Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 4/19-21/2011

4/19/1956:
Drawing 12, 214 fans on a Thursday afternoon, the Brooklyn dodgers play their first game at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey city, New Jersey, and beat the Phillies, 5-4, in 10 innings. Walter O'Malley had been trying to convince New York City officials to give him land at the corner of Brooklyn's Atlantic and Flatbush avenues on which to build a new stadium, so he moved seven home games from Ebbets Field to Jersey City to highlight the need for adequate seating. Roosevelt Stadium, used previously by a minor league team in the New York Giants system from 1937 through 1950 as well as for stock car racing, has a capacity of about 25,000 and parking for 10,000 cars (versus 800 at Ebbets Field). The Dodgers will play eight more games in Jersey City in 1957 before moving to Los Angeles at the end of the season.

Birthdays:
Jack Pardee b. 1936
Alexis Arguello b. 1952
Frank Viola b. 1960
Joe Mauer b. 1983
Maria Sharapova b. 1987

Packers Fact:
From his final season in 1941 until early in 1949, former Packers star Clarke Hinkle stood as the NFL's all-time leading rusher. Future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Philadelphia's Steve Van Buren took the record from him.

4/20/2008:
American driver Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to win an IndyCar race with her victory in the Bridgestone Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi. Patrick takes first place in her Honda Dallara after the leaders are forced to pit for fuel in the final laps on the 1.5-mile oval, finishing 5.9 seconds ahead of pole sitter Helio Castroneves. Before Patrick, the only woman to win a major auto racing event was Shriley Muldowney, who won NHRA Top Fuel Championships in 1977, 1980, and 1982.

Birthdays:
Ernie Stautner b. 1925
Harry Agganis b. 1930
Steve Spurrier b. 1945
Don Mattingly b. 1961
Tai Streets b. 1977

Packers Fact:
Backup wide receiver Brett Swain made a big play on special teams during the Packers' victory over Chicago on Kickoff Weekend in 2009 by tackling the Bears' Garrett Wolfe short of a first down on a fake punt.

4/21/1944:
Because of player shortages during World War II, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cardinals merge into one team under the name Card-Pitt. Walt Kiesling of the Steelers and Phil Handler of the Cardinals are co-coaches. The Card-Pitt name is pronounced "Carpet," and appropriate moniker for a team that will have an 0-10-0 record and be outscored 328-108. They'll play their last game on December 13 at Philadelphia's Shibe Park against the Chicago Bears and lose, 49-7. The Steelers and Cardinals will becomes separate franchises again in 1945, but both will finish last in their respective divisions.

Birthdays:
Joe McCarthy b. 1887
Gary Peters b. 1937
Al Bumbry b. 1947
Jesse Orosco b. 1957
Ed Belfour b. 1965

Packers Fact:
The Ravens drafted safety Derrick Martin in the sixth round in 2006 out of Wyoming. Martin joined the Packers via trade in 2009.

ON COMPUTER MOUSE USERS, OVERLY AESTHETIC

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Customer: My mouse doesn’t work any more.

Tech support: Is it an optical or ball mouse?

Customer: Huh?

Tech support: Does it have a ball or light?

Customer: It has a light on top.

Tech support: On top?

Customer: Yeah. It was underneath before, but it looks better when it’s on top.

Tech support: Ok, try turning it around so the light points down on the desk.

Customer: Oh! It works!

actual computer-tech support call

ON TAKING OUTSOURCING TOO FAR

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We seek a journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA.

help-wanted ad on PasadenaNow.com

ON ISN’T THIS A LITTLE MISOGYNISTIC?

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THE SOLUTION TO
HUNTING’S WOES?
SETTING SIGHTS ON WOMEN

headline in the Wall Street Journal

IF IT WEREN’T FOR
THE WIND IN MY
FACE, I WOULDN’T
BE ABLE TO FLY.

—ANONYMOUS

“The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.”

—THOMAS CARLYLE, 19th-century Scottish writer

Calmness is great advantage. He that lets
Another chafe, may warm him at his first.

—GEORGE HERBERT, 17th-century English poet

LOVE AND DEATH IN AKRON

The story told in this Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House gone Midwestern is more than the sum of its parts. A veteran with the Akron Beacon Journal, Giffels does not spare himself—and he is a fixer-upper himself, with some attitudes and behaviors very much in need of shoring up, repair, or replacement. You’ll enjoy the predictable schadenfreude of hearing wonderful details of crumbling ceilings, corroded pipes, and nests of vermin, but Giffels’s love for Akron, Ohio, and his excursions into its history and that of the house lift this above the usual money-pit story.

ALL THE WAY HOME: BUILDING A FAMILY IN A FALLING-DOWN HOUSE, by David Giffels (Harper Paperbacks, 2009)

A GEOFF DYER SAMPLER

OUT OF SHEER RAGE: WRESTLING WITH D. H. LAWRENCE (North Point, 1999) A hilarious and thoughtful roller-coaster ride of procrastination, double-talk, dilly-dallying, neurosis, and writer’s block. And Lawrence.

THE COLOR OF MEMORY (Little, Brown, 1997) A coming-of-age novel full of ideas, dialogues, scenes of gritty urban England, and some wonderful prose with hints of Hemingway and Lawrence.

BUT BEAUTIFUL: A BOOK ABOUT JAZZ (North Point, 1997) Highly recommended by none other than Keith Jarrett. Singularly beautiful, brainy, bittersweet riffs on jazz. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award.

RUM AND CASTRO AND DESTINY

After Fidel Castro nationalized the Bacardi distillery in 1960, the Bacardi family fled to the United States, where they joined with other exiles to overthrow the new Communist government of Havana. This is the story of their as yet unsuccessful struggle. It is also the story of the greatly successful rise of the Bacardi fortune and name that began with a bricklayer, Facundo Bacardi Massó, in Santiago de Cuba in the 1860s. A well-researched and captivating account.

BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CAUSE, by Tom Gjelten (Viking, 2008)