138 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 138 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 You Can Call Me Al by Joseph Declan Moran. This is a biography of Al McGuire, the legendary basketball coach at Marquette University.

The passage is about the second meeting between the Warriors and the University of Wisconsin during the 1964-65 season, McGuire’s first season as the head coach at Marquette.

More than 300 Marquette students took buses to the Wisconsin Fieldhouse in Madison to support the Warriors. However, the team started out badly, missing its first 17 shots as the Badgers spurted to a 17-1 lead. By halftime the score was 38-25. In the locker room, McGuire told his players they could win the game. “He told the team they had to make up two points every five minutes,” said Bledsoe.

When the Warriors came out of the tunnel for the second half, 75 Marquette students were lined up on either side of the players as they ran onto the court, loudly cheering them on.

Marquette held the Badgers scoreless for the first five minutes and narrowed the lead to five. The struggling Badgers hit a four-minute dryspell, and Marquette won 59-58 on a buzzer-beater by Rocke Calvelli. The Marquette students mobbed the floor and surrounded the team. Raymonds and the team managers did all they could to keep the students out of the locker room. McGuire called it the greatest comeback of his coaching career and biggest win ever.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.