40 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 40 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 One Pitch Away by Mike Sowell. The book is about baseball’s 1986 post-season. This excerpt is from the chapter on Houston Astro starter Mike Scott.

He had a good arm and a ninety-plus-mile-an-hour fastball, but he lacked consistency and a good breaking pitch. His career won-lost record was 29-44. He knew time was running out on him. He couldn’t last forever on his potential. He wasn’t going to get many more chances.

He had a wife and two young girls to support. He had to start thinking of other ways to make a living. That was why he had gotten his real-estate license in the fall. Maybe he could sell houses for a living. He also thought about selling insurance, or going back to school to complete his degree. None of his options sounded very appealing.

The phone rang. Scott answered, and on the other end of the line he recognized the voice of Al Rosen, the Houston general manager.

“I know you had a bad year, Mike,” he began, “but I want you to know you’re still our fifth starter next year. It’s your job to lose. I’m not saying you can go to spring training and get beat up and not lose the job. But don’t worry about last year.”

The words of encouragement helped. Scott had been really down, and his confidence needed a boost.

But that wasn’t the main reason Rosen called. He had something else in mind. Rosen’s friend Roger Craig, the pitching coach for the Detroit Tigers, had taught several of his pitchers a new pitch, a version of the forkball called the split-finger fastball. It had worked so well the Tigers had won a world championship. Rosen thought the pitch might work for Scott, so he had persuaded Craig to teach it to the Houston pitcher.

“What do you think?” asked Rosen. “Do you want to go out and talk to Roger?”

“Sure,” said Scott. “I’ll go out there.”

What else could he say to his boss after the kind of season he had just had? All he needed to be told was what to do, where to go and when to be there. He didn’t know anything about this new superpitch everyone in baseball was talking about, but he was ready to learn.

At this point, Scott was willing to try just about anything to save his career.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.