Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 1/5-1/6/2011

1/5/2003:
Trailing 38-14 late in the third quarter, the 49ers score 25 unanswered points to beat the New York Giants, 39-38, in a playoff game in San Francisco. They take the lead with exactly one minute left in the fourth quarter on a 13-yard touchdown from Jeff Garcia to Tai Streets. The Giants then drive to the 23-yard line and line up for a 40-yard field goal attempt on third down with six seconds remaining. Trey Junkin, picked up earlier in the week to replace injured Dan O'Leary, botches the snap and the 49ers' one-point lead cinches the game.

Birthdays:
Chuck Noll b. 1932
Jim Otto b. 1938
Charlie Hough b. 1948
Alex English b. 1954
Warrick Dunn b. 1975

Packers Fact:
End Don Hutson needed only 11 games to catch 17 touchdown passes for the Packers in 1942. His total was a club single-season record that stood 52 years.

1/6/1994:
The day before she's scheduled to perform her short program, Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right knee by Shane Stant at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. The assault was planned by rival skater Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, and bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt. Harding will win the women's championship in Kerrigan's absence, but next March she'll plead guilty to hindering the investigation of the attack and receive three years' probation, 500 hours of community service and a $160,000 fine. She'll be stripped of her 1994 title and banned from participating in events sponsored by the U.S. Figure Skating Association.

Birthdays:
Early Wynn b. 1920
Cary Middlecoff b. 1921
Lou Houltz b. 1937
Nancy Lopez b. 1957
Howie Long b. 1960

Packers Fact:
Former Packers' star Verne Lewellen was the club's business manager for much of its heyday in the 1960s. He was a halfback and punter from 1924 to 1932.

ON DEFENDANTS, DUMB

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Lawyer: You can’t lift your arm any longer due to the injury, correct?

Defendant (suing his company for a job-related injury):Yes.

Lawyer: How high can you raise your arm right now?

(Defendant, wincing, raises his arm to shoulder level.)

Lawyer: And how high could you raise your arm before the accident?

Defendant (raising his arm above his head): This high!

Judge: Case dismissed.

from actual courtroom testimony

ON DIPS, GEOGRAPHICAL

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Game show host Melanie Sykes: What is a mixture of avocado, chili, and lime juice commonly known as?

Contestant: Guatemala.

The Vault, ITV (UK)

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”

—FRIDA KAHLO (SALMA HAYEK) in Frida;
screenplay by Clancy Sigal

IN BAD LUCK,
HOLD OUT;
IN GOOD LUCK,
HOLD IN.

—German proverb

PERENNIAL CLASSIC

Everyone knew that John Cheever was a master of the short story, but in 1957 he showed what he could do as a novelist and even garnered the National Book Award. The Wapshot Chronicle is the nostalgic tale of a New England family and its tribulations, told with an unerringly light, and sometimes poignant, touch. Cheever followed up with The Wapshot Scandal, which pursues the family’s younger generation as they move into suburban ennui and frustration. It is a somewhat darker vision, but it’s leavened by the eccentric and tenacious older Cousin Honora and her battle with the IRS. These are unique and memorable achievements in America’s midcentury literature.

THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE, by John Cheever (1957; Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2003)

THE WAPSHOT SCANDAL, (1964; 2003)

THAT SWEET SMELL

Malcolm Gladwell makes sense of yet another aspect of our world in this pleasantly readable account of success and the qualities that lead to it. The question he poses is, Why do the Bill Gateses and Mozarts of the world succeed so brilliantly, while others of the same intelligence and talent end up leading lives of quiet desperation? Using his method of combining the latest academic studies with the most relevant and irresistible stories, Gladwell makes his case that the “outliers” beneft from advantages and opportunities that pass others up. A stimulating read, to say the least.

OUTLIERS: THE STORY OF SUCCESS, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, 2008)