, charming villages, Huahine is one of the few Polynesian islands Captain James Cook might recognize if he were to return today.

OTAVALO

ECUADOR

High in the Andes, the oldest, best known, and most important Indian market in South America takes place every Saturday in Otavalo. Buyers and sellers converge from far away, and the wares include livestock and produce, hemp and saddles, textiles, and carved wooden animals.