Sports Fact & Book Rec of the day 4/27-28/2011

4/27/1949:
Pete Milne of the New York Giants hits his only major league home run - an inside-the-park grand slam at the Polo Grounds. Milne is called to the plate to pinch-hit for pitcher Andy Hansen with the bases loaded in the seventh inning and the Giants trailing the Brooklyn Dodgers, 8-7. Facing Pat McGlothlin, he lashes a drive to left center. Brooklyn center fielder Duke Snider dives for the ball, but it gets past him and rolls to the wall. Milne circles the bases for a home run and the Giants win, 11-8.

Birthdays:
Rogers Hornsby b. 1896
Enos Slaughter b. 1916
Earl Anthony b. 1938
Lee Roy Jordan b. 1941
George Gervin b. 1952

Packers Fact:
Paul Coffman caught more passes - 322 from 1978 to 1985 - than any other tight end in Packers' history.

4/28/1923:
The first soccer match at London's historic Wembley Stadium takes place with an FA Cup final between Bolton and West Ham United. The stadium is filled to its 125,000 capacity, but many thousands more force their way in and flood the field. Led by Constable George Scorey and Billy, his legendary white horse, police clear the pitch and the match can finally begin. The first goal is scored by Bolton's David Jack as a West Ham defender tries to climb back out of the crowd next to the touchline. Bolton's second goal, which seals a 2-0 victory, bounces off spectators standing on the goal netting.

Birthdays:
Tom Browning b. 1960
Mark Bavaro b. 1963
Barry Larkin b. 1964
John Daly b. 1966
Nicklas Lidstrom b. 1970

Packers Fact:
Quarterback Bart Starr was selected by the Packersw in the 17th round of the 1956 draft. He went on to play 16 seasons.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Anglo-Irish playwright

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”

—MARIE CURIE, French scientist

ON ANSWERS, OBVIOUS

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Family Feud host Ray Combs: A job that helicopters are used for.

Contestant: Uh . . . tuna fishing.

ON TOO TRUE, TOO TRUE

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There’s always going to be a few bad eggs in a barrel.

rocker Roger Daltrey

THE NEW CLASSICS

Valentino Achak Deng was a boy in southern Sudan. When civil war came to his village he ran for his life in the dead of night. He joined with other “Lost Boys,” marching from one refugee camp to another, contending with starvation and with threatening animals. Eventually he reached America, where, finally in a home of his own, he was robbed and beaten. These things really happened. He related them to Dave Eggers, who then wrote this brilliant novelization of Valentino’s grueling journey.

“Eggers’s limpid prose gives Valentino an unaffected, compelling voice . . . harrowing, funny, bleak and lyrical.”—Publishers Weekly

WHAT IS THE WHAT: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF VALENTINO ACHAK DENG, by Dave Eggers (Vintage Books, 2007)

TRUTH IN FICTIONIn this superb fact-based novel, Paulette Jiles meticulously reimagines the life and times of Texas legend Britt Johnson, a freed slave from Kentucky whose wife and children were abducted by Kiowas soon after the family relocated to Texas with their former master. Johnson eventually found his wife and two of the three children and established very friendly relations with Indians. He settled down again, running Moses Johnson’s ranch, only to fall in 1871 in a raid of horrific violence by Comanches and Kiowas inflamed by disastrous government schemes to “handle” them. An awe-inspiring piece of historical writing.

THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING, by Paulette Jiles (William Morrow, 2009)