107 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 107 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 Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The Mad Hatter’s tea party is in full swing in this passage.

“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:

‘Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle --------‘”

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep, “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle ------“ and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.