Missed It

Back in 1998 season, the Princeton men's lacrosse team defeated Harvard 15-7 up in Cambridge.

TigerBlog was there. He remembers Harvard as being the second-best team in the Ivy League at the time, and the Tigers and Crimson were the only teams unbeaten in the league prior to the game. Actually, it was the third straight year that Princeton and Harvard met as Ivy unbeatens, and Princeton won all three games fairly easily.

TigerBlog went back yesterday afternoon to reread what he wrote about the game, and he most decidedly did not remember that John Harrington scored two goals until he saw it in his recap. Harrington was a defenseman, and having two goals in one game is pretty extraordinary for a defenseman.

TB does remember that David Morrow did it in the 1992 NCAA semifinal win over North Carolina. He doesn't even have to look that one up.

Why mention this game of all games from that 1998 season? After all, Princeton would go on to win the NCAA championship, its fifth of six and third straight. No school has matched that accomplishment since.

Well, TigerBlog forgot one small detail from his postgame story.

The win was Bill Tierney's 116th at Princeton, which set the program record for coaching victories. Ferris Thomsen had won 115 from 1951-70.

It never dawned on TB that Tierney was getting close to the record or that he should check on it. In fact, it wasn't until a few years later that TB actually noticed that he'd missed it.

Things like 1,000 points or 1,000 yards are hard to miss. Other records? They can slip through the cracks.

TigerBlog keeps a running total of men's lacrosse records, so he could see how Mike MacDonald made his move to the top of the single-season scoring list all season. Other records are far less obvious, like how Kip Orban broke the record for goals by a middie.

Then there's the weird stuff that is harder to research. MacDonald had a game of seven goals and another of six assists. How many others in the program's history had ever done that before? Turns it nobody else ever had.

The Phillies lost 1-0 the other night to the Rays in the Major League debut of Aaron Nola. The only run of the night came on a home run by Rays' pitcher Nathan Karns.

TigerBlog heard yesterday morning that the last time a Major League game ended 1-0 and the only run was scored on a home run by the pitcher was in 1962.

How in the world are things like that so easily researched? What is the database, a huge compilation of every possible scenario in the world? TigerBlog understands that it's a little more sophisticated than going down to E level storage in Jadwin and hoping to find the information there somewhere.

But still, how is all of this stuff so easily available?

Here's another thing TB almost missed - last Nov. 22 was the 150th anniversary of Princeton Athletics. The first event was Nov. 22, 1864, a baseball game against Williams.

TB isn't sure why he was even looking in the baseball record book in the first place, but that's where he noticed the first game. Then he added it up about 50 times to make sure he had it right.

TB sometimes wonders how many records get overlooked. Maybe not records, but achievements, statistical anomalies that have never happened before. Like the last time a game ended 1-0 with a home run from the pitcher.

He thought of all this because he missed something else. Tuesday - two days ago - was the exact midway point of what is essentially summer break around here.

The 2014-15 athletic year ended with the NCAA track and field championships on June 10. The first event of 2015-16 is on Aug. 28.

Doing the math, the midway part was Tuesday.

What does this tell us? Well, it's still July. It's still awhile before any athletes come back for fall practices.

It's still summer.

Yes, TB said the same thing yesterday about the coming of football season. But hey, the rest of it will be here in a blink.

That women's soccer game that starts the 2015-16 season is five weeks from tomorrow. Yikes.

Enjoy the rest of the summer while you can. But don't panic. There's still plenty of it left.