Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 12/29/2010

12/29/1979:
There heretofore laughable Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-17, in an NFC divisional playoff game at Tampa Stadium. In just their fourth season as an expansion team, the Bucs greatly solidified their defense, led by Lee Roy Selmon, and went from losing 26 straight games their first two seasons to 10 wins and a division title this year. Before over 71,000 partisan onlookers today, Ricky Bell leads the Bucs with 142 yards rushing on a playoff record 38 carries. He scores two touchdowns in the first half as Tampa rolls to a 17-0 lead, after which their staunch defense closes the door on QB Ron Jaworski and the Eagles.

Birthdays:
Ray Nitschke b. 1936
Mike Lucci b. 1939
Laffit Pincay Jr. b. 1946
Richie Sexson b. 1974
Laveranues Coles b. 1977

Packers Fact:
The last Packers' defensive back to post more stops than safety Atari Bigby, who had 121 tackles in 2007, was safety Mark Murphy (not the same Mark Murphy who became the Packers' CEO), who had 128 tackles in 1990.

Book Sculptures
http://www.sublackwell.co.uk/portfolio-book-cut-sculpture/
The illustrated books at this site really come to life after artist Su Blackwell uses the book itself to carve illustrations that pop out of the pages. At this site you can see a three-dimensional table set for the Man Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy and her friends making their way through a scary forest in The Wizard of Oz, a paper-chain of dancers from "The Twelve DAncing Princesses," and the text of Peter Pan transformed into a pirate ship.

A TASMANIAN DEVIL OF A TIME

Take a wild romp to volcanic islands inhabitated by wombats and through the cobwebbed hallways of museums. The coauthors of Wild New York team with trippy nature artist Alexis Rockman to search for the incredibly elusive and probably extinct thylacine, the doglike marsupial (in fact, both sexes have a pouch!), also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf. This unusual book was named one of the New York Public Library’s 25 Books to Remember from 2005.

CARNIVOROUS NIGHTS: ON THE TRAIL OF THE TASMANIAN TIGER, by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson; illustrated by Alexis Rockman (Villard, 2006)