Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 9/12-15/2011

9/12/1962:
Setting an all-time major league record, Tom Cheney of the Washington Senators strikes out 21 batters during a 16-inning 2-1 win over the Orioles in Baltimore. Cheney entered the contest with an 8-15 lifetime record and had never struck out more than 10 batters in a game. Today, after nine innings, he has 13 strikeouts and the score is 1-1. Manager Mickey Vernon keeps him on the mound till the bitter end, and he fans eight more in extra innings for a total of 21. Washington wins the game on a homer by Bud Zipfel. Cheney will finish an otherwise mediocre big-league career in 1966 with a record of 19-29.

Birthdays:
Jesse Owens b. 1913
Albie Pearson b. 1934
Vernon Maxwell b. 1965
Ki-Jana Carter b. 1973
Yao Ming b. 1980

Packers Fact:
Veteran defensive lineman Ryan Pickett started all 16 games for the fourth time in the last five seasons in 2008.

9/13/1964:
Pete Gogolak of the Buffalo Bills becomes pro football's first soccer-style kicker. He has plenty of opportunities early as the Bills roll up 31 points in the first period of their 34-17 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs at War Memorial Stadium. A native of Hungary, Gogolak was the first to kick soccer-style at theh collegiate level on a regular basis while at Cornell. (Two weeks before his first college game in 1961, Cincinnati's Hank Hartong kicked two extra points soccer-style during a 16-12 win over Dayton but never played again.) Don Cockroft of the 1980 Browns will be the last NFL placekicker to approach the ball straight ahead.

Birthdays:
Emile Francis b. 1926
Rick Wise b. 1945
Bernie Williams b. 1968
Goran Ivanisevic b. 1971
Daisuke Matsuzaka b. 1980

Packers Fact:
Fourth-year defensive end Johnny Jolly posted his first career interception in 2009 against Chicago in Week 1. His theft thwarted a Bears scoring threat in the second quarter of Green Bay's 21-15 victory.

9/14/1968:
The Tigers' Denny McLain becomes major league baseball's first 30-game winner since Dizzy Dean in 1934 as he defeats the Oakland Athletics, 5-4, in Detroit. The Tigers score two runs in the ninth to preserve the thrilling victory. McLain will finish this season with a 31-6 record and a 1.96 ERA, and he'll follow with a 24-9 campaign in 1969. But he'll never be the same pitcher after he's suspended for the first half of the 1970 season by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn because of his involvement with gamblers. From his rookie season in 1963 through 1969, McLain's record is 114-57; from 1970 through the end of his career in 1970, it's 17-34.

Birthdays:
Harry Sinden b. 1932
Larry Brown b. 1940
Orest Kindrachuk b. 1950
Tim Wallach b. 1957
Hicham el Guerrouj b. 1974

Packers Fact:
Wide receiver Sterling Sharpe's (1988-1994) younger brother Shannon Sharpe was one of the top pass-catching tight ends in NFL history. Shannon played in the NFL from 1990 to 2003.

9/15/1940:
In a game that has "more the flavor of water polo" according to the Associated Press, the Chicago Cardinals and Detroit Lions combine for only 30 yards in total offense in a 0-0 tie in Buffalo, a venue chosen by the Cards due to the small crowds the club was attracting at home. A terrific thunderstorm hits with the opening kickoff and continues throughout the contest as the Lions gain only 16 yards, the Cardinals 14. The 30 yards of offense will go down in NFL history as the lowest by a wide margin; the next lowest is 136 by the Cardinals and Packers in 1934.

Birthdays:
Gaylord Perry b. 1938
Pete Carroll b. 1951
Joel Quenneville b. 1958
Joe Morris b. 1960
Dan Marino b. 1961

Packers Fact:
Along with Packers star Paul Hornung, Detroit Lions Pro Bowl defensive tackle Alex Karras was suspended for the 1963 season for gambling on NFL games.

“Humor is just another defense against the universe.”

—MEL BROOKS, American humorist

“Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.”

—ANN LANDERS, American advice columnist

“Miracles can be made, but only by sweating.”

