Strike Three

TigerBlog had no doubt that Alex Rodriguez was going to strike out when he came up with the bases loaded and one out, his team down by two in the seventh. And he had even less doubt that A-Rod would strike out to end the game, down 3-2, two out, nobody on in the ninth.

And TB was right both times.

TigerBlog is pretty sure that Rodriguez is the highest-paid player in the history of American team sports. At the very least, he is in baseball.

And yet here he was in a season-saving, game-changing moment - not once, but twice - and he failed miserably both times. And it wasn't very surprising.

Rodriguez' career will be remembered as one of huge talent, huge money and a huge history of failing in the clutch. Last night was just another example.

TigerBlog doesn't like the Yankees, simply because their blueprint for success is to outspend every other team, and by a ton. It's not debatable.

The Tigers used four starting pitchers in the series - Justin Verland, Rick Porcello, Doug Fister and Max Scherzer - who made a combined $15.5 million this year. That's one million less than A.J. Burnett of the Yankees made by himself (and $13 million of that $15.5 is Verlander's).

The two Detroit players who set the tone for the game by hitting back-to-back home runs in the first inning (Don Kelly, Delmon Young) make less than $6 million between them; seven of the nine Yankee position players last night make more by themselves.

The Yankee with the highest batting average in the series was Brett Gardner (TB is pretty sure about that). He made $529,500 this year; what must it be like for him to see his high-priced teammates come up so small?

Oh, and A-Rod made $32,000,000 this year. Maybe he could have put bat on ball in one of those two crucial situations for all that dough?

With the Yankee season now history, TigerBlog can focus his attention on the Princeton-Hampton football game.

Princeton enters the game having snapped its 10-game losing streak, and no matter what happens tomorrow in Virginia, Princeton will still be undefeated in the Ivy League when he heads to Brown next weekend.

In fact, the game at Hampton is the first of three straight on the road, followed by back-to-back rides to Brown and Harvard. Check back in three weeks, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what the 2011 football season will be like for Princeton.

Every Princeton fan TB has spoken to this week has the same two memories of the 2007 Princeton-Hampton game in Princeton seared into the brain:

1) the astonishing performance of the Hampton marching band
2) the physical toll the game had on Princeton for the rest of the season

Princeton entered the game against Hampton at 2-1 and then grabbed a 27-14 lead, only to see the Pirates come storming back for a 48-27 win.

From that point, Princeton lost four of its next five and finished the year at 4-6.

This time, Hampton comes in off a week off, and with a record of 2-2. Hampton's wins have come against Alabama A&M and Florida A&M, followed by losses to Bethune-Cookman and Old Dominion. For what it's worth, Hampton scored 23 and 21 points in its two wins and 42 and 31 points in its two losses.

Old Dominion, by the way, is 4-1, with a win over UMass and only a close loss to Delaware.

Beyond the game itself, this will be Princeton’s second game ever against a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) and third-ever by an Ivy League team, with the first Princeton-Hampton game and a 41-0 victory for Yale over Morgan State in 1984.

The amount of excitement that led to the game at Princeton hasn't been matched for a Princeton game since the 2006 Ivy League championship, and neither has the attendance - a crowd of 15,329 watched the 2007 game between the Tigers and Pirates, and it's the largest crowd at Princeton Stadium since the 2006 championship season.

This time, the game is on the road, and when Princeton's travel party rolled out yesterday afternoon, it was the first time this year that it had left town for a game.

After this weekend, there are only Ivy games remaining for the team.

This Saturday, the final non-league game of the year, is special in its own right.