81 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 81 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 passage# is a series of reviews for some with the word “blind” in the title from VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever 1996: The Complete Guide to Movies on Videocassette, Laserdisc, and CD##. Notice anything missing? Notice how it is now 12 years out of date. Yeah, I may need a new one of these. Also, where you see * in the ratings think of them as a picture of a bone because that’s the rating system of the Video Hound. It may be coincidence, but Rutger Hauer is in two of these movies.

Blind Ambition: Television mini-series docu-drama traces the career of John Dean, special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon. Focuses on his fractured personal life and touches on virtually all of the Watergate headlines.

1982 95 minutes Martin Sheen, Rip Torn **1/2

Blind Date: A blind date between a workaholic yuppie and a beautiful blonde starts off well, but when she drinks too much at dinner, things get out of hand. In addition to embarrassing her date and destroying the restaurant, she has a jealous ex-boyfriend to be dealt with.

1987 (PG-13) 95 minutes Kim Basinger, Bruce Willis, John Larroquette, William Daniels, George Coe, Mark Blum, Phil Hartman D: Blake Edwards **

Blind Fury: A blind Vietnam vet enlists the aid of a Zen master and a sharpshooter to tackle the Mafia. Hauer works well in the lead, but unfortunately, the movie doesn’t.

1990 (R) 86 minutes Rutger Hauer, Terry O’Quinn, Brandon Call, Lisa Blount, Randall “Tex” Cobb, Noble Willingham, Meg Foster, Sho Kosugi D: Phillip Noyce **1/2

Blind Side: DeMornay and Silver are a married couple whose Mexican vacation turns into trouble when they get into a hit-and-run accident, which they don’t report. Back home, they’re frightened by the sudden appearance of Hauer, who’s also just back from Mexico. They think he’s after blackmail, but he’s really just a run-of-the-mill psycho intrigued by DeMornay, who at least keeps her character in control. Silver and Hauer have a great time chewing the scenery. Made for cable television. Also available in an unrated version which run 98 minutes.

1993 (R) 92 minutes Rebecca DeMornay, Ron Silver, Rutger Hauer D: Geoff Murphy *1/2

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

# The excerpt is from page 216 in the book, but it is from page 81 of the movie reviews. Page 81 of the book is a list of songs and the movies they are from.

## The cover image is from the 2005 book. I mean, who really still has a book of video reviews from 1996? Please, don’t answer that question.