Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 5/12-14/2011

5/12/1968:
Frank Howard of the Senators hits two homers during a 6-3 win over the Detroit Tigers in Washington. The power display begins a streak in which Howard will belt 10 home runs in six games. In Boston, he'll hit two against the Red Sox on May 14 and another on May 15. He'll add two more in Cleveland on May 16, and in Detroit he'll pound one on May 17 and two on May 18 against the Tigers. Not only does he hit 10 homers in 20 at-bats over six games, but he accomplishes the feat in four different ballparks. He'll end the year leading the American League with 44 homers.

Birthdays:
Yogi Berra b. 1925
Felip Alou b. 1935
Johnny Bucyk b. 1935
George Karl b. 1951
Lou Whitaker b. 1957

Packers Fact:
Wide receiver and kick returner Desmond Howard played with Washington (1992-94) and Jacksonville (1995) before breaking out with his best season for the Packers' Super Bowl champs in 1996.

5/13/1911:
The New York Giants score 10 runs before a batter is retired, establishing a major league record as they rout the St. Louis Cardinals, 19-5, at the Polo Grounds. Roger Bresnahan doubles as the Cards' manager and catcher. At the end of the first, the Giants lead 13-0 and Bresnahan wisely takes himself out of the lineup. Giants skipper John McGraw removes starting pitcher Christy Mathewson to save his ace for a closer ball game. Rube Marquard pitches the final eight innings and fans 14 batters.

Birthdays:
Joe Louis b. 1914
Bobby Valentine b. 1950
Dennis Rodman b. 1961
Mike Bibby b. 1978
Barry Zito b. 1978

Packers Fact:
Mike McCarthy entered his fourth season as the Packers' head coach in 2009 with a career record of 28-22 (including post season).

Indians pitching coach Jack Aker, after White Sox fans pelted his club with cushions on Seat Cushion Night in 1985 at Comiskey Park: "if they ever have Bowling Ball Night, I'm definitely not coming."

Birthdays:
Gump Worsley b. 1929
Tony Perez b. 1942
Dennis Martinez b. 1955
Pooh Richardson b. 1966
Roy Halladay b. 1977

Packers Fact:
Cornerback Will Blackmon led the Packers with a career-best 18 tackles on kick coverage in 2008. He was in his third season at the time.

“This world is so full of crap, a man’s gonna get into it sooner or later whether he’s careful or not.”

—HUD BANNON (PAUL NEWMAN) in Hud; screenplay by Irving Ravetch

“The end of man is an action and not a thought, though it were the noblest.”

—THOMAS CARLYLE, 19th-century Scottish writer

“How wrong Emily Dickenson was! Hope is not ‘the thing with feathers.’ The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.”

—WOODY ALLEN, American humorist

ON HEADS, MUSCULAR

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Q: What’s your cap size?

Baseball great Yogi Berra: I don’t know. i’m not in shape yet.

ON ERR, THANKS, BUT WE’LL
GO FOR THE KUNG PAO INSTEAD

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• Genetal Tso’s Chicken

item on a Chinese restaurant menu in New Jersey

ON AY, CARAMBA!

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Weakest Link host Anne Robinson: What “B” was a pseudonym used by Charles Dickens?

Contestant: Bart Simpson.

(The correct answer is Boz.)

LESS IS MORE

In these poignant, minimalist stories, poems, and dialogues, named mostly after places and points along highways in the West, Sam Shepard is meditative, bleakly funny, simultaneously surreal and totally credible, desolate and rich. With a nod to Samuel Beckett, Shepard looks at America with wide-eyed innocence and writes about it with European elegance.

DAY OUT OF DAYS: STORIES, by Sam Shepard (Knopf, 2010)

WHEN THE BANKS TANKED

We are cursed to live in interesting times! Yet how pleasurable and instructive it is to read of others’ misfortunes. It seems like just yesterday that a cabal of four bankers (representing the New York Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, Banc de France, and Germany’s Reichsbank) conspired, above the shrieks of John Maynard Keynes, to establish the gold standard and presided over the collapse of the world economy. Ah, good times . . . rivetingly told.

LORDS OF FINANCE: THE BANKERS WHO BROKE THE WORLD, by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin Press, 2009)

PERENNIAL CLASSIC

Georgette Heyer (1902–1974), unparalleled mistress of the period romance novel, is never out of place, never out of style, never out of sparkling dialogue, spirited heroines, and dashing rogues. Grab a box of (70 percent cacao) bonbons and try Faro’s Daughter. In an attempt to save her son from what she thinks are the clutches of the gambling-addicted Deborah, Lady Mablethorpe enlists the assistance of Max Ravenscar to “get rid of her.” But no one expected Deborah’s spirit and principles, nor the sparks that fly between Deborah and Max.

FARO’S DAUGHTER, by Georgette Heyer (1941; Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2008)