Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 10/3/2009

10/3/1995:
Tony Pena's 13th-inning walk-off homer gives the Cleveland Indians a 5-4 victory over the Boston Red Sox in the first game of the ALCS at Jacobs Field. It's Cleveland's first postseason appearance since 1954. With two rain delays thrown in, the game doesn't end until shortly after two A.M. The victory continues the Indians' outstanding good fortune (13-0) in extra-inning games during the regular season, helping them to compile a 100-44 won-lost mark for the strike-shortened campaign. Each club scores on home runs in the 11th inning. Tim Naehring connecting for Boston and Albert Belle answering for Cleveland. The Indians will win this series for the AL pennant but will lose the World Series to Atlanta.

Birthdays:
Marques Haynes b. 1926
Jean Ratelle b. 1940
Dave Winfield b. 1951
Dennis Eckersley b. 1954
Fred Couples b. 1959

Packers Fact:
In 1959, Boyd Dowler caught 32 passes, including 4 for touchdowns, and earned NFL rookie of the year honors from United Press International.



“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” (On the Road, Part 2) In 1951 Jack Kerouac—the poet of the open road, the original dharma bum, Walt Whitman reincarnated as James Dean—sat down to write On the Road. In its original form, it was a typewritten stream of hyperconsciousness single-spaced on 120 feet of tracing paper. This 50th-anniversary celebration restored the original, as it was before it was altered, watered down to suit the suits, and published by Viking in 1957. Fasten your seat belts.

ON THE ROAD, by Jack Kerouac (1957; Viking, 2007)