1 Day to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is tomorrow. This off-season, the countdown was based on books. Each day between October 14 (when there were 172 days until Opening Day 2008) and today, I picked a random book out of my library and excerpted a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I did not to repeat a book during the countdown. I also didn’t have to dip into some of the paperbacks based on old Dr. Who episodes. Boy, I’m glad that I didn’t have to admit that I still have a copy of Dr. Who and the Deadly Assassin somewhere in my bookcase. That would have been embarrassing……

…….

…….

Today’s book is 36 Former Stars Recall The Game I’ll Never Forget as told to George Vass. The excerpt is from what should be numbered page one, part of the introduction to the book by Vass……Look, I just made an admission that I’d like to take back. I can number the page however the heck I want. It’s the last day, for crying out loud.

While even at a tender age I appreciated being able to follow the events of World War II as reported by the newspaper’s wide-flung Foreign News Service, I was even more intrigued by the sports pages, which featured such writing luminaries as columnist John P. Carmichael and sports editor Lloyd Lewis, the latter of whom was also a noted Civil War historian.

One of the most memorable features of the sports section was an extended series of first-person, as-told-to stories called “My Greatest Day in Baseball.” The vast majority of them were written by Carmichael, who had an exceptional talent for relating anecdotes, as well as enabling the subjects of his interviews to tell their stories in their own way, in their individual accents, so to speak.

In that wonderful series, he and several other contributors, including Lewis, served as “conduits” to enable such great old-time players as Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Clark Griffith, Tris Speaker, and dozens of others to relate in their own words their most memorable games and on-the-field experiences. Eventually, these stories were published in book form in a collection that has been reprinted several times.

The series “My Greatest Day in Baseball” was a thrilling education in the game’s history from the turn of the century into the early 1940’s. It was a virtual seminar, a series of stimulating lectures in newsprint as delivered by those who played major roles in some of the games most dramatic moments. Their highly personal accounts – which happily often included emotional reactions – of some of baseball’s most notable incidents made fascinating reading, often far surpassing in vivid style and detail the objective and relatively dry accounts of the sportswriters who perforce had to look on as outsiders at the events unfolding before them.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

3 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 3 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 Grand Old Game: 365 Days of Baseball by Joseph Wallace. There are some great baseball pictures in this book…Well, nothing for February 29, but it isn’t called 366 Days of Baseball. No picture in the excerpt, that would have been lazy….HA!....Instead, here is the part of the Preface by the author.

My collections are long gone, but I’m still lucky enough to have the chance to experience the pleasures of hunting for treasure. Today I search for good stories t use in the books I write, facts about baseball and other subjects that will make readers laugh or shake their heads or think about things in a slightly different way. When I come upon a detail new to me in an old newspaper, long-out-of-print book, or conversation, I get the same quiet thrill I felt when I found a newt or a Nolan Ryan rookie card.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

4 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 4 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 Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathon Eig. This is a quick sketch of the parents of the Iron Horse.

Heinrich left Germany at the age of twenty. He may have emigrated illegally, since there appear to be no records of his journey in either Germany or the United States. He settled first in Chicago, didn’t like his prospects there, and soon tried New York. Long after most men his age had married, Heinrich remained single. No doubt his pokey work habits made him something short of a prize catch. He had no known family in the United States and probably lived alone, renting a bed or sofa from a family that needed whatever pittance he could afford to pay. In 1901, at the age of thirty-four, he finally met the woman he would marry.

Anna Christina Fack was born in 1882 in Schleswig-Holstein, a German province near the Danish border. When Christina was one year old, her mother died after delivering a stillborn son. Her father, a carpenter, quickly remarried. It’s not clear whether Christina continued to live with her father’s new family or moved in with her grandparents. She grew into a tall, sturdy woman, with powerful hands and forearms, like her father, and no waist whatsoever. Her hair was curly and blond, but there was nothing cute or girlish about her. As soon as she was old enough, she began working as a servant around Schleswig-Holstein, saving her money and plotting her escape.

She left home in May 1900, five months after her eighteenth birthday, sailing from Hamburg to New York in third-class steerage on a ship called the Pennsylvania. She had no friends or relatives waiting for her in the United States, no job and no place to live. As she stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, she told the clerk recording her arrival that she had twenty-five dollars to her name. She may well have been lying. Immigrants often exaggerated their wealth for fear of being turned away, and twenty-five dollars was a considerable sum for a new arrival traveling in third-class steerage.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

5 Days until Opening Day

seat

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 5 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 Robin Waterfield translation of The Histories by Herodotus.

Croesus was Lydian by birth. He was the son of Alyattes and ruled over all the various peoples who live west of the River Halys, which flows from the south (between where the Syrians and the Paphlagonians live) and in the north issues into the sea which is known as the Euxine Sea. Croesus was the first non-Greek we know to have subjected the Greeks to the payment of tribute., though he made alliances with some of them. The ones he made his tributaries were the Ionians, Aeolians, and the Asian Dorians, while he allied himself with the Lacedaemonians. Before Coresus' reign all Greeks were free; the Cimmerian expedition which reached Ionia before Croesus' time was a raiding party, intent on pillage, and not a conquest of the communities there.

