Sunday, February 20, 2005

 

Spotlight: The NBA All-Star Game will be played today in Denver's Pepsi Center. Yao Ming and Shaquille O'Neal won the starting center positions for their respective teams, Ming having received the highest number of votes in NBA history. The NBA All-Star Balloting program determines which players will participate in the All-Star game.

Quote: "They said playing basketball would kill me. Well, not playing basketball was killing me." -- Earvin "Magic" Johnson

Today in History:

• The Barber of Seville: Gioacchino Rossini's opera premiered in Rome (1816)
• John Glenn: became first American to orbit Earth (1962)
• Ranger 8: crashed on the moon (1965)

Today's Birthdays:

• film: Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Robert Altman (80), Sidney Poitier (78), Mike Leigh (62), Brenda Blethyn (59), Peter Strauss (58), and Lauren Ambrose (27)
• team players: Phil Esposito (63), Charles Barkley (42), and Stephon Marbury (28)
• music: Buffy Sainte-Marie (64), and Walter Becker (55)

Word of the Day:  shot clock: a timer that counts down seconds in a game, indicating how much time is left for a player to make the shot before he loses possession of the ball.   (© )