Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 5/17-18/2011

5/17/1875:
Aristedes wins the first Kentucky Derby. According to the custom of the day, when Thoroughbred owners utilized the skills of men who worked their stables and knew the horses best, both his trainer and jockey are African Americans. Trainer Ansel Williams, born a slave in Virginia, will be elected posthumously to horse racing's Hall of Fame in 1998. Aristedes will receive his own honors. The Aristedes Stakes will be inaugurated at Churchill Downs in 1988, and in the Clubhouse Gardens a handsome life-size bronze statue stands in his memory.

Birthdays:
Cool Papa Bell b. 1903
Earl Morrall b. 1934
Tony Roche b. 195
Sugar Ray Leonard b. 1956
Danny Manning b. 1966

Packers Fact:
Billy Howton broke Don Hutson's Packers'-record for receiving yards in his first NFL season in 1952. He had 1,321 yards that season.

5/18/1958:
Pinch-hitting for Roger Maris, Carroll Hardy hits his first major league home run-a three-run blast in the 11th inning - to give the Indians a 7-4 victory over the Chicago White Sox in Cleveland. Though a .225 hitter in 433 big-league games, Hardy is a pinch hitter for the stars; he'll pinch-hit for Ted Williams in 1960 and Carl Yastrzemski in 1961. Having played halfback and scored four touchdowns for the San Francisco 49ers in 1955, he'll return to football as a player/personnel director for the Denver Broncos in the 1970s and help put together the team that will win the 1977 NFC championship.

Birthdays:
Fred Perry b. 1909
Choo Choo Justice b. 1924
Brooks Robinson b. 1937
Reggie Jackson b. 1946
Jari Kurri b. 1960

Packers Fact:
Kicker Mason Crosby opened his NFL career by making 100 consecutive extra-point tries in his first two-plus seasons before misfiring in a victory over St. Louis in Week 3 of 2009.

ON TEAM NAMES, HO-RRIBLE

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George Shinn. He’s the owner of the Charlotte Harlots basketball team.

baseball announcer Ralph Kiner

ON TALK ABOUT YOUR GREAT DEALS!

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EVERYTHING
ON SALE
AT REGULAR PRICE

hardware store sign in Louisville, Kentucky

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

—MARK TWAIN, American writer and humorist

Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight.

’Tis not too late tomorrow to be brave.

—DR. JOHN ARMSTRONG, 18th-century Scottish poet

RAVE REVIEWS

When Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan returns to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, after graduation from Ole Miss, she has an English degree and a lot to learn. Once we’ve settled down with Skeeter and her friends and neighbors in the world she inhabits, which is painted in breathtakingly vivid detail, the real work of the novel begins: to describe the world of the people who make the white people’s lives possible—“the help.” When Aibileen and Minny and their friends start talking, you won’t want them ever to stop.

THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam Adult, 2009)

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Between 1979 and 1981, the restless, striving, voracious filmmaker and writer Werner Herzog was filming Fitzcarraldo, his wildly eccentric vision of the fictional rubber baron title character’s descent into the heart of the Amazonian darkness. Perhaps you’ve seen the unforgettable film or the equally mesmerizing documentary made about Herzog and the filming. Here are the journals from the period, wild with jungle fever.

CONQUEST OF THE USELESS: REFLECTIONS FROM THE MAKING OF FITZCARRALDO, by Werner Herzog (Ecco, 2009)