Put today's excerpt in a baseball context.

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.

7 Days Until Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 7 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 Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz. This excerpt is a letter written by a fan of the strip to Jean Schulz after the death of the creator of good ol' Charlie Brown.

"I remember [as a child] often being consumed by feelings of profound anxiety and unrest, and yet as soon as I could come home to read my Peanuts books, I was peacful, even happy."

"When I was about 11 years old I had to go into the hospital and I was very scared. My mother had to leave me after visiting hours, but my stuffed Snoopy didn't. I held it all night long."

"I often identified with Charlie Brown's feelings of inadequacy, of not fitting in anywhere. And my favorite character was Linus, who was sensible but had an almost magical sense of the power of his innocence and imagination."

"Charlie Brown and the gang were a solace and a balm to my soul. I always wanted to tell this to Mr. Schulz. So now, I tell you."

Sparky [Charles Schulz's nickname] once said, "I would be satisfied if they wrote on my tombstone 'He made people happy.'"

He did that, and so much more.

Put today's excerpt in a baseball context.

8 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 8 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 Back to Corregidor: America Retakes the Rock by Gerard M. Devlin. This is from the first chapter, Origins of Fortress Corregidor.

The typical duty day for members of the Corregidor garrison was both long and rigorous. It began with a 5:30am reveille formation, followed by one hour of brisk calisthenics. After breakfast, the troops drew rifles from the arms rooms to participate in an hour-long series of boring marching drills, which all military leaders of that time felt would instill a sense of discipline in their soldiers. From the drill fields, the troops marched their respective gun emplacements. There they spent the remainder of the day going through repetitious mock firing drills using dummy shells as large and cumbersome as the real ones, and relaying the guns under the watchful eyes of strict sergeants. Officially, the duty day ended at 5:00pm with the bugle calls and pounding drums of formal retreat ceremonies as the troops stood at attention on the parade field, saluting their flag as it was slowly lowered. Unofficially, the day did not end then, for the artillery pieces had to be cleaned and there were dozens of sentinel posts that had to be manned throughout the long tropical nights.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

9 days until Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 9 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 Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.

Several years ago I realized I had let my body dissolve into flab. I had worked so hard for so many years that I had abandoned the care of my physical condition. The first step to getting into shape was to identify the obstacles to getting there. What would stop me from getting into shape? Once I understood those obstacles, I began a process to lose weight, grow muscle, and become more fit. Your Total Money Makeover is the same. You need to realize there's a problem, but you must also see what could hinder your move toward financial fitness.

Put today's excerpt in a baseball context.

10 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 10 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 2002 Baseball America Prospect Handbook. Page 10 is Allan Simpson's Top 50 Prospects. Here are his top ten prospects in all of minor league baseball heading into the 2002 season. See anyone you might recognize?

1.) Josh Beckett, rhp, Marlins
2.) Mark Prior, rhp, Cubs
3.) Sean Burroughs, 3b, Padres
4.) Hank Blalock, 3B, Rangers
5.) Wilson Betemit, ss, Braves
6.) Ryan Anderson, lhp, Mariners
7.) Juan Cruz, rhp, Cubs
8.) Josh Hamilton, of, Devil Rays
9.) Mark Teixeira, 3b, Rangers
10.) Carlos Pena, 1b, Athletics

Put today's excerpt in a baseball context.

11 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 11 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 Oxford History of Christian Worship. Page 11 of this book has a painting by Rembrandt that seems fitting for the day.

The Supper at Emmaus. On the First Easter Sunday the risen but unrecognized Lord expounded to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus the things in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning himself as the Christ, and then he "made himself known to them in in the breaking of the bread".

12 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 12 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 T.H. White’s The Once & Future King. This is a part with King Arthur as a young man, Wart, and the English countryside as the place of legend.

There were magicians in the forest also in those legendary days, as well as strange animals not known to modern works of natural history. There were regular bands of Saxon outlaws – not like Wat – who lived together and wore green and shot with arrows which never missed. There were even a few dragons, though these were small ones, which lived under stones and could hiss like a kettle.

Added to this, there was the fact that it was getting dark. The forest was trackless and nobody in the village knew what was on the other side. The evening hush had fallen, and the high trees stood looking at the Wart without a sound.

He felt that it would be safer to go home, while he still knew where he was – but he had a stout heart, and did not want to give in.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

13 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 13 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 Sharpe’s Regiment by Bernard Cornwell.

‘We beat the buggers, sir.’ Hagman, like Sharpe, was a Rifleman; one of a company who, like flotsam in this ocean of war, had ended up in the red-jacketed ranks of the South Essex. Yet, out of cussedness and pride, they still wore their green jackets. They were Riflemen. They were the best. ‘We always beat the buggers, sir.’

