Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/22-23/2011

2/22/1981:
On George Washington's birthday, two NHL players from Czechoslovakia lead a Canadian team to an 11-7 win over a team based in Washington, D.C. The two players are the Stastny brothers, Peter and Anton, who accumulate eight points each for the Quebec Nordiques against the Washington Capitals. Peter has four goals and four assists; Anton, three goals and five assists.

Birthdays:
Charlie Finley b. 1918
Sparky Anderson b. 1934
Julius Erving b. 1950
Amy Alcott b. 1956
Pat LaFontaine b. 1965

Packers Fact:
Rushing-receiving threat Dorsey Levens totaled 1,805 yards from scrimmage in his lone Pro Bowl season in 1997.


2/23/1980:
With a victory in the Miller High Life 400 in Richmond, Virginia, Kyle Petty becomes the first third-generation winner of a NASCAR race. Kyle follows grandfather Lee and father Richard. His win today is a direct result of Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip crashing while racing for the lead with two laps to go. Going into Turn 3, Earnhardt hooked the corner of Waltrip's car and turned him into the wall. Geoff Bodine and Joe Ruttman, running third and fourth, proceeded to pile into Earnhardt and Waltrip. Petty, who was in fifth at the time of the caution, was the first lead car to move safely through the mishap.

Birthdays:
Dante Lavelli b. 1923
Tom Osborne b. 1937
Fred Bileinikoff b. 1943
Ed "Too Tall" Jones b. 1951
Bobby Bonilla b. 1963

Packers Fact:
Seventh-round draft pick Matt Flynn completed 2 of 5 passes for 6 yards while backing up Aaron Rodgers in 2008. Flynn was one of only six rookie quarterbacks to throw a pass that season.

ON WE’RE MORE CHEEFUL OF BANANA OURSELVES

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CHERRY DREAM
We little cheery dream. Do you like?
I am cheeful of cherry.

printed on writing paper, Japan

ON HOLY COW, 15 WHOLE MILES PER HOUR?

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As you well know, Mr. President, railroad carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour. The almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.

then governor and future president Martin Van Buren, 1829

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.”

—MARTHA WASHINGTON, first U.S. first lady

“I accept the universe!”

—MARGARET FULLER, 19th-century American writer and activist

MONEY MATTERSEconomist, journalist, and author of Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism, Loretta Napoleoni is well qualified to reveal to us how much of the money that passes through our hands comes from a rogue economy, comprised of the activities of mobsters, counterfeiters, terrorists, pirates, illegal sex traders, slavers, and the rest. This dark economy interacts with the legitimate one and affects all of us. An illuminating and disturbing read.

ROGUE ECONOMICS: CAPITALISM’S NEW REALITY, by Loretta Napoleoni (Seven Stories Press, 2008)

LIVING HISTORY

The Black Book, originally published in 1972, is a stunning compendium of archival documents, photographs, and testaments of the black experience in America, beginning in colonial times. With a new foreword by Toni Morrison (who worked on the original), this gorgeous and important book has been called “the ultimate treasure chest of the Black Experience” (Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.) and “an important document of American history” (Gay Talese).

THE BLACK BOOK: 35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, by Middleton A. Harris, et al. (Random House, 2009)