Princeton vs. Princeton In The World Series

TigerBlog can't remember a sporting event in which his rooting interest was so conflicted as it was this past week.

No, he's not talking about any Princeton games. He's not even talking about the Giants-Washington game Sunday. There was a time when that would have been a huge day for TB and his mother, whose favorite athlete ever was John Riggins while TB was a huge Giants fan.

In most of the years since her death, TB was always torn for those two games each year, sort of as an homage to his mother's team. These days, though, he roots against the Giants, because they got rid of Marc Ross and Jason Garrett, and those are red lines you can't cross with TB.

The event he's talking about was Game 7 of the National League Championship Series between Arizona and Philadelphia. 

On the one hand, TB is a Phillies' fan. For one thing, his son is a huge fan of the team. And hey, TB himself was once a vendor at Veterans Stadium in a season (1983) that ended with a World Series (Baltimore defeated Philadelphia).

Then there is Tom McCarthy, the play-by-play man for the Phils. TB roots for him, and for the Reds, because of John Sadak, another former Princeton announcer-turned-MLB announcer.

Lastly, the Phillies come across as a pretty fun group. They seem to really love playing together. And before the series began, TB couldn't name anyone on the Diamondbacks.

Other than the general manager, of course. And therein was the problem.

The Arizona GM is Mike Hazen, a former Princeton baseball outfielder. How could TB possibly root against Hazen? 

He certainly had no such dilemma in the American League. He was all-in on Texas, who beat Houston in seven games — in a series in which the road team won all seven games. 

In fact, between the two series, the home team was 3-11, including 0-6 in Games 5 through 7.

Texas, as you probably know, also has a Princeton alum as a general manager, Chris Young. It also has a Princeton alum as its associate manager, Will Venable, who like Young played baseball and basketball at Princeton and was first-team All-Ivy in both.

So that sets up a Princeton vs. Princeton World Series that begins tomorrow night in Texas (did Arizona decline home field?). Interestingly, the three Tiger alums were never teammates, as Hazen graduated in 1998, a year before Young started, and Young left in 2000 to turn pro (finishing his Tiger degree on time and writing his senior thesis on buses in the Minor Leagues), while Venable first came to Princeton in 2001 (and didn't play baseball as a freshman).

Hazen was a two-time first-team All-Ivy League centerfielder, in 1997 and 1998. In fact, Hazen was the first player to play for Scott Bradley at Princeton to earn first-team All-Ivy honors, since Hazen's senior year was Bradley's first as Tiger head coach.

Hazen hit .333 for his Tiger career, which ties him for 14th-best in program history with — Venable. In fact, the two had fairly similar numbers during their time as Tigers, with better power numbers for Venable and more overall hits for Hazen.

Venable was also a 1,000-point man in basketball, which is pretty good, considering he was always considered more of a defensive stopper than scorer. TigerBlog isn't sure Venable would have made it in the NBA, but he did see Venable outplay a lot of guys who did in big games. As it turned out, Venable had a nine-year Major League career before getting into coaching.

As for Young, he would have been a 1,000-point scorer, or maybe even a 2,000-point scorer, but his basketball career ended after his sophomore year when he was drafted and signed with the Pirates. Had he chosen to stay with basketball, Young almost surely would have had a long NBA career, perhaps even as long as the 13 years he pitched in the Majors.

Young is the only Princeton pitcher in the last 50 years to have at least five decisions in a season without losing game.

And now, they're all meeting up in the World Series. As TB has written before, this is a statement on what Bradley instills in his player as much as anything else.

For whom will TB be rooting? This time it's easy.

Princeton.