Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/10-12/2010

2/10/1998:
Team USA posts a landmark soccer victory, blanking the four-time (and reigning) World Cup champions from Brazil, 1-0, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Preki Radosavljevic scores the only goal of the game early in the second half, and goalie Kasey Keller makes it stand up with 10 saves. Up till now, the Americans were 0-8 lifetime against Brazil, being outscored 19-0 since last scoring against them in 1930. this win advances Team USA to the finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament, where they'll lose a close game with Mexico, 1-0.

Birthdays:
Mark Spitz b. 1950
Greg Norman b. 1955
John Calipari b. 1959
Lenny Dykstra b. 1963
Lance Berkman b. 1976

Packers Fact:
Opposing quarterbacks completed only 55.2 percent of their passes against Green Bay in 2007. The lone NFL team with a better mark that year was the Pittsburgh Steelers. Steelers' opponents completed 54.5 percent of their passes.

2/11/1962:
Chuck McKinley outlasts Whitney Reed in five sets to win the U.S. National Indoor tennis championship at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York. The scores are 4-6, 6-3, 4-6, 9-7, 10-8 in just under three hours. McKinley, from St. Louis, is a dynamo all afternoon, constantly charging the net to produce volley or overhead winners and daring Reed to pass him or lob over him, which the Californian manages to do with remarkable consistency. Reed has chances to close out the match in each of the last two sets on McKinley's serve, but the redoubtable Missourian survives long enough to use three deft topspin lobs to break Reed's serve at eight-all in the fifth set, deciding the issue.

Birthdays:
Eddie Shack b. 1937
Sammy Ellis b. 1941
Ben Oglivie b. 1943
James Silas b. 1949
Brian Daubach b. 1972

Packers Fact:
Brett Favre completed 22 of 29 passes in the Packers' 25-15 victory over the 49ers in a 2001 NFC Wild-Card playoff game. His completion mark of 75.9 percent was the best in club postseason history.

2/12/2005:
The UNLV Runnin' Rebels erase a 10-point deficit on the road in the final 28.5 seconds of regulation time and go on to defeat San Diego State, 93-91, in overtime. UNLV's Odartey Blankson scores a two-point goal and then a three-point goal off a turnover to quickly cut the margin to five. Then, helped by three out of four missed free throws by the Aztecs, Jerel Blassingame and Curtis Terry (at the buzzer) each hit treys for the Rebels to force overtime. Fueled by the momentum of their improbable comeback and an 11-4 edge in made three-pointers during the game, UNLV pulls out the victory in OT, stunning the SDSU home crowd at Cox Arena.

Birthdays:
Chick Hafey b. 1903
Dom DiMaggio b. 1917
Joe Garagiola b. 1926
Don Stanhouse b. 1951
Chet Lemon b. 1955

Packers Fact:
On February 12, 1992, the Packers acquired quarterback Brett Favre from the Atlanta Falcons in exchange for a first-round pick in that spring's draft. The Falcons traded that pick to Dallas (which chose cornerback Kevin Smith).


http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/

Monster Snacks
Why eat a plain old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup when you can add massive quantities of butter, sugar, chocolate chips, and graham cracker crumbs to create the mother of all cups. At this site you can get the recipes for hundreds of giant, pimped-out snacks like billionaire's shortbread, a baking-sheet-sized toaster pastry, and the Elvis pink Kit-Katillac. With instructions to craft the shovel-sized "manly cutler," you'll need to wolf down your cooking project.

http://www.extremeironing.com/

Extreme Ironists
A passion for sports does not rule out staying neat and pressed. These athletes combine the two in extreme ironing, a new thrill sport that involves pressing clothing in difficult-to-reach or otherwise unusual locales. Competitors have ironed all over the place: the ocean floor off the coast of Melbourne, the bottom of Death Valley, while ice climbing in Canada, riding along Streatham Raceway, even in the middle of Trafalgar Square in London.

http://www.davidbessler.com/pulldown/pipecleaner_dance3.swf

Live Wire
Choose your music, hit the keys, and make the Pipe Cleaner man dance!



THE BOOK LOVERS’ BOOK LOVERWashington Post critic and Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist Michael Dirda loves to read, and he wants everyone else to love to read, too. To further his cause, he has selected about 90 books to bring to our attention—from the well known (Sherlock Holmes) to the unjustly neglected (Jaroslav Hašek). No one writes with such infectious enthusiasm as Dirda. After the three-page piece on Gibbon, you might be itching to get to the bookstore and pick up the entire Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE, by Michael Dirda (Harcourt, 2007)

CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

Susan Richards, a veterinarian in upstate New York, took on the sick, abused horse Lay Me Down. The project brought the author (also a victim of abuse) to open up, in all sorts of ways. This is the story of a love between a woman, a mare, and a man, with wonderful studies of the relationships between the newcomer and the three Morgan horses on Richards’s farm.

CHOSEN BY A HORSE, by Susan Richards (Harvest Books, 2007)

LOVE ISN’T ALWAYS PRETTY

Pulitzer Prize–winner Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides; Middlesex) has brought together 27 poignant stories about love—not the happily-ever-after kind but the kind that makes literature go ’round: the bittersweet, the ambiguous, the almost-had-it, the never-got-it, the suspended good-bye that lingers unspoken for decades. (The title is taken from Catullus, famous for his poem that begins “Odi et amo”—I hate and I love.)

MY MISTRESS’S SPARROW IS DEAD: GREAT LOVE STORIES, FROM CHEKHOV TO MUNRO; edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (Harper, 2009)

ROCKY MOUNTAIN IPA

Fort Collins Brewery, Fort Collins, Colorado

This India pale ale is American in every sense of the word. Earthy, pungent hops explode from the glass. Reddish-amber in color, the beer is filtered to a brilliant clarity. Sharp, lingering bitterness endures from flavor to finish, with little malt character escaping. This is a bold, slap-you-in-the-face, wake-you-up-in-the-morning kind of ale—tasted fresh, it’s a hop lover’s treat.

SUDS SOURCE

Located at 1900 East Lincoln Avenue, the Fort Collins Brewery tasting room is open Monday through Saturday from noon until 5:45, with beer to go available until 6.

CANE AND EBEL

Two Brothers Brewing Co., Warrenville, Illinois

The label describes this Thai-palm-sugar infused brew as a “hopped-up red rye ale.” Brewers Jim and Jason Ebel lend their last name to the beer—but the cane here is actually the sugar, 35 pounds of it per batch. The sweet stuff boosts the alcohol, dries the finish, and adds some fascinating nuance—date, burgundy wine, and roasted hazelnuts. It pours a deeply red, chestnut brown, just a shade lighter than a classic doppelbock. But doppelbock it’s not. The hops are big, high-alpha varieties: Summit in the boil and dry-hopped Simcoe adding a spicy, astringent citrusy flavor to the mix (along with a hugely catty hop aroma). Rye malt makes its presence known in both flavor and texture, marrying beautifully with the hops. You’ll need to drink this 7%/vol. beer around 50°F to get the full effect, and sip it slowly to process everything that’s going on.

OKTOBERFEST LAGER BEER

Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

From one of the great brewing capitols comes this seasonal autumn beer. Not surprising, since Milwaukee has always had a sizable German population. Orangey-amber, with modest carbonation, this version brings a bit more floral hop. The fruit and malt expertly balance the hoppy bitterness—critical in this style. Finishes only slightly sweet. Polished and easy to drink, it would be right at home with knee-high socks and Lederhosen.

BEER QUOTE

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS