Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/15-17/2011

Red Sox owner John I. Taylor, on the length of major league baseball games during the summer of 1907: "This year the games have been dragging a trifle too long in both the American and National Leagues, and it is my intention to get after the players and make them get a move on. There is absolutely no reason why the regular nine-inning game should not be finished inside of one hour and 45 minutes."

Birthdays:
Earl "Red" Blaik b. 1897
John Hadl b. 1940
Ron Cey b. 1948
Darrell Green b. 1960
Jaromir Jagr b. 1972

Packers Fact:
Second-year corner back Tramon Williams intercepted a career-best 5 passes for the Packers in 2008.

2/16/1980:
Having already won yesterday's 500-meter race, Eric Heiden earns the second of five gold medals in speedskating with a first int he 5000 meters in the Olympics at Lake Placid. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, Heiden will go on to win the 1000 meters on the 19th, the 1500 meters on the 21st and the 10,000-meter endurance test on the 23rd. Earning an M.D. from Stanford in 1991, he'll serve as physician for the Sacramento Kings and Monarchs and the U.S. Olympic speedskating team. In 1999, he'll be named one of ESPN's 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century.

Birthdays:
Bernie Geoffrion b. 1931
Herb Williams b. 1958
John McEnroe b. 1959
Kelly Tripucka b. 1959
Jerome Bettis b. 1972

Packers Fact:
The Packers' feat of three consecutive NFL championships from 1929 to 1931 has been matched only once-by the Packers of 1965 to 1967.

2/17/1980:
Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, 52, and former Dodgers coach Jim Lefebvre, 37, mix it up at the KNBC television studios in Burbank, California. Lefebvre coached for the team in 1978 and '79 before getting himself fired by Lasorda. He then signed on as a coach with the Giants for the 1980 season, but now he wants to discuss his termination face-to-face with Lasorda. The meeting soon develops into a screaming match and ends when Lefebvre decks Lasorda with one punch, leaving the Dodgers manager with a fat lip.

Birthdays:
Red Barber b. 1908
Rod Dedeaux b. 1914
Jim Brown b. 1936
Michael Jordan b. 1963
Luc Robitaille b. 1966

Packers Fact:
Former Packers' star Clarke Hinkle surpassed Cliff Battles in 1941 as the NFL's leading career rusher. He ran for 3,860 yards in a 10-year career that began in 1932.

ON SIMILES, FISHY

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Lewis Moody leaps in the air like the salmon that he is.

rugby commentator Matt Dawson

ON CORRECTIONS, SHOCKING

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We said that, in the American TV drama 24, Jack Bauer, the counter-terrorism agent, resorted to electrocution to extract information. you cannot extract information from someone who has been electrocuted because they are dead.

correction in The Guardian

ON FUNNY, WE’D HAVE GUESSED 100%

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Some 80% of the river was under water and two levee breaks were making matters worse.

in an MSN.com news report on Hurricane Katrina (thanks to Marshall Wareham)

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, American philosopher and writer

THE DIFFICULT WE
DO IMMEDIATELY,
THE IMPOSSIBLE TAKES
A LITTLE LONGER.

—American military slogan

What reinforcement we may gain from hope; If not, what resolution from despair.

—JOHN MILTON, 17th-century English poet

SAVOR THE FLAVOR

Let chef Ana Sortun of Oleana (Cambridge, Massachusetts) introduce you to her world of flavors—and an exotic world it is. The Norwegian American, who trained in Paris, is 2005’s winner of the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast. She arranges her recipes according to African-Mediterranean flavor clusters, such as cumin, coriander, and cardamom or curry powder, turmeric, and fenugreek. Guaranteed to awaken your palate and bring new ideas to the table.

SPICE: FLAVORS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, by Ana Sortun (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2006)

NEW PUNK THRILLER

Antiheroine Cass (Scary) Neary was a photographer of the punk generation and very much a part of that late-70s scene—drugs, noise, and all. Years later she is sent to Maine to interview an aging and once renowned photographer from that era, Aphrodite Kamestos. Besides her difficult subject, Cass finds hostile locals, the remnants of a commune, and a mystery of missing teens. This book is definitely on the edge, with a main character who is unlikable yet compelling.

“A dark and beautiful novel that should not be read by anyone under the age of 30.”—The Washington Post

GENERATION LOSS, by Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press, 2007)

THE ROAD TO FREEDOM

John Washington was a slave in Virginia, Wallace Turnage in Alabama. Washington escaped and emancipated himself by making his way through Union lines to freedom. Turnage ran from his master, enduring hunger, dogs, and snakes to get to the coast and finally out to the ships of the Union blockade. Once they were free, both men wrote down their incredible stories, which were passed down through the generations of their families. Yale historian David Blight has brought their writings together with other research about their lives before and after their emancipation, and the resulting book is an amazing read.

A SLAVE NO MORE: TWO MEN WHO ESCAPED TO FREEDOM, INCLUDING THEIR OWN NARRATIVES OF EMANCIPATION, by David W. Blight (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007)