Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 4/29-5/2/2011

4/29/1988:
Heading into the game with a record of 0-21, the Baltimore Orioles defeat the White Sox, 9-0, in Chicago. The streak of 21 losses from the start of a season is the longest in major league history, shattering the previous mark of 13 by the 1904 Washington Senators and 1920 Detroit Tigers. (The Cubs will lose their first 14 in 1997.) After loss number six on April 11, the Orioles fired Cal Ripken as manager and hired Frank Robinson. They'll finish the season with a record of 54-107.

Birthdays:
George Allen b. 1922
Luis Aparicio b. 1934
Jim Ryun b. 1947
Dale Earnhardt Sr. b. 1952
Andre Agassi b. 1970

Packers Fact:
Donald Driver entered 2009 as the all-time leader in catches (273) and receiving yards (3,823) at Lambeau Field.

4/30/1961:
Willie Mays wallops four home runs and drives in eight runs to lead the San Francisco Giants to a 14-4 win over the Braves in Milwaukee. He begins the day with shots off Lew Burdette in the first and third innings. Then, after flying out to center in the fifth, he homers off Seth Morehead in the seventh. His fourth blast comes off Don McMahon in the eighth.

Birthdays:
Jon Arnett b. 1935
Phil Garner b. 1949
Isiah Thomas b. 1961
Al Toon b. 1963
Dave Meggett b. 1966

Packers Fact:
Linebacker Clay Matthews was the second of the Packers' two first-round picks in the 2009 draft. He was the No. 26 overall choice.

5/1/1948:
At the West Hants Club in Bournemouth, England, Eric Sturgess of South Africa wins five tennis matches on the same day; the men's singles, the semifinals and finals of the men's doubles, and the semifinals and finals of the mixed doubles. In all, Sturgess plays 15 sets and 126 games.

Birthdays:
Cliff Battles b. 1910
Chuck Bednarik b. 1925
Ollie Matson b. 1930
Steve Cauthen b. 1960
Curtis Martin b. 1973

5/2/1917:
In Chicago, Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaugh of the Cubs combine to hurl the only nine-inning double no-hitter in major league history. The first hit of theh game occurs with one out in the 10th inning when Cincinnati's Larry Kopf hits a Vaughn pitch into right field for a single. Hal Chase flies to right, but Chicago right fileder Cy Williams muffs an easy chance, putting Chase on first and Kopf on third. After Chase steals second, Jim Thorpe chops a hit a few feet in front of home plate. Vaughn races in and tries to nail Kopf coming in from third base, but the ball bounces off catcher Art Wilson's chest and the Reds lead, 1-0. The advantage holds up in the bottom of the 10th when Toney retirees the Cubs in order.

Birthdays:
Eddie Collins b. 1887
Eddie Bressoud b. 1932
Gates Brown b. 1939
Clay Carroll b. 1941'
Jamaal Wilkes b. 1953

Packers Fact:
Including his final three NFL seasons with Dallas, cornerback Herb Adderley (1951-69) played in seven NFL or NFC title games in his 12 years in the league - and his team won all of them.

ON AMAZING BREAKTHROUGHS, NEWSWORTHY

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BITING NAILS CAN BE SIGN
OF TENSENESS IN A PERSON

Daily Gazette (Schenectady, New York)

ON SPORTS MOMENTS
WE’D RATHER NOT SEE,
THANKS

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The defender was literally—literally—up his backside.

sports commentator Andy Townsend

ON COMMUNISTS, SEMI-INTELLIGENT

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We are among the world leaders for semi-conductors, but with the power of communism, we will soon be able to be leaders for full conductors.

general secretary of the Czechoslovak communist party Miloš Jakeš

ON GOAT METAPHORS, MIND-BOGGLING

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Elsa Sime, one of the most prolific artists of our time, asks the timeless question “What is Love?” by using goats as a metaphor to explore perceptions and ideas of love.

in a cultural program brochure of the Alliance Ethio-Française, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“Thought shall be harder, heart the keener, courage the greater as our might lessens.”

—BYRHTNOTH, 10th-century commander at the Battle of Maldon

“Experience is only half of experience.”

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, German poet and dramatist

“Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe.”

—GERMAINE GREER, Australian feminist writer

“I believe we’re at our best when we are boldest.”

—TONY BLAIR, British prime minister

LIVING HISTORY

Rick Perlstein has followed his acclaimed Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, an account of an important but relatively peaceful epoch, with Nixonland, a political and social history of the “storm” forecast in the earlier book. It is a lively, energetic reckoning of a turbulent period of riots, assassinations, war, radicals and reactionaries, and, of course, Richard Nixon, who, the author reports, once told Leonard Garment, “You’ll never make it in politics, Len. You just don’t know how to lie.” A book to relish as well as argue with.

NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA, by Rick Perlstein (Simon & Schuster, 2008)

A CRITICAL HIT

Misfits Vikings, cheating and divorced men, self-conscious girls, and several kinds of unhappy families populate this first collection of stories by a new and critically well-regarded storyteller on the scene. “Every one of the stories in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is polished and distinctive. . . . [Tower’s] range is wide and his language impeccable, never strained or fussy. His grasp of human psychology is fresh and un-Freudianizing,” writes Edmund White in his New York Times review.

EVERYTHING RAVAGED, EVERYTHING BURNED, by Wells Tower (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009)

GIFT IDEA

Over the last 95 years the photographers of Vanity Fair have included Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Herb Ritts, Mario Testino, and Annie Leibovitz, to name just five. Their photographs of the celebrated—a wistful Babe Ruth, a tuxedoed Fanny Brice—and a few not-so-celebrated—Joseph Goebbels, Richard Perle—make for one exquisite book of portraits, both dazzling and meditative.

VANITY FAIR, THE PORTRAITS: A CENTURY OF ICONIC IMAGES, by Graydon Carter and the editors of Vanity Fair (Abrams, 2008)