146 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 146 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 Just a Range Ball in a Box of Titleists by Gary McCord. The CBS golf analyst tells stories about his game, his colleagues, his job, and his friends.

This passage is a quick tribute to long time CBS golf producer Frank Chirkinian.

As Frank Chirkinian winds down his unparalleled career and the powers that be release him from what he so loves to do, I am able to reflect on what he has passed on to me in this business of showing golf on network television. He was a developer of talent. He molded their attack on the tube. He once told me, “You can bend their egos, but don’t bruise them.” Let the announcers do what they do best, but direct the hell out of them because we’re basically idiots.

In my particular case, Frank was talking to Jim Nantz, the network’s voice. Jim and I were sitting in a golf cart about ready to depart to our assignment on the sixteenth hole. It was Jim’s first telecast with CBS, and Frank Chirkinian wanted Jim to know what was expected of him. After a lengthy lecture, Frank was done and Jim sped off to his assigned hole full of directions. I had been working for three short weeks and Frank had never said anything to me. I asked Frnak what my responsibilities were. He stopped, glared back at me, and said, “I’ll let you know when you **** up.” Frank, with that very short description, had defined my curriculum at CBS. Try anything I wanted and he’d let me know if I’d gone too far. I have tried many bizarre things during telecasts; some he has let me get away with and others he has chopped off my head for trying. A headless announcer is the best kind, as Frank might say!

Put today’s excerpt into a baseball context.