Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 7/22/2010

7/22/1911:
In a 1-0 victory for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Washington Park, left-hander Nap (short for Napoleon) Rucker has his bid for a second career no-hitter broken up with two outs in the ninth inning on a clean single to right field by Bob Bescher of the Cincinnati Reds. (He had a no-hitter against the Boston Braves in 1908.) The shutout is just one of 38 he'll amass in his 10 big-league seasons, all with Brooklyn. His 38 shutouts out of only 134 lifetime wins (28%) is the second-highest such ratio in baseball history, trailing only Hall of Famer Ed Walsh, who had 195 wins and 57 shutouts (29%).

Birthdays:
Ron Turcotte b. 1941
Sparky Lyle b. 1944
Lasse Viren b. 1949
Tim Brown b. 1966
Keyshawn Johnson b. 1972

Packers Fact:
The youngest player on the Packers' kickoff weekend roster in 2008 was rookie tight end Jermichael Finley. He was 21.

http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/
Border Art
Using bent wire and grocery items, artist and photographer Terry Border creates food creatures in comic tableaux. See an Ore-man posting a missing Oreo poster on a milk carton, the tragic end of Fidel the Fire-eating Circus Peanut, two cornflake men coming upon their mate drowned in milk, and orange snack foods bonding together as the Three Musketeers. With a video interview in which Border demonstrates how he creates his semi-edible wonders.

VOODOO ECONOMICS

Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless—they are systematic,” says Dan Ariely in this eye-opening look at people’s decision making. Ariely’s field is behavioral economics, and he has been using it to study human beings for some 20 years. Did you know that the painkilling effectiveness of aspirin is affected by its price? Or that voters are likely to vote for those at the top of the ballot? His question then is: Can markets know best or work well if the people in them aren’t rational? Entertaining and eye-opening.

PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: THE HIDDEN FORCES THAT SHAPE OUR DECISIONS, by Dan Ariely (Harper, 2008)

JUMPING COW AMBER ALE

Firestone Walker Brewing Co., Paso Robles, California

Once again, Firestone Walker delivers with a big English-style malt aroma—but this time there’s some hop to it. With a nice reddish-amber color and some off-white foam, this ale is comfortably session strength at 5.5%/vol. In the flavor, a candy-like malt sweetness carries through to lengthen the finish. Hop bitterness makes a valiant effort at balance, but it is vanquished in what is ultimately a good, clean amber ale, though a bit on the sweet side. Marketed by Steinhaus Brewing Co. for Trader Joe’s.

BEER QUOTE

“In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer.”
—A.J.P. TAYLOR, BRITISH HISTORIAN