Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 8/22/2009

8/22/1964:
After stopping Northern Dancer's bid to capture the Triple Crown by winning the Belmont Stakes, Quadrangle adds to his impressive three-year-old dossier by winning the Travers Stakes on a sloppy track at Saratoga, New York. Ridden by Manny Ycaza, Quadrangle defeats Knightly Manner by one and a half lengths in the mile-an-a-quarter test. His victory in the feature race of the Saratoga meet follows his earlier wins at the Wood Memorial and Dwyer Handicap but won't be enough to wrest Horse of the Year honors away from Kelso.

Birthdays:
Carl Yastrzemski b. 1939
Bill Parcells b. 1941
Diana Nyad b. 1949
Paul Molitor b. 1956
Mats Wilander b. 1964

Packers Fact:
Trouble Along the Way was the name of the 1953 motion picture in which actor John Wayne said the line, often attributed to Vince Lombardi, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing".

ANOTHER WORLD

At the beginning of this quiet, haunting novel of coming of age in hell, Suleiman is nine years old. He lives in Tripoli, and it is 1979. He plays games in the street, fights off the heat, plays and runs and shouts. But all around him are coded signals and strange whispers, lies and tears, change and confusion. The author makes the unthinkable—what it would be like to grow up under the freshly minted insanity of Muammar Qaddafi—as real as the rise and fall of your own breathing. Publishers Weekly starred review.

IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN, by Hisham Matar (The Dial Press, 2007)