165 Days to Opening Day 2008

Just a note. Today's book for the excerpt was chosen before the news broke about Max McGee.

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 166 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 Instant Replay by Jerry Kramer (with Dick Schaap). Kramer, a guard for the Green Bay Packers in the Lombardi Era, kept a tape recorded diary during the 1967 season. This was the year that ended with The Ice Bowl, a victory in Super Bowl II, and the end of Lombardi’s days as the coach of the Packers.

The excerpt from page 166 is as the Packers are getting ready to play the New York Giants at Yankee Stadium on October 22, 1967.

As soon as we settled into the locker room, Coach Lombardi came over to me and nudged me and said, “Why don’t you take some of the younger boys out and show them around Yankee Stadium?” We hadn’t played in New York in five years, so I walked around with Anderson and Grabo and Crutcher and a few of the rookies, showing them The House that Ruth Built, the plaques of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio. I’m not much of a baseball fan myself, but the first time I came into Yankee Stadium, in 1959, I was really impressed. The place had so much history; so many great athletes had played in it. Andy and Grabo have been exposed to the big city, so they didn’t seem too impressed, but Tommy Joe kept gaping at everything. “Boy,” he said, “this here place would sure hold a lot of hay.

No need to put today’s entry into a baseball context.