Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/4-2/6/2009

2/4/1961:

The seeds of the modern-day intense basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina are sown during tonight's game at Cameron Indoor Stadium when Larry Brown of North Carolina (yes, that Larry Brown!) drives the lane in the closing seconds and becomes entangled with Duke All-American Art Heyman. Brown and Heyman (both from Long Island's South Shore) go at it, other players join in, the scuffle along the baseline spills into the spectators and the police must act quickly to defuse a potential powder keg in the sweltering gym. Duke wins the game, 81-77, led by 36 points from Heyman, but the festering enmity between the neighboring universities becomes part-and-arcel of their competition.

Birthdays:

Bennie Oosterbaan b. 1906

Byron Nelson b. 1912

Lawrence Taylor b. 1959

Denis Savard b. 1961

Oscar De LaHoya b. 1973

Packers Fact:

DeShawn Wynn led Florida's national champions by rushing for 699 yards as a senior in 2006.


2/5/2974:
Maurice Lucas hits a 20-foot jump shot at the buzzer to give sixth-ranked Marquette a 59-58 victory over arch rival Wisconsin at the Milwaukee Arena. Marquette trailed by nine points with six and a half minutes remaining before rallying for the win. Notoriously poor foul shooter Kim Hughes misses two free throws in the final minute for Wisconsin, enabling Marquette to set up for the clutch goal by Lucas at the finish. Marquette will reach the NCAA tournament final this year before bowing to N.C. State.

Birthdays:
Hank Aaron b. 1934
Roger Staubach b. 1942
Crai Morton b. 1943
Darrell Waltrip b. 1949
Roberto Alomar b. 1968


Packers Fact:
Wide receiver Donald Driver played college football at Alcorn State, a Southerwestern Athletic Conference school.

2/6/1972:
Redoubtable 43-year-old Pancho Gonzalez rallies from two sets down to defeat Frenchman Georges Goven for a five-set victory in a pro tennis tournament in Des Moines, Iowa. Gonzalez becomes the oldest player to win a tournament in the Open era. The ageless warrior missed out on a chance to win countless Grand Slam titles during the 1950s and '60s because those events barred professionals from competing until 1968.

Birthdays:
Babe Ruth b. 1895
Smoky Burgess b. 1927
Don Cockroft b. 1945
Richie Zisk b. 1949
Kim Zmeskal b. 1976

Packers Fact:
Allen Barbre is an offensive lineman, but he is fast enough that while at Missouri Southern State in 2006, he was the "gunner" (the outside cover man) in punt coverage.

HAVE SOME DESERT

Gemma Bastian goes to Egypt, near Nag Hammadi, to investigate the mysterious death of her archaeologist father, and becomes entangled in his studies: the role of women in early Christianity and translations of apocryphal gospels of Philip, Thomas, and Mary Magdalen. A cast of interesting characters who deal in antiquities and these provocative texts, as well as two brothers who become romantically involved with her, and great period details make this a fun addition to the ever-growing Da Vinci Code knockoffs.

RESURRECTION, by Tucker Malarkey (Riverhead, 2006)

WHAT A READ

Between the time John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, escaping Ford’s Theater on a waiting horse, and April 26, when he was smoked out of a barn in Virginia and shot, were 12 days of unrelenting tension, outrage, ingenuity on the part of both pursuers and pursued, and finally a cathartic conclusion that leap off the pages of this book in living, fire-breathing history. Publishers Weekly starred review.

MANHUNT: THE 12-DAY CHASE FOR LINCOLN’S KILLER, by James L. Swanson (Harper Perennial, 2007)

MYSTERIOUS DOINGS
When journalist Ridley Jones discovers that her “late uncle” Max Smiley is not only alive but also her real father—and a criminal—she starts digging in, and then keeps on digging. Though what she finds seems to be never-ending, unsavory, hard to believe, and difficult to digest, you’ll want to stay with her all the way. Following the success of Beautiful Lies, Lisa Unger delivers a thriller that has inspired comparisons to masters such as Peter Straub. Publishers Weekly starred review.

SLIVER OF TRUTH, by Lisa Unger (Shaye Areheart, 2007)

On descriptions, a little too apt

He is in hospital suffering from a nervous breakdown, but no doubt he will soon be better and running around like a maniac.

radio host Simon Bates

On warnings, absolutely essential:

DO NOT PUT ANY PERSON IN THIS WASHER.

warning label on a washing machine, and grand prize winner of the 2006 Wacky Warning Label Contest conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch

On but, man, does she have great breasts!

Sexually Inexperienced Chicken

menu item, China

CRÈME DE LA CRUD

A TOY FLOP

With the advent of the miniskirt in the late 1960s, showing a lot of leg suddenly became a fashion trend. That was the idea behind Hasbro’s aptly named Leggy in 1971. The doll was ten inches tall—and seven of the ten inches were Leggy’s legs. Result: huge legs, a tiny torso, and a mutant-looking doll that quickly bombed.

LARGEST ART MUSEUM: THE HERMITAGE, IN RUSSIA (322 GALLERIES; NEARLY 3 MILLION WORKS OF ART).

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

THANKS, ANONYMOUS!

In 2005 the Yale School of Music in New Haven, Connecticut, received a donation from an undisclosed donor. The amount of the gift: a whopping $100 million. Thanks to the donation, the school, one of the most exclusive music colleges in the country, is now the least expensive. Until the money runs out, students no longer have to pay the annual $25,000 tuition.

BOB HOPE WAS JAILED IN HIS YOUTH FOR STEALING TENNIS BALLS.

GOVERNMENT WASTE

In 2006 Kenyan Youth Affairs minister Muhammad Kuti proposed changing the legal definition of the word “youth” to include people aged 31 to 50. Reason: He wanted to give more people access to a $14 million “youth fund.” The proposal failed. If the plan had gone through, 50-year-old Kenyan “youths” would have had only five years until the legal retirement age, which is 55.

80% OF MILLIONAIRES DRIVE SECONDHAND CARS.

NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

NAPLES, ITALY

One of the richest treasure troves of Greco-Roman antiquities in the world—including precious sculpture and artifacts excavated from nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum—this remarkable museum, housed in a large 16th-century cavalry barracks, fascinates visitors.

ICEBREAKER CRUISE

KEMI, LAPLAND, FINLAND

The Sampo, one of the world’s few tourist icebreakers, offers exhilarating midwinter experiences and views of the northern lights on the frozen Gulf of Bothnia, the northernmost tip of the Baltic Sea. Passengers alight onto the rock-hard sea for snowmobiling or fishing and can don orange waterproof suits to float amid the newly broken ice.

PYRAMIDS OF THE AMERICAS

This complex at Teotihuacán, outside Mexico City, is one of the best excavated and most visited of the cities and temples built by the Maya and other early cultures of Mexico and Central America. To see others, visit:

• Palenque, in Chiapas, Mexico
• Chichén Itzá, in the Yucatán, Mexico
• Tulum, in the Yucatán, Mexico
• Tikal, at Tikal National Park, Guatemala