14 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 14 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 DiMaggio: The Last American Knight by Joseph Durso. Where would you shoot a commercial for a New York bank if you had the Yankee Clipper as your spokesman?

It didn’t take much shrewdness to pick the venue for the first commercial. It was shot at Yankee Stadium with DiMaggio hitting a few flies to get the investors in the audience in the mood. Somebody had to pitch to him, naturally, and for a while the brothers of the brain trust entertained the illusion that they might carry their advertising coup into another dimension by casting themselves at the batting-practice pitchers fro Joe D. himself.

“Spero had pitched in college, at Northwestern,” Pierson said, “and he had visions of making a fool of himself. Actually, he was torn between two visions: He also could imagine that he was reaching back and firing his best heater past a helpless DiMaggio.”

“Joe was fifty-seven at the time, and he was unbelievable. He was knocked line drives all over the place with fabulous grace. Later, I saw him in the locker room and I wished that I had his muscle tone.”

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.