86 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 86 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 was pointed out recently that J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday was last week -- January 3. To make up for missing that anniversary, the rest of the week is Tolkien Week on the countdown to opening day.

Today’s passage is from The Fellowship of the Ring and Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry have just started their journey…Not knowing what is ahead

The shadows of the trees were long and thin on the grass, as they started off again. They now kept a stone’s throw to the left of the road, and kept out of sight of it as much as they could. But this hindered them; for the grass was thick and tussocky, and the ground uneven, and the trees began to draw together into thickets.

The sun had gone down red behind the hills at their backs, and evening was coming on before they came back to the road at the end f the long level over which it had run straight for some miles. At that point it bent left and went down into the lowlands of the Yale making for Stock; but a lane branched right, winding through a wood of ancient oak-trees on its way to Woodhall. ‘That is the way for us,’ said Frodo.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.