15 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 15 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 Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.

For well over a year mankind waited more or less patiently for another sign of the Ramans’ presence in the universe. Intense telescopic investigations were conducted at all wavelengths to see if any additional information associated with the retreating alien spaceship could be identified. Nothing was found. The heavens were quiet. The Ramans were departing as swiftly and inexplicably as they had arrived.

Once Excalibur was operational and its initial search of the heavens turned p nothing new, there was a noticeable change in the collective human attitude toward that first contact with Rama. Overnight the encounter became a historical event, something that had happened and was now completed. The tenor of newspapers and magazine articles that had earlier begun with phrases like “when the Ramans return…” changed to “if there is ever another encounter with the creatures who built the huge spaceship discovered in 2130…” What had been a perceived threat, a lien in a sense on future human behavior, was quickly reduced to a historical curiosity. There was no longer an urgency to deal with such fundamental issues as the return of the Ramans or the destiny of the human race in a universe peopled by intelligent creatures. Mankind relaxed, at least for a moment. Then it exploded in a paroxysm of narcissistic behavior that made all previous historical periods of individual selfishness pale by comparison.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.