156 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 156 days from today. This off-season, the countdown will be based on books. Each day between now and Opening Day 2008, I will pick a random book out of my library and excerpt a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I will try not to repeat a book during the countdown.

Today’s book is Dracula by Bram Stoker. Appropriate on October 31, eh?

The excerpt from page 156, which is itself an excerpt from the journal of Jonathon Harker.

26 September – I thought never to write in this diary again but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing’s visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she had been about me. She showed me the doctor’s letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anyhing like what Mia says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over…

Put today’s entry into a baseball context.