Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/12-3/13/2009

3/12/1966:
The Boston College Eagles, coached by Bob Cousy, outlast Wes Unseld and the Louisville Cardinals, 96-90, in triple overtime in the first round of the NIT at Madison Square Garden. Steve Adelman has 32 points for BC and Ed Hockenbury adds 22 to offset 35 points by Unseld before he fouls out. It's the first three-overtime game in NIT history. The Eagles will be beaten in the next round by Villanova, and the Brigham Young Cougars will win the tournament.

Birthdays:
Bronco Horvath b. 1930
Johnny Rutherford b. 1938
Darryl Strawberry b. 1962
Steve Finley b. 1965
Raul Mondesi b. 1971


Packers Fact:
Defensive tackle Justin Harrell played college football at Tennessee, a Southeastern Conference school.

3/13/2007:
Lancy Mackey of Kasilof, Alaska, gets a kiss from lead sled dog Larry after winning the Iditarod. Lance's father, Dick Mackey, won here in 1978 and his half-brother Rick won in 1983, making the Mackeys the first such family trio to win this grueling race. Lance is also the first musher to win the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in the same year.

Birthdays:
Ordell Braase b. 1932
Joe Bellino b. 1938
Will Clark b. 1964
Thomas Enqvist b. 1974
Johan Santana b. 1979

Packers Fact:
Defensive end Aaron Kampman had 3 sacks in a game twice for the Packers in 2006; against New Orleans in week 2 and against Minnesota in week 16.

BROTHER WAS A TRICKSTER GOD

“Fat Charlie” Nancy is a stressed-out agent in London whose life is upended in various harrowing and gleeful ways by his long-lost brother, Spider, the son of an African trickster god. To lose Spider and regain his life, Charlie turns to four old ladies in Florida who show him the way to the spirit world. And then the fun begins. “If you have to classify it, it’s probably a magical-horror-thriller-ghost-romantic-comedy-family-epic,” says author Neil Gaiman. But while it’s difficult to pigeonhole, it’s easy to read this spirited combination of the down-to-earth and the screwball.

ANANSI BOYS, by Neil Gaiman (Harper Torch, 2006)

NOT GUILTY

On a summer’s day in 1984, a nine-year-old girl was assaulted and murdered in suburban Baltimore. Kirk Noble Bloodsworth was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong story. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the crime. While in prison he came upon a nonfiction work by Joseph Wambaugh, The Blooding, and realized that DNA held the key to proof of his innocence. A truly compelling story of American justice going very wrong and how it finally went right.

BLOODSWORTH: THE TRUE STORY OF THE FIRST DEATH ROW INMATE EXONERATED BY DNA, by Tim Junkin (Algonquin Books, 2004)

On Stories Like This Are Why We Read The Newspapers:

TROUT FISHERMAN REALLY ARE SMART

from The Joplin (Missouri) Globe

On Gum, Groovy:

*Flavano Triple-Combination High Tech Chewing Gum

*Be Cool Bourbon Original Chewing Gum

*Brain Gym Chewing Gum

Japanese chewing gums

REEL LIFE

UNCLE JOHN’S BAD MOVIE GUIDE

“In Gymkata (1985), an Olympic gymnast (Kurt Thomas) is recruited by the CIA to stick a nuclear missile base in the middle of an Eastern European country. Kurt has to run through alleys until he finds one that happens to have a horizontal bar set up between two buildings, then he grabs the bar and starts spinning and kicking guys. Apparently the reason this was filmed in Yugoslavia is that the whole country has gymnastics equipment hidden in the rocks and sticking out of buildings, and it gives Kurt a big advantage over the guys with machine guns.” (Joe Bob Briggs’ Ultimate B-Movie Guide)

RULE OF THUMB: YOUR THUMB IS APPROXIMATELY THE SAME LENGTH AS YOUR NOSE.

SEAT OF LEARNING

METEOR FACTS

• Meteors the size of basketballs hit Earth once a month.

• So far, 150 impact craters have been identified on Earth’s surface.

• In space it’s a meteor; on the ground, it’s a meteorite.

• A large meteorite is always cold to the touch. The outer layers are burned off from its trip through the atmosphere; the inner layers retain the cold of deep space.

• In 1994 the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into the atmosphere of Jupiter, generating an explosion the equivalent of 300 trillion tons of TNT. The comet was estimated to be three miles in diameter; the hole it made was larger than Earth.

GOOD LUCK! IT’S EASIER TO FIND GOLD THAN TO WIN THE LOTTERY.

TRAVELER IN THE KNOW

Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, the most popular tourist attraction on the planet, is also one of the largest. If your vacation time is brief, make the most of it by establishing your base at one of the hotels inside the resort to eliminate travel time—the Animal Kingdom Lodge, where you may see giraffes grazing from your window, is one choice.

SAILING THE GRENADINES

LESSER ANTILLES

Revered by yachtsmen and sailor wannabes, the thirty-two islands and hundreds of dotlike cays that form the archipelago of the Grenadines are one of the most beautiful yachting destinations in the world. To see them in the ideal way, charter a crewed boat or strike off on your own and set sail.