6 Days until Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 6 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 The Best American Sports Writing 1996 edited by John Feinstein. Feinstein's first selection is a David Davis article out of LA Weekly about boxing legend Jerry Quarry called The 13th Round. This is part of the article is about a match between Quarry and Joey "Harbor Hawk" Orbillo.

"I won the first three rounds and in the fourth round, I came out throwing some jabs: boom, boom, boom," recalls Orbillo, who now works with the International Longshoreman's Warehouse Union in the Long Beach/San Pedro Aarea. "And the next thing I know, I'm in a bowling alley at three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, 'Who won the fight?' My friends picked me up, took me into the bathroom and said, 'Look at yourself. Think who won the fight.' That Jerry Quarry. Man, he was a hard hitter."

Put today's excerpt in a baseball context.