Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/15-3/16/2009

3/15/1963:
After winning three SEC championships (once with a 24-1 record), only to pass up three NCAA tournament bids in the last four years to abide by an unwritten code of bigotry forbidding them to compete in racially integrated events, the Mississippi State Bulldogs basketball team literally sneaks out of Starkville in the dead of night to keep a Midwest Regional date with Loyola (Chicago) in East Lansing, Michigan. With four black starters, Loyola wins, 61-51, and in fact goes on to win the entire tournament, but just by showing up, the MSU players and coaches take a giant step toward eradicating the insidious tentacles of racism in the state of Mississippi.

Birthdays:
Punch Imlach b. 1918
Norm Van Brocklin b. 1926
Harold Baines b. 1959
Terry Cummings b. 1961
Kevin Youkillis b. 1979

3/16/1992:
While sitting in the third base dugout at Scottsdale Stadium during a Cactus League exhibition game, California Angels pitcher Matt Keough is struck in the right temple by a foul ball hit by John Patterson of the San Francisco Giants. Keough, son of former big-league outfielder Marty Keough, was attempting a comeback after two rotator cuff surgeries. He'll recover from the emergency surgery required to relieve pressure on his brain but will never again pitch in the majors. As a result of this incident, all professional ballparks will install protective screens in front of each dugout to block line drives.

Birthdays:
Roger Crozler b. 1942
Rick Reichardt b. 1943
Ozzie Newsome b. 1956
Mel Gray b. 1961
Curtis Granderson b. 1981

Packers Fact:
Aaron Kampman was a linebacker his first two seasons at Iowa in the late 1990s before moving to defensive end his final two years.

JULIUS CAESAR

Another year, another Ides of March. Time to summon up great Caesar’s ghost once again, and this year the honors go to Adrian Goldsworthy for his very readable account of the formidable general and dictator. Though Goldsworthy’s field is military history, he does not neglect the many other sides of Caesar’s life and character, noting, for instance, that he was a “serial seducer of married women.” An engrossing chronicle of Caesar and his Rome.

CAESAR: LIFE OF A COLOSSUS, by Adrian Goldsworthy (Yale University Press, 2006)

THE DISCONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY

In the 17th century, Catholics and Protestants were arguing over the souls of Europe. When Baruch Spinoza, a Jew, came up with the idea of an impersonal god, thereby contradicting both camps, the philosopher and courtier Gottfried Leibniz disagreed. Matthew Stewart saw a great story in their argument. The title may seem intimidatingly academic, but Stewart has taken a potentially pompous subject and created an absorbing narrative. An entertaining look at a conflict that remains alive to this day.

THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC: LEIBNIZ, SPINOZA, AND THE FATE OF GOD IN THE MODERN WORLD, by Matthew Stewart (W. W. Norton, 2007)

SPACED-OUT SPORTS

ROBOJOCKS

In May 2005 teams of scholars from colleges around the world met at Georgia Tech for the RoboCup U.S. Open, a series of five robotic competitions. The aim of the contest was to develop a team of robots that, by the year 2050, will be technologically advanced enough to play soccer against a human team. Among the events: five-inch-tall robots played soccer with a golf ball; robot dogs played soccer; and teams of humans played soccer against robots while riding Segway power scooters.

PRESIDENT GERALD FORD ONCE GOT LOCKED OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE WHILE WALKING HIS DOG.

. . . NEWS FLUSH . . .

When a maintenance worker arrived at a highway rest stop in Valle, Norway, she was probably happy to discover that there was one toilet she would not have to clean . . . because it had been stolen. Helga Homme, an employee of Mesta, the company that services rest stops, immediately reported the theft to the Public Roads Administration (PRA). A Mesta manager reported that although he had seen plenty of thefts of things like lightbulbs and toilet paper from rest stops over the years, he had never heard of someone stealing a toilet. It cost the PRA more than $3,000 to replace the stainless-steel toilet, which appeared to have been carefully removed. “They had a disgusting job,” said Homme.

IN CHINA, AMERICAN FOOTBALL IS KNOWN AS “OLIVE BALL.”

On Ministers the Food Channel Would Like:
Do you promise to be a faithfuli minister, proclaiming the food news in Word and Sacrament?
from an application to become a minister in the Presbytery of Giddings-Loveyjoy, Texas

On "But All I Want To Know Is When To Put My Garbage Out!"
It has been brought to our attention that due to changes made to your grey household wastes bin collection dates within your new calendar. Your bin will be emptied week beginning the 20th March 2006, then next collection would not be until the week beginning the 10th April 2006. Thus having to wait 3 weeks for collection. Therefore we are to provide a normal collection on your normal collection day, week starting the 3rd April and again on your new collection date, week starting the 10th April then there after every 2 weeks.
Fife (England) Council letter about a change in garbage collection dates

Answer: B, William Randolph Hearst, the publishing magnate. His lavish Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, California, is now a state park open for tours.

MOTHER EARTH

THE AMAZON RIVER, BRAZIL

As it gathers its strength from more than 1,000 tributaries and drains into an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States, the Amazon swells into a behemoth with ten times the flow of the Mississippi.