—GIOVANNI AGNELLI, Italian entrepreneur

“You can’t argue with a river, it is going to flow. You can dam it up . . . put it to useful purposes . . . deflect it, but you can’t argue with it.”

—DEAN ACHESON, U.S. secretary of state

ON WHY TECH SUPPORT STAFFERS
HAVE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

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Caller: Hey, can you help me? My computer has locked up, and no matter how many times I type 11, it won’t unfreeze.

Tech support: What do you mean, “type 11?”

Caller: The message on my screen says, “Error Type 11.”

actual computer tech-support call

ON LOGICAL LAPSES, SPORTSCASTERS AND

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Ozzie Smith just made another play that I’ve never seen anyone else make before, and I’ve seen him make it more often than anyone else ever has.

San Diego Padres announcer Jerry Coleman

ON BILLINESS, EXCESSIVE

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For me, the thing will be rockabilly freedom. Hillbilly meets psychobilly, with a dash of hippie-billiness.

celebrity stylist Camille Bidault-Waddington, H&M Magazine

ON AIRLINE AGENTS, AIRHEADED

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Agent: According to my records you are flying from Oakland, CA. That’s California, right?

Caller: That’s right.

Agent: And it says here you are flying to Shreveport, LA?

Caller: Yes.

Agent: But Los Angeles isn’t a state. What state are you flying to?

Caller: The “LA” actually stands for Louisiana.

Agent: Oh, okay, then.

actual conversation with airline ticket agent (thanks to Jeffrey Fleming)

TOUR DE FORCE

T. C. Boyle is in top form in this novel about Frank Lloyd Wright’s disastrous serial relationships. The tale is narrated by the great American architect’s devoted Japanese apprentice and slave, Tadashi Sato, who paints Wright’s women mostly with delightfully sly jealousy. He tells us of the disastrous 1925 fire in Taliesin West, Wright’s early version of Neverland, and takes us backward in time, unable to avoid revealing the beloved master as a mean, half-mad, stingy, confused, and tortured soul. Scandalously good.

THE WOMEN, by T. C. (Thomas Coraghessen) Boyle (Viking Adult, 2009)

A HOT-BUTTON WAR

In her signature impassioned, knowledgeable, and well-reasoned style, Susan Faludi turns to an interesting by-product of 9/11—a renewed war on feminism. Faludi documents the many sources who announced, in the months following 9/11, the decline, death, uselessness, treason, danger, and/or irrelevancy of feminism. The Terror Dream remains focused on the published statements of the many who engaged in this shadow war. She leaves polemic and bombast to others, instead taking a historical view to show that this is not the first time America has felt the need to reestablish who’s wearing the ideological pants in the family.

THE TERROR DREAM: MYTH AND MISOGYNY IN AN INSECURE AMERICA, by Susan Faludi (Henry Holt, 2007)

PRIZE WINNER

Shadow Country is actually three books (Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone) edited by their author into one 900-page work. It is the story of Edgar J. Watson, a historical and legendary figure of southwest Florida at the turn of the 20th century. Was Watson as bloody as everyone thought? He allegedly shot outlaw queen Belle Starr, some neighbors who were down on their luck, his man Tom, and others, meanwhile amassing land and power. In the end he was killed by his bayou neighbors. The three sections are written from different perspectives—including those of Watson’s deeply scarred sons—in this moody, Faulkneresque tale. Shadow Country garnered the National Book Award in 2008.

SHADOW COUNTRY: A NEW RENDERING OF THE WATSON LEGEND, by Peter Matthiessen (Modern Library, 2008)

HOT AND SPICY

This lavish coffee-table book is more than just mouthwatering pictures and zesty recipes. It’s also the inside story of the McIlhenny family and the empire they built, and of Avery Island, Louisiana. Shane Bernard, the McIlhenny historian and curator, deals evenhandedly with both fact and fiction, since both are part and parcel of the Tabasco legend. With an introduction by Jeffrey Rothfeder, the author of McIlhenny’s Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire.

TABASCO: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, by Shane K Bernard; introduction by Jeffrey Rothfeder (University of Mississippi Press, 2007)