105 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 105 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 from Distant Replay by Jerry Kramer and Dick Schaap. Kramer is remembering a trip to the Louisiana swamps with Urban Henry.

The next gator we spotted had eyes the size of quarters, about six inches apart. We turned off the motor again, and as we drifted beside it, Urban did a dead fall into the water, grabbed the gator--about a six footer--and began thrashing around till he had it pinned, under control. Then he just let it go.

He caught two or more three more that way before we saw a pair of eyes the size of silver dollars, maybe ten or twelve inches apart. "Let's head toward him," Urban said, and I said, "No, you silly son of a bitch," but he got himself all set to jump. Then, about fifty feet away from this gator, a real grandaddy, Urban fell into the water, pretending he was trying to catch it. As he climbed back into the boat, he snapped his fingers and said, "Doggone, I missed him."

Put today's entry into a baseball context.