Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/7/2012

3/7/1970:
Austin Carr of Notre Dame sets the all-time NCAA men's basketball tournament record for most points in a game. A six-foot-four junior guard, Carr scorches the nets for 61 points on 25 field goals in 44 attempts, and 11 of 14 free throws as the Irish coast to a 111-82 win over Ohio University in Dayton. In his next game, on March 12 in Columbus, Ohio, Carr pours in 52 points, but Notre Dame loses, 109-99, to Kentucky. During his college career, Carr scored 289 points in seven NCAA tourney games, an average of 41.3 per contest. He will average 20 or more points per game during his first three seasons in the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and will last 10 years in the league.

Birthdays:
Franco Harris b. 1950
Lynn Swann b. 1952
Joe Carter b. 1960
Ivan Lendl b. 1960
Jeff Kent b. 1968

SURPRISING SCI-FI

A“steampunk” is a sci-fi novel with a Victorian bent, and Dexter Palmer’s debut puts an exciting contemporary twist on the genre. It’s sci-fi for anyone who likes a good yarn, well really for anyone who appreciates writers such as Neal Stephenson, Lewis Carroll, and Shakespeare (big nod to The Tempest in this one). According to The Washington Post, it’s “extravagantly wondrous … an elegy for our own century and the passing of the power of the word, written and spoken.”

THE DREAM OF PERPETUAL MOTION, by Dexter Palmer (St. Martin’s, 2010)