148 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 148 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 Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan’s Soul. The excerpt from the chapter HEROES is the end of a brief anecdote by Michael J. Feigum. It is about trying to get an autograph from his hero and winding up with a different autograph and a new hero.

As the players filed out to enter the runway to the dugout, I looked anxiously for Roy Face. I finally saw him coming and in my best manners stepped up and asked him for his autograph. He calmly ignored me and proceeded down the runway. I was stunned! One of my favorite heroes had brushed me off without the slightest acknowledgment at all.

I stood there pondering what to do next when a large arm appeared around my shoulders and a hand took the ball from my grasp. I looked up to see a beaming smile beneath a Pirate hat and a large 21 on the jersey. The man handed me the ball with a wink and headed onto the field. I looked down at the ball and could not believe that now proudly bore the name ROBERTO CLEMENTE in bold black ink. Roy Face’s spot on my hero list had just been filled by one of the greatest players in the game.

Clemente played an important part in the Pirates’ sweep in the doubleheader that day and helped lead his team to a World Series victory over my Yankees that October. Despite that, he remained one of my greatest heroes until his death in a 1972 airplane crash while flying relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

By this time I had followed my father into the air force and was stationed in Southeast Asia. When I learned of Clemente’s death, I could only marvel that the man who had helped find me a hero had been a bona fide hero trying to help an entire nation.

Only die-hard fans will remember who Roy Face was, but children who were not yet born when Roberto Clemente died can tell you all about him. That is heroism at its finest.

No need to put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.