Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 1/7/2011

1/7/1951:
After playing in the longest NBA game to date, a six-overtime 75-73 win over the Royals in Rochester on January 6, the Indianapolis Olympians board a train and travel all the way to Moline, Illinois, to take on the Tri-Cities Blackhawks on the 7th. All five Indianapolis starters play all 48 minutes of this game, losing to the Blackhawks by the close score of 83-79. The five Indanapolis starters are Ralph Beard, Alex Groza, Paul Walther, Leo Barnhorst and Bob Lavoy. At the end of the 1950-51 season, Beard and Groza will be barred from the NBA for life after admitting to point-shaving in collusion with gamblers while playing for the University of Kentucky.

Birthdays:
Johnny Mize b. 1913
Alvin Dark b. 1922
Tony Conigliaro b. 1945
Eric Gagne b. 1976
Alfonso Soriano b. 1976

Packers Fact:
The winning points in Green Bay 21-15 victory over Chicago at Lambeau Field on Kickoff Weekend in 2009 came on Aaron Rodgers' 50-yard touchdown pass to Greg Jennings with 1:11 remaining.

ON BROADCASTING, BLOWING IT

---

Don’t worry about the game you just won or the team that we just blew out . . . or, um . . . blown . . . blowed out . . . Let’s think about what we need to do going forward, and they had, uh . . . blown out.

football commentator Emmitt Smith

ARE WE
DOWNHEARTED?
NO!

—British World War I military expression

RAVE REVIEWS

Will Heller is a 16-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who has gone off his medication and descended into the underground world of the New York subway system. He comes to believe that he must save the planet from self-destruction brought on by global warming. His mother, Violet, is searching for him with the help of Detective Ali Lateef. Yes, this is a detective story, but so much else besides.

“Lowboy is exceptionally tender and acute. . . . John Wray is a daring young writer.” —The New Yorker

LOWBOY, by John Wray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009)