This Day in Baseball History: July 9, 1966 - 1966 - Felipe Alou hits two home runs off Sandy Koufax, the third and last time that Sandy gives up two homers to one batter in a game. Atlanta beats the Dodgers, 5 - 2.

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FACTS : Napoleons Dream of Power• After the revolution, once Napoleon had assumed power, he wanted to re-design the now outmoded revolutionary cards. His power was so great that he wanted his face on this rare card - stencil painted engraved, produced for only one year and then all the cards were destroyed after he changed his mind as he was not all together happy with the designs, and also the people boycotted the sales of theses rare decks so no tax dollars were being generated for him!

• Although David gave Napoleon the honor of posing as Cesar for the king of diamonds, He then commissioned Gatteaux to come up with a new standard pattern so he can continue to have other printers and his printer selling decks to be taxed.

MORE HISTORIC FACTS : Incredibly Rare..The first playing cards appeared in Europe at the beginning of the 14th century. However, even as late as the 18th century, they were by no means unified in their style.In France, the pack comprised the four classic suits -- spades, diamonds, hearts and clubs (the French word trèfle refers to the clover standardised in France) and the 10 number and the 3 picture cards, knave, queen and king.

• In France's neighbouring countries it was very different. For example, in Spanish and Italian packs there were cups, coins (gold or silver), clubs and swords, in German packs there were hearts, sleigh bells, acorns and leaves, and Swiss German packs had roses and shields in addition to acorns and bells.

• In France, card designs (and the duties paid on them) differed according to which part of the country they came from. Regional portraits had identical number cards but specific portraits of the kings, queens and knaves depending on the region, whether Paris, Lyons, Provence, Guyenne or Auvergne etc.

• The French Revolution, with its administrative and fiscal transformations, revived and varied playing card production. In this context, the publishers Jean-Démosthène Dugourc and Urbain Jaume took out a five-year patent in 1791 to create new designs for playing cards. Since all symbols of the monarchy had been banned, kings, queens and knaves were replaced by genii, "freedoms" and "equalities".

• Twelve years later ( Napoleon was then Emperor) , on 13th June 1808, the government commissioned the painter Jacques-Louis David to engrave a unique plate with "an image of such extreme intricacy and finesse of line so as to make counterfeiting difficult but also one which at the same time, through the accuracy of the costumes and the exactitudes of the attributes, met the allegorical goal that the inventor of this game seems to have set himself.

• "Along with the change of card design , the administration also set increased controls on card manufacture. There were eight steps in the card-making process: firstly, the printing paper was wetted, then printed, then it was combined with other paper to construct card before being glued together. Once the paper had been made into card it was painted, then straightened, then cut and finally sorted.

Jacques-Louis David's designs (completed in 1810) gave new precision to the figures on the picture cards. He kept the traditional kings (Charlemagne, Caesar, Alexander and David) as well as their appropriate queens (Hildegarde, Calpurnia, Statira and Abigail) with historical accuracy and precision.

• The creation of this new "official" pack design also made possible printing techniques not utilised before, namely stamps made by the medallist Jean-Bertrand Andrieu, which the famous typographer Firmin Didot .

Sonny had an incredible 1966 rookie season with the Houston Astros. He led the National League in singles (160) and sacrifice hits (27) and set a Major League record for stolen bases by a rookie with 49 (since broken). Alas he finished second to Tommy Helms in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. Sonny Jackson turns 81 today.

Soooooo boring!

Oops, got another Pope card. This one /100