Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/1-2/2011

2/1/1976:
Pitcher Mike Marshall of the Los Angeles Dodgers is arrested in East Lansing, Michigan, for trespassing and criminal damage. He tried to hacksaw his way into a batting cage that had been placed off-limits by order of the campus police at Michigan State University, where he's working on his doctorate in kinesiology. The school was afraid he'd hit the ball too far and injure students on an adjacent tennis court.

Birthdays:
Paul Blair b. 1944
Dick Snyder b. 1o944
T.R. Dunn b. 1955
Malik Sealy b. 1970
Tommy Salo b. 1971

Packers Fact:
The two players on the Packers' kickoff weekend roster in 2009 with the most NFL experience (years played) were cornerback Al Harris and Charles Woodson, each of whom was in his 12th season in the league.

2/2/1876:
Baseball's National League is formed at a meeting at the Grand Central Hotel in New York City. The league consists of teams from Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis. The only two of the eight original clubs to operate continually since 1876 are the Braves and Cubs. The Cubs are the only club to remain in one city. The Braves will move from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953 and on to Atlanta in 1966.

Birthdays:
George Halas b. 1895
Wes Ferrell b. 1908
Red Schoendienst b. 1923
Sean Elliott b. 1968
Donald Driver b. 1975

Packers Fact:
The Packers' 26-0 victory over Detroit in week 6 of 2009 was Green Bay's first shutout since whitewashing the Vikings 34-0 in 2007.

ON SO NOT TO WORRY IF YOU’RE FROM OREGON

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Warning label on a Roll-A-Hose garden hose:

MAY CAUSE CANCER
IN CALIFORNIA

ON EXCUSES, REALLY STRETCHING IT

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It is completely normal in big factories to have mice wandering around, and yes, every now and then they get caught amongst the machines and do get bottled, seasoned, preserved, and even make it in one piece to consumers. Although not very pleasant to see, however, they pose no health threat at all. During the preservation process even traces of any salmonella bacteria are eliminated in food. A mice-foot therefore could be classified as a special additive to the pickles.

Health Ministry spokeswoman Vivijan Potocnik, after a woman found a mouse’s foot in a jar of Slovenian pickles

ADVERSITY IS EASIER
BORNE THAN
PROSPERITY FORGOT.

—English proverb

“After all, tomorrow is another day.”

— SCARLETT O’HARA (VIVIEN LEIGH) in Gone with the Wind; screenplay by Sidney Howard

BEWARE OF VICIOUS PLANT

When you think of lily of the valley, do you envision a “white bud! that in meek beauty dost lean”? (George Croly, 1780–1860). Don’t be naïve! Look up the sweet little lily of the valley in this A-to-Z compendium of poisonous, dangerous, and downright murderous plants, and you’ll learn that this lovely, common flower (and roots and leaves) can have fatal neurological and cardiac effects. And you wouldn’t want to die of milk sickness from cows that eat snakeroot, like poor Nancy Hanks Lincoln, would you? You’ll want to eat up this beautifully illustrated and bound volume, a marvelous gift or fun reference.

WICKED PLANTS: THE WEED THAT KILLED LINCOLN’S MOTHER AND OTHER BOTANICAL ATROCITIES, by Amy Stewart, illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs (Algonquin, 2009)

GIFT IDEA

This volume is the first of four that will contain the entirety of Jules Feiffer’s Village Voice cartoon strip. Feiffer’s drawings are spare and simple illustrations of characters who are, psychologically and emotionally, anything but spare and simple. They wrestle with the phobias and passions and angst of their time—from the bomb to psychoanalysis to race and war. The battle, or rather the misunderstanding, of the sexes are incisively laid out and inescapably funny. The strips are certainly of their time, but their humor is timeless.

EXPLAINERS: THE COMPLETE VILLAGE VOICE STRIPS (1956-1966), by Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics Books, 2008)