Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 4/4/2011

4/4/2001:
In his first game with the Boston Red Sox, Hideo Nomo pitches his second no-hitter for a 3-0 win over the Orioles at Camden Yards. It's also the first no-hitter by a Red Sox pitcher since Dave Morehead's on September 16, 1965. Nomo throws 110 pitches, walks 3 and strikes out 11. Second baseman Mike Lansing saves the no-hitter when he makes a tumbling backhand catch of Mike Bordick's soft looper for the second out of the ninth inning; two pitches later, Delino DeShields hits a routine fly ball to Troy O'Leary in right field for the final out. Homo's first no-hitter was with the Dodgers on September 17, 1996, against the Rockies at Coors Field.

Birthdays:
Tris Speaker b. 1888
Gil Hodges b. 1924
Dale Hawerchuk b. 1963
Scott Rolen b. 1975
Ben Gordon b. 1983

Packers Fact:
Former Packers quarterback Brett Favre and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning are the only three-time winners (entering 2009) of the Associated Press' NFL MVP award.

ON THE WHOLE TRUTH

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Judge: Is there any reason you could not serve as a juror in this case?

Potential juror: I don’t want to be away from my job for that long.

Judge: Can’t they do without you at work?

Juror: Yes, but I don’t want them to know it.

actual comments taken from court records

“It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”

—EDMUND BURKE, British philosopher and statesman

NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Have you ever wondered what the creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was smoking? You must have, especially if you’ve read the books rather than relying on the movie versions, which are considerably sunnier and less hallucinatory than Baum’s original conceptions. Evan Schwartz ranges over the enormous and uniquely American influences on Baum—from his mother-in-law, a passionate feminist, to the mysticism of Madame Blavatsky, the hucksterism of P. T. Barnum, and the visions of Thomas Edison. Weird and wonderful.

FINDING OZ: HOW L. FRANK BAUM DISCOVERED THE GREAT AMERICAN STORY, by Evan Schwartz (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)