White Out

The nervousness began to appear at about, oh, 7:30 or so, when TigerBlog realized that the trick-or-treaters were coming in larger than normal numbers and he was running out of candy.

He had visions of having to turn all the lights out and hide in the dark, like he did the one time he did run out of candy, back when he lived in South Trenton.

Trick-or-treaters are so hard to predict. Some years, almost nobody shows up. This yer, it was a record turnout.

They came in all kinds of costumes, or no costumes at all. They were little kids and teenagers, way more than TB usually sees.

In the end, he had enough candy to make it through, and he didn't come quite as close to running out as, say, George Bailey did in "Its A Wonderful Life."

And the candy issue wouldn't have been as big had it not been for the fact that TB, in the beginning at least, was pushing the Almond Joys on the kids while helping himself to the Kit Kats and Peanut Butter Cups.

The chocolate didn't make TigerBlog sick.

CC Sabathia did, though.

In case you didn't hear, Sabathia used his opt-out clause to earn (extort?) a new contract extension from the Yankees, which means he now starts a five-year, $122 million deal with the team that is operating in its own economic stratosphere and therefore can afford to do what it just did.

Hey, more power to the Yanks and to Sabathia. They're playing within the rules, right?

What made TB sick was Sabathia's comment that it was "never about the money." Please. Never about the money? It was all about the freaking money. That's all it ever was about, all it ever is about.

In his case, he had four years and $92 million owed to him had he done nothing. Were it not about the money, then he would simply have gone about his business.

Because he sensed that the time was right, Sabathia used his leverage to get an extra year and another $30 million. Great. That's what America is supposed to be about.

But can we one time have someone be honest about it? Never about the money? Hah, what a fraud.

TigerBlog would have respected him if he said "I always wanted to stay with the Yankees and I'm glad we were able to work it out so I can" and left it at that.

Never about the money? When there are so many people out there these days who don't have two nickels?

Almost as annoying as Sabathia is the lingering presence of snow on the ground, even as temperatures climb through the 50s (to reach the 60s for the foreseeable future).

As someone told TB, this was the first four-day stretch in memory that included moving the lawn, raking leaves and shoveling snow.

One thing the snow did was give all eight Ivy League football teams some pretty good pictures. Each website has a shot the field and players covered in snow.

Columbia-Yale actually made it onto SportsCenter with its snow footage.

There's nothing like playing football in the snow. From the time kids are little, they love to be out in the snow, and, not to offend any of the women out there, boys love to play football in the snow.

NFL games that are played in horrible snowy conditions often get the best ratings, as people love to watch whited-out fields and players who are battling the elements. That's why TV schedules so many late-season outdoor night games in cities with the worst weather.

For the Ivy League, though, the undeniable fact is that the snow killed attendance.

The four games combined (at Princeton, Harvard, Brown and Columbia) drew a total announced crowd of around 15,000. If one-third that number were actually in the building, it would have been a lot.

For those keeping score, Princeton has now had four home football games. The first three were played on consecutive Saturday evenings to start the season, when the weather forecast was for rain each time.

The fact that it stopped raining twice before kickoff didn't really help the situation. When you're relying so heavily on a walk-up crowd, the weather forecast is crucial.

Maybe the solution would be for Princeton to make season tickets as inexpensive as they've always been but jack up single-game ticket prices to drive people to season tickets.

Or simply to get better weather for the home games?

After all, it's not about the money.