Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 8/8-8/9/2011

8/8/2001:
Tigers second baseman Damion Easley collects six hits in six at-bats during a 19-6 win over the Rangers in Arlington. Facing Texas starter Joaquin Benoit, Easley singles in the second and fourth innings and homers in the fifth. He adds a single in the eighth against Pat Mahomes for his fourth hit. Heading into the ninth, the score is 6-6 and Easley is the sixth hitter scheduled to bat that inning. During a 13-run rally by Detroit, he singles off Mike Venafro and Mark Petkovsek. After doubling in a run in his first plate appearance in the ninth, Shane Halter caps the night with a grand slam.

Birthdays:
Jerry Tarkanian b. 1930
Frank Howard b. 1936
Ken Dryden b. 1947
Nigel Mansell b. 1953
Roger Federer b. 1961

Packers Fact:
Desmond Howard's league-leading 3 punt returns for the Packers in 1996 were just 1 short of the NFL single-season record.

8/9/1993:
Soccer fans in Ixiamas, Bolivia, are so excited by their country's 3-1 win over Uruguay in a World Cup qualifying match that they allow their village to burn to the ground. Amid the celebrations, residents fail to notice that 40 houses, comprising most of the village, are on fire. By the time they take action, it's too late to save any of the homes and all are destroyed. The blaze was caused by firecrackers that fell on the thatched roofs during the festivities.

Birthdays:
Bob Cousy b. 1928
Rod Laver b. 1938
Brett Hull b. 1964
Deion Sanders b. 1967
Chamiue Holdsclaw b. 1977

Birthdays:
Kicker Chester Marcol was from Poland. He was born in Opole, Poland, in 1949, and moved to Michigan when he was 15 years old.

ON GAME SHOW CONTESTANTS WHO
PROBABLY FAILED KINDERGARTEN

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Simply the Best game show host: How many Olympic Games have been held?

Contestant: Six!

Host: Higher!

Contestant: Five!

ON NONSENSE, POLYSYLLABIC

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judgmental lapse ................................................ crime
maximum incapacitation .....................death penalty

government definitions, as collected by William Lutz in his book Doublespeak Defined

“Be fair with others, but keep after them until they’re fair with you.”

—ALAN ALDA, American actor

“You are born with two things: existence and opportunity, and these are the raw materials out of which you can make a successful life.”

—CHARLES TEMPLETON, Canadian writer

MEN ARE TWO-TIMING, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING STINKERS

The Nation writer Kathe Pollitt gets personal in this collection of essays on subjects that include her life as a daughter reading her parents’ FBI files, as a mother, and, most completely and scathingly, as a woman wronged by philandering men. In “Learning to Drive,” “After the Men Are Gone,” and many more, Pollitt imparts her life lessons with candor and unflinching wit.

LEARNING TO DRIVE: AND OTHER LIFE STORIES, by Kathe Pollitt (Random House, 2008)

A HIGH-WIRE ACT

Colum McCann has managed to write an elegy for post–9/11 New York disguised as a paean to the city’s past. In the still August heat, several ordinary yet extraordinary New Yorkers look up and see the wondrous sight of Philippe Petit (but he’s not named here) making his daring cable walk between the twin towers in 1974. So commence the beautifully wondrously interlocking stories of the prostitute, the priest, the nurse, the grieving mother, the judge, the computer hackers, the cable walker, and others. The voices and music of this huge “symphony” (Frank McCourt) will haunt you for a very long time to come.

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, by Colum McCann (Random House, 2009)