Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 126 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 excerpt is from Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. This was the first book in the series.
The movie is based on parts of different novels in the series. But, the passage below is part of a scene from the movie. It's like batting practice.
‘Run out your gun. – Prime. – Point your gun. – Fire. Mr. Mowett,’ he called, through the cabin skylight, ‘what was the interval?’
‘Three minutes and three-quarters, sir.’
‘Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ said Jack, almost to himself. There were no words in the vocabulary at his command to express his distress. Pullings’ division looked apprehensive and ashamed: number three gun-crew had stripped to the waist and had tied their handkerchiefs round their heads against the flash and thunder: they were spitting on their hands, and Mr. Pullings himself was fussing anxiously about with the crows, handspikes, and swabs.
Capt. Jack Aubrey: Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly?Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.
Crew: No!
Capt. Jack Aubrey: Want to call that raggedy-ass Napoleon your king? Crew: No!
Capt. Jack Aubrey: You want your children to sing the "La Marseillaise?"
Crew: NO!
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