Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/20/2012

2/20/1958:
The Coliseum Commission, which operates the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, approves a two-year contract enabling the Los Angeles Dodgers to hold their 1958 and 1959 home games in the 101,000-seat stadium. In the previous October, owner Walter O'Malley announced the move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles without having secured a place to play during the 1958 season. Wrigley Field, used by the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League from 1925 through 1957, had a capacity of only about 20,000 and was much too small. O'Malley hoped to utilize the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for Dodger games, but couldn't work out a deal. He then turned to the Coliseum and finalized the contract less than two months prior to Opening Day. The Dodgers will play at the Coliseum from 1958 through 1961 and will move into Dodger Stadium in 1962.

Birthdays:
Roger Penske b. 1937
Phil Esposito b. 192
Charles Barkley b.1 963
Livan Hernandez b. 1975
Stephen Marbury b. 1977

FIRST-RATE FICTION

Adam and Cynthia Morey are very much in love. They marry young, have two children whom they adore, and make an obscene amount of money from Adam’s job in private equity. The writing flows so smoothly that the reader’s eventual realization—the characters have lost all moral grounding—is a jolt. In this smart, engaging novel for our times, Jonathan Dee casts a cold eye on alienation engendered by greed.

THE PRIVILEGES, by Jonathan Dee (Random House, 2010)