Perigee Bookmarks

Traveling with Trivia

Posted by Jeanette Shaw

I’m traveling to our nation’s capital this week (a decidedly inopportune time considering the blisteringly hot temperatures in Washington, DC, lately), and as a history buff I’m pretty excited to spend a few days gazing at the White House and roaming the Smithsonian, the Newseum, and the Library of Congress – yes, I am a huge nerd.

Luckily I will be armed with a vast array of knowledge that will serve me well in our capital city. Thanks to Perigee’s extensive collection of trivia and reference titles, I already know that: 

• The Pentagon was built with about twice as many bathrooms as would have been expected for a building of its size to comply with Virginia’s then-legal code that required racial segregation of public buildings. (from Sorry, Wrong Answer)
• Foggy Bottom is not, in fact, a highly amusing insult, but the name of one of DC’s oldest neighborhoods, dating back to the 1700s and prone to river fog from the nearby Potomac. (from Wicked Good Words)
• Rosa Parks was the first woman to ever lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda when she died in 2005. The catafalque that is used for anyone who lays in state there is the same one that was hastily constructed in 1865 to support the casket of Abraham Lincoln, and is stored in the never-used Washington’s Tomb when not in use. (from Morbid Curiosity)
• The Washington Monument is still the tallest building in the city thanks to a 1910 building height restriction, and is also the tallest stone structure in the world. (from The Book of Useless Information)

Wherever your own travels take you, I hope you find them relaxing, affirming, and enlightening!

 

Learn Something Every Day

Posted by Meg Leder

Perigee recently published the delightful book Learn Something Every Day. It's a bright, 368-page tome, featuring 365 different tidbits of information you probably didn't already know. Each fact is accompanied by a charming hand-drawn illustration.

To celebrate the book's publication on this blog, the authors Pete and Geth graciously provided us with two reading-related facts, which you'll find below. Perigee blog readers: You are lucky. Today you can learn not just one new thing, but two.

Enjoy!

 

Why Basketballs Are Orange

Posted by author Josh Chetwynd

March is a great month for sports. If you’re a basketball lover, there’s the NCAA Tournament (aka March Madness). For baseball fans, spring training is in full swing, giving supporters of even the lowliest of teams hope that this will be the season that their club finds glory.

I enjoy them both, but this year I’m watching the proceedings with new eyes. Now I look at the ball itself – be it of the basketball, the baseball, or any variety – far more intently. You see, I recently finished writing The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Whack, Throw, Kick, Bounce and Bat. Along with the obligatory jokes such an effort has yielded, writing the book did make me appreciate the little (or big) spheres we play with. Dare I say, I have a new found affection for balls (cue snickers).

Whether it be the staples (like the basketball and the baseball), the childhood favorites (such as the tetherball or marbles), the not-so-sporty-balls (think Magic 8 Ball or the stress ball), or even obscure foreign balls (examples: Finland’s pallo or Japan’s mari), each tells a fascinating tale.

So what will I be thinking about this March while watching a Sweet 16 matchup or some rookie trying to make a major league club? I’ll be considering colors. Yep, we may take for granted the basketball’s iconic orange hue or pearly white baseballs, but it could have been so very different.

Basketball potentates were not always thrilled about changing the ball’s look from a long-accepted dark leather appearance. Efforts to go orange started as early as 1935 when Brown University players used prototypes and loved it. Some schools even pulled out a yellow ball and liked it. But officials balked. It wasn’t until 1958, when Butler University coach Tony Hinkle convinced the powers that be to try out an orange ball at the NCAA Finals. It proved better on TV and a new look was born.  (A key rule of ball-making: what TV execs want generally trumps tradition – just ask ball makers in the worlds of tennis, ping-pong, and even the obscure sport of bandy.)

As for the baseball, some early manufacturers believed that red was the way to go. In 1870, a company called Peck & Snyder introduced the “Dead Red Ball.” The blood-colored sphere was supposed to help fielders and hitters follow the orb better than its white counterparts on particularly sunny days. Two minor league teams tried out a yellow ball in 1928 and in the 1970s maverick Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley pushed for hot orange spheres for night games. Nevertheless, baseball has clung tightly to white.

Admittedly, there are more compelling stories about these and other balls. For example, the basketball’s shape and size was chosen to help instill Christian values and early baseball makers ignored potential prototypes like the cricket ball and made balls with such haphazard items as sturgeon eyeballs and shoe soles. As for other games, there’s the tale about how the Hindu god Vishnu helped the development of golf balls or how changes to the football saved people’s lives or why the red playground ball, is, well, red. But I figure I have to leave some stories for my book to tell!