Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 4/13-14/2011

4/13/1957:
Paced by rookies Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell, the Boston Celtics win their first NBA title by outlasting the St. Louis Hawks in double overtime of Game 7. The score is tied at 103 at the end of regulation and 113 at the close of the first overtime period. With one second left in the second OT, Jim Loscutoff hits a free throw to put the Celtics up 125-123. Hawks player-coach Alex Hannum takes the ball out of bounds and heaves it the length of the court, but it clanks off the backboard. Bob Pettit grabs the carom and takes a shot. The ball bounces off the rim, and Boston prevails.

Birthdays:
Flash Hollett b. 1912
Bob Devaney b. 1915
Davis Love III b. 1964
Bo Outlaw b. 1971
Baron Davis b. 1979

Packers Fact:
Phil Bengtson was a defense assistant coach for each of Vince Lombardi's nine seasons (1959-1967) before taking over for the legendary head man in 1968.

4/14/1912:
Among the passengers on the Titanic when it strikes an iceberg tonight is Swiss tennis champion Richard Williams, who at age 21 had booked passage on the steamship with plans to attend college and play tennis in the United States. He'll survive the disaster and will become the NCAA men's singles champion next year and again in 1915. In 1914 and 1916 he'll capture the U.S. Nationals men's singles title.

Birthdays:
Marvin Miller b. 1917
Bart Giamatti b. 1938
Pete Rose b. 1941
Cynthia Cooper b. 1963
Greg Maddux b. 1966

Packers Fact:
Cornerback Willie Buchanon earned NFC Rookie of the Year notice in 1972 (from the Newspaper Enterprise Association).

ON EMERGENCY INSTRUCTIONS,
NOT ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL

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NOT: a door closed and anchors requirement, made to be humid by the means of destiny (humid, towel, sheets) protégé longer at ground level smoke to less dense and the more tolerable temperature.

on a “what to do in an emergency” sign in the Hotel de l’Aerogare, Dakar, Senegal

ON SO MUCH?

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She won by miles: seven one-hundred-thousandths of a second.

Olympic commentator

PUT YOUR TRUST
IN GOD, MY BOYS,
AND KEEP YOUR
POWDER DRY.

—VALENTINE BLACKER, 19th-century British solider

“Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.”

—RICHARD HOOKER, English theologian

IMPORTANT AMERICAN POET

Frank Bidart is known for his long poems—many of which are deeply felt psychological narratives of people who struggle to overcome often horribly difficult lives. In this collection he turns to a shorter, lyrical form of verse and seems to choose the calm and contemplative over the dramatic. Poems range from a meditation on Marilyn Monroe (“what you come from is craziness, what your / mother and her mother come from is / craziness”) to one on the ballerina Ulanova (really about art, of course) to “Tu Fu Watches the Spring Festival Across Serpentine Lake.” There’s enigmatically more, too.

WATCHING THE SPRING FESTIVAL: POEMS, by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008)

SHALL WE DANCE?

On your toes, readers! This is one of Russia’s most discerning critics writing about one of ballet’s greatest epochs—it produced Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, and Mikhail Fokine for starters. Akim Volynsky expatiates on Pavlova’s lower lip and her soul. He marks an 18-year-old Balanchine as a “young, lively and superbly disciplined talent.” He refers to Olga Spessivtseva, a dancer he adored, as “the weeping spirit.” For balletomanes, Ballet’s Magic Kingdom is indispensable. And for ordinary people, it is insightful and eye-opening.

BALLET’S MAGIC KINGDOM: SELECTED WRITINGS ON DANCE IN RUSSIA, 1911-1925, by Akim Volynsky; edited and translated from the Russian by Stanley J. Rabinowitz (Yale University Press, 2008)