69 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 69 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 69 A.D.: The Year of the Four Emperors by Gwyn Morgan. This is a book about a turbulent time in the history of the Roman Empire.

According to Tacitus, Otho’s main goal was to induce his audience to take the next step and kill their legal emperor. So he pointed out, first, that the welcome they had given him bound them together indissolubly. Now they must finish the job or submit to punishment by Galba, when his record proved that there was no hope of leniency. The emperor had put to death men of high rank and low, soldiers and civilians, individuals and groups, not only in Rome but in every camp and province of the empire, and each time he masked his ferocity with claims to have “restored discipline.” Although Icelus and Vinius in a mere six months had managed to amass fortunes larger than those accumulated by all Nero’s favorites put together, Galba prated about “economy” to cover up his tight-fistedness, and refused to pay the troops the donative promised by Nymphidius. Nor, finally, was the situation going to change for the better. Galba had picked as his successor a young man embittered by exile, a man who, in the emperor’s opinion, best matched his own grim disposition and meaness. And the gods had shown their displeasure with the storm that attended the announcement of the adoption.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.