‘Yes.’ Sharpe smiled and the sardonic, mocking look that his face wore because of the scar on his left cheek suddenly disappeared. ‘We beat the bastards, Dan.’ They had, too. The South Essex, a Battalion under half its full strength, worn down by war the way a bayonet is thinned by use and sharpening, had beaten the bastards. Sharpe thought of Leroy, the American who had been the Battalion’s commanding officer. Leroy would have been proud of them today.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

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.

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.

16 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 16 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 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

Oliver had not been within the walls of the w0rkhouse a quarter of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old woman, returned; and, telling him it was board night, informed him that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith.

Not having a clearly defined notion of what a live board was, Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively: and bidding him follow, conducted him into a large white-washed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table. At the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

17 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 17 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 Rogue Warrior: Green Team by Richard Marcinko and John Weisman.

So the supreme CINC gave us his blessing, although he refused to sign a national-security finding in the matter. Well, I could see his point. It’s not the kind of mission where you want to leave a paper trail. In fact, the political aspects of this assignment were lose/lose, so far as SNO and I were concerned. If I screwed up, the White House would jettison CNO – maybe even court martial him. If I succeeded, only CNO and the president would know what I’d done. There were no medals in this for me or my men, only the knowledge that we were doing what we were born to do, for the country we loved so much.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.

18 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 18 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 Ty and The Babe by Tom Stanton. The book is about Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and a golf competition between the two in 1941. This part is from the first induction ceremonies at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Cobb has just arrived after purposefully missing the photograph below.

Cobb’s eyes welled with tears as he hugged a bony Connie Mack. Despite his reputation, which would grow more severe after his death, Cobb was admired by most of the men on the platform. Lajoie referred to him as “the cream of the crop.” Wagner praised him, too. Walter Johnson and he had played poker with presidents. Collins and Speaker had hunted with him. Even Babe had shared drinks and meals with Ty.

When he spotted Cobb, Ruth offered his hand. “Hello, rookie,” he said as they shook.

Later, at Doubleday Field before the all-star scrimmage, Cobb paid a price in humility for not having been formally introduced from the induction stage: Many failed to recognize him. It took convincing before the ticket taker would let him into the park, and then the New York Giants groundskeeper Henry Fabian, a once-familiar acquaintance, responded with indifference when Cobb called his name.

“You don’t know who I am, do you, Henry?” asked Cobb.

“No, I don’t.”

Moe Berg was stunned. He turned to Jimmy Cobb. “I’ll bet that’s the first time your dad ever had to introduce himself to anybody,” Berg said.

“No, it isn’t,” responded Jimmy, who was not phased by the unintentional slight. Jimmy had missed his dad’s glory days. He knew his father best not as a baseball star but as a former star. And while the name “Ty Cobb” remained celebrated, the face that went with it was much less familiar. Cobb’s appearance had never lent itself to memorable caricature. But Ruth’s features – bulbous nose, rounded cheeks, plump lips – certainly had. Cartoonists and writers seemed in constant competition to trump each other with their depictions of Ruth. (One reporter covering the induction described Ruth as “a weather-beaten, spade-nosed gargoyle with a crescent-moon grin.”)

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.


Back row left to right: Honus Wagner, Pete Alexander, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajois, George Sisler, and Walter Johnson.

Front row left to right: Eddie Collins, Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, and Cy Young.

19 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 19 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 Last Command by Timothy Zahn. This is the third in the cycle of Star Wars books by Zahn that deals with the immediate aftermath of The Return of the Jedi. The excerpt is a little Star Wars travelogue of the Old Republic.

It was called the Calius saj Leeloo, the City of Glowing Crystal of Berchest, and it had been one of the most spectacular wonders of the galaxy since the earliest days of the Old Republic. The entire city was nothing more or less than a single gigantic crystal, created over the eons by saltile spray from the dark red-orange waters of the Leefari Sea that roiled up against the low bluff upon which it rested. The original city had been painstakingly sculpted from the crystal over decades by local Berchestian artisans, whose descendants continued to guide and nuture its growth.

At the height of the Old Republic Calius had been a major tourist attraction, its populace making a comfortable living from the millions of beings who flocked to the stunning beauty of the city and its surroundings. But the chaos of the Clone Wars and the subsequent rise of the Empire had taken a severe toll on such idle amusements, and Calius had been forced to turn to other means for its support.

Fortunately, the tourist trade had left a legacy of well-established trade routes between Berchest and most of the galaxy’s major systems. The obvious solution was for the Berchestians to promote Calius as a trade center; and while the city was hardly to the level yet of Svivren or Ketaris, they had achieved a modest degree of success.

The only problem was that it was a trade center on the Imperial side of the line.

A squad of stormtroopers strode down the crowded street, their white armor taking on a colored tinge from the angular red-orange buildings around them. Taking a long step out of their way, Luke Skywalker pulled his hood a bit closer around his face. He could sense no particular alertness from the squad, but this deep into Imperial space there was no reason to take chances.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.