Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 9/20/2011

9/20/1998:
After playing in 2,632 consecutive games, Baltimore's Cal Ripken takes himself out of the lineup for tonight's game against the Yankees. It's the Orioles' last home game and the first time that Ripken has missed a game since May 29, 1982. He explains that he wants to end the streak at home with the fans, adding that there were times he thought the focus was too much on the streak and not on the team: "It just reached a point where I firmly believed it was time to change the subject and restore the focus back where it should be."

Birthdays:
Harry Litwack b. 1907
Red Auerbach b. 1917
Tommy Nobis b. 1943
Guy Lafleur b. 1951
Bonzi Wells b. 1976

Packers Fact:
On this date in 1992: Recently acquired Brett Favre came off the bench to lead the Packers to a 24-23 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals at Lambeau Field. Don Majkowski was injured in the first quarter to give way to Favre.

“Our greatest responsibility is not to be pencils of the past.”

—ROBERT A. M. STERN, American architect

ON AND AT THAT RATE, THE WHOLE WORLD
WILL BE UNEMPLOYED IN ONLY SIX MONTHS!

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Five hundred million people will lose their jobs each month until we have an economic package.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California)

WE LOVE YOU, FRANK BRUNI

It was said that his initials, FB, stood for Fat Boy. The only thing that made his mother (a WASP who became Italian, food-wise) happier than cooking for 40 was cooking for 80. This man went on to become a New York Times restaurant critic, a powerful, successful man of insatiable appetites and a gaping loneliness that no amount of overeating could appease. But “round is a shape,” as the joke goes, and Frank Bruni brings the circle around and conquers his too round self, with humor, panache, great writing, and a very generous dollop of charm, sweetened just right.

BORN ROUND: THE SECRET HISTORY OF A FULL-TIME EATER, by Frank Bruni (Penguin Press, 2009)