Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/31/2011

3/31/1995:
U.S. district judge and future Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor issues a preliminary injunction against baseball's owners, ordering them to restore salary arbitration, free agency and anticollusion provisions of the Basic Agreement. The National Labor Relations Board asked for the injunction, acting on complaints of unfair labor practices lodged by the Players' Association. As a result of the injunction, the players will end their strike, begun on August 12, 1994. On April 5, players and owners will agree to a 144-game schedule beginning on April 26.

Birthdays:
Jack Johnson b. 1878
Gordie Howe b. 1928
Ed Marinaro b. 1950
Tom Barrasso b. 1965
Pavel Bure b. 1971

Packers Fact:
Jim Ringo was the all-pro center on the Packers' 1961 and 1962 NFL champs.

ON DISTANCES, QUANTUM

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We’re a long way from being where we are.

soccer player Steven Gerrard

“In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.”

—FRANCIS BACON, 16th-century English philosopher and essayist

RAVE REVIEWS

Distrust within the marriage of a Bengali and a non-Bengali, the misunderstandings between immigrant parents and their American-born children, the contrasting trajectories of various Bengali-American families—these are among the delicately handled themes in this set of eight stories. Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her first book of stories, explores further, with her marvelous gift for the telling detail, the strains of love and family that run through the immigrant experience.

“Lucid and revelatory . . . both universal and deeply felt.”—Washington Post Book World

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH: STORIES, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf, 2008)