Blake, Bugs And A Busy Weekend

Yesterday was Take Your Kids To Work Day.

TigerBlog is pretty sure this began as Take Your Daughter To Work Day, as an effort to introduce girls to jobs that might previously have been though of as male-only. Since then, it has expanded to include boys and girls.

Princeton Athletics, under the direction of Kim Meszaros, has always had a nice program for the kids of department staff. Yesterday was no different.

Blake Borders was here yesterday. He's the son of Andrew Borders, TigerBlog's colleague in the Office of Athletic Communications.

Blake isn't quite two yet, so he's a little young for the activities that Kim puts together. Blake did like the pizza and chocolate chip cookies.

Maddie Sachson was there too. She's seven or eight or so. Yesterday was right in her wheelhouse.

Her dad Craig is another OAC colleague. Maddie played squash and ran track and went swimming and ate and did a whole bunch of things that left Craig almost completed sweated through his shirt.

As for Blake, he mostly hung out with his dad, and Warren Croxton, Andrew's office mate. At one point yesterday, TigerBlog poked his head in to see how Blake was, and he saw that Blake was watching some contemporary cartoon on a computer. TigerBlog didn't know what it was, though he knows his kids never saw it when they were younger.

Put on Bugs Bunny, TigerBlog suggested. So Andrew did.

And clearly Blake liked it. Bugs was having some fun with Elmer Fudd. What's not to like? Blake laughed. So did TigerBlog.

If nothing else came out of Take Your Kid To Work Day, Blake met Bugs Bunny. Imagine how hard Blake would have laughed if he'd been watching "Bugs and Thugs" or "Racketeer Rabbit," Bugs' two best performances.

TigerBlog could watch Bugs all day long. You know what he can't watch?

The NFL draft. He doesn't understand the fascination with it. For every 20 players selected, the average fan has not heard of 19 or more. Plus, the odds of finding a good player in the first round is about the same as finding one in the fourth round.

TigerBlog's only interest is whether or not Seth DeValve is drafted. Like the overwhelming majority of the American sporting pubic, TigerBlog is more interested in Ivy League baseball and softball this weekend than he is the NFL draft.

The threat of rain Sunday in Princeton has changed the schedule. Princeton is now at Cornell today in both baseball and softball and home in both tomorrow.

The baseball team enters the weekend one game up on Penn in the Gehrig Division. The Quakers have four with Columbia.

As TB has said earlier this week, it's still possible for all eight Ivy baseball teams to finish 10-10, but that is unlikely. TB isn't sure what the tiebreakers there would be, but it would be fascinating.

Because everyone can get to 10-10, nobody is eliminated yet. That could change today, when one win by Princeton and Penn would eliminate Cornell and Columbia. In fact, one Princeton win means there could no longer be a four- or even three-way tie in the Gehrig Division.

Clearly, every game matters this weekend. Princeton wins the division outright by sweeping, something no other team can say. So that's a start.

On the softball side, Princeton is three games up on Penn, giving the softball team a lot more margin for error than the baseball team. On the other hand, nothing is in the bank yet.

The softball team will win the South Division title with any combination of wins or Penn losses that adds up to two. Unlike the baseball team, though, the softball team cannot host the Ivy League Championship Series, which will be played at either Dartmouth or Harvard.

The baseball playoff could be at the Gehrig or Rolfe Division winner. Obviously the baseball picture is quite muddled.

The women's lacrosse tournament can be at Princeton, Penn or Cornell, depending on this weekend.

Simply put, a Penn win over Cornell and Penn hosts. A Princeton win over Brown means the Tigers get a share of the Ivy title, but the Tigers cannot win the championship outright. The winner of Cornell-Penn is assured at least a share of the championship. A Princeton win over Brown and a Cornell win over Penn means Princeton hosts. A Cornell win and Princeton loss means Cornell hosts.

Okay, maybe it wasn't so simple.

The women's water polo team is at the CWPA tournament at Harvard this weekend, chasing the league's bid to the NCAA tournament. The Penn Relays continue today and tomorrow. There's a lot of home rowing this weekend.

Oh, and there's also the 79th meeting between Princeton and Cornell in men's lacrosse. TigerBlog's contention is that Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse ranks third all-time in Ivy League rivalries, behind Princeton-Penn men's basketball and Harvard-Yale football.

That game is tomorrow at noon. You can see it on ESPNU.

It makes for better television than the NFL draft, but maybe not as good as Bugs Bunny.

And that's your weekend in Princeton Athletics. It's a busy one, with some big outcomes on the line.