147 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 147 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 Sharpe’s Rifles by Bernard Cornwell. This is the first in the series of novels about the adventures of British rifleman Richard Sharpe during Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe was an enlisted man who was promoted to an officer because of an act of bravery that saved the life of the Duke of Wellington, the British commander. A lot of the conflict within the novels comes from Sharpe’s struggles to deal with fellow officers who look down on him, his men who think of him as a fellow enlistee, and his enemies who believe him to be inferior.

In this passage, Sharpe is dealing with feeling out of place during a parley with a French officer.

Sharpe, made to feel extremely foolish by the Frenchman’s poise, said nothing. He also felt unbearably ragged. His jacket was torn and blood-stained, he was hatless, his trousers were gaping because of the missing silver buttons and his cheap boots were in shreds. De l’ Eclin, in contrast, was exquisitely uniformed. The chasseur wore a tight red dolman jacket with loops and buttons of gold. Over it hung his scarlet pelisse; a garment of utter uselessness but high fashion for cavalrymen. A pelisse was merely a jacket that was worn on one shoulder like a cloak. Decorated with a golden braid, de ‘l Eclin’s was fastened about his neck with a golden chain, and edged with soft black lamb’s fleece. Its empty sleeves hung down to the gold-coloured chains of his sabre slings. The inner legs and lower cuffs of his dark green overalls had been reinforced with black leather to resist chafing of a saddle, while their outer seams were red stripes brightened with golden buttons. His tall boots were of soft black leather. Sharpe wondered how much such a uniform cost, and knew it was probably more that his salary for a year.

De ‘l Eclin opened his sabrertache and took out two cigars. He offered one to the Rifleman, who saw no reason to refuse it. The two men companionably shared the flame of a tinder-box, then the Frenchman, blowing a stream of smoke over Sharpe’s head, sighed. ‘I think, Lieutenant, that you and your Rifles should surrender.’

Sharpe kept a stubborn silence.

Put today’s excerpt into a baseball context.