116 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 116 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.

It’s X-Files week at Rattler Radio. I freely admit to you and the world that I own seven X-Files novels. These are books based on the series and were not turned into episodes. Well, six of them are like that. One is the novelization of the movie.

Today’s novel is Whirlwind by Charles Grant. This one is about a serial killer running loose in Albuquerque. It’s the X-Files, so it’s a little weirder than that.

He hesitated. “Dreamy. Before we knew it, she was gone. Making movies. Getting married.” He looked at Mulder over the horse’s back. “They were very happy. Always.”

The smile slipped away.

“No children?” Scully asked.

“Not to be.”

The horse stamped impatiently, and Quintodo murmured at it before resuming his grooming.

“She is special, Mr. Mulder,” he said at last. “She hears the wind.

Scully opened her mouth to question him, and Mulder shook his head quickly.

Quintodo swallowed, second thoughts making him pause.

When he did speak again, he spoke slowly.

“We have priests, you know.” The horse stamped again; a fly buzzed in the stifling heat. “Not the Catholic ones, the padres. Konochine got rid of them a long time ago. Our own. Seven, all the time. They…do things for us. Comprende? You understand? Today they are all men. It happens. Sometimes there are women, but not now. Priests are not… .” He frowned, then scowled when he couldn’t find the word. “They live like us, and then they die. When one dies, there is a ceremonial, and the dead one is replaced.”

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.