Prince+Ton

When TigerBlog was a sophomore in college, he got a terrible number in the room draw.

You know. The lottery that lets you select your housing for the following year. TigerBlog's number was awful.

His freshman year roommate was the perfect roommate. He and TB weren't quite friends, but they co-existed perfectly. Never an argument. Never a problem.

Back then, his roommate was certain he wanted to be a doctor. Today, he is Dr. Seth Rubin, an ob-gyn who practices about a half hour from Princeton. TigerBlog hasn't seen or talked to him in decades.

Still, they were good freshman roommates. As a sophomore, TB thinks, Seth went to live in a fraternity house. TB wanted to get a good single, but his number was bad, so most of the good rooms were gone.

With few choices left, he randomly selected a room in the lower part of the Quad. If you've ever been to Penn's campus, the Quad is the enormous series of dorms that stretch up Spruce Street from about 35th to 39th. It is 512,512 square feet of dorm space.

TigerBlog ended up in one of the forgotten parts of the structure. Ah, but as it turned out, he also lucked out a bit.

The room he randomly chose was in a section of a dorm that was being renovated, and so what should have been a floor with eight rooms instead only had two. It was TigerBlog and one other person, a guy from Minnesota. He and TB had a whole floor to themselves for a year, including a bathroom built for eight.

Anyway, the guy from Minnesota, whose name TB cannot for the life of him remember (Phil, he thinks), was a huge fan of two musical acts: Husker Du and Prince.

TigerBlog had never heard of either. Phil (let's call him that) was a huge fan of both.

Shortly after that Prince began to make it big. As you know, he became a mega-star and had a long career, before he passed away last week at the age of 57.

Despite Phil's efforts, TigerBlog never became a huge Prince fan. He liked some of his songs - "Little Red Corvette," "1999" and "Raspberry Beret" especially.

Prince? He was okay. Not the worse. Far from the best.

He didn't make TB cringe, but TB never wanted to go see him in concert. And what was with the whole "artist formerly known as" thing?

That doesn't mean that TB wasn't surprised to hear of Prince's death, which is obviously a shame. He senses wherever he is and whatever his name actually is, Phil took it harder than TB.

Oh, and TigerBlog definitely never got into Husker Du.

One thing TB thought of with the news of Prince's death was the presence of all of those bumper stickers that people have around here, with Prince's picture and then the word "Ton." You know. Prince+Ton.

 This was a good weekend for the softball team from Prince+Ton.

The Tigers took three of four from Columbia, which kept them three games in front of Penn in the Ivy League's South Division. The North Division got a little tighter, as Dartmouth's runaway instead has become a one-game lead over Harvard.

The Ivy League championship series will be either Princeton or Penn at either Dartmouth or Harvard. Brown, Yale, Cornell and Columbia have been mathematically eliminated.

The North winner will definitely host the ILCS. Dartmouth is 14-2, followed by 13-3 Harvard. Those teams play four times this coming weekend. The math is obvious.

The South winner will be either Princeton or Penn. Princeton has four to go against Cornell (two at Cornell Saturday, two home against Cornell Sunday), while Penn is home against Columbia Saturday and at Columbia Sunday in its final four games.

The Quakers would have to make up three games on Princeton to force a one-game playoff and four to win outright. In other words, Princeton's magic number is two - it needs a combination of wins or Penn losses that adds up to two.

On the baseball side, it wasn't as good as weekend for Prince+Ton, but the John Thompson rule does apply. You remember the rule? As long as you're in first place when the weekend ends, you're fine.

Princeton is in first place in the Rolfe Division, with one weekend to go. The Tigers dropped three of four to Columbia, though, so they will take a one-game lead over Penn into its four games against Cornell.

Unlike softball, Princeton will play at Cornell Friday, not Saturday. The rest of the weekend is the same as in softball.

By the way, if the final weekend of Ivy League baseball goes like this:
Brown sweeps Yale
Harvard and Dartmouth split
Princeton gets swept by Cornell
Columbia takes three of four from Penn

... then all eight Ivy League baseball teams will be 10-10.

Will it happen? Unlikely. But it's a cool note.

Princeton and Yale are both 10-6. Princeton was swept by Yale, so the Tigers could only host the ILCS by finishing with a better record than the Bulldogs.

Of course, Princeton needs to finish with a better record than Penn, Columbia and Cornell before it can worry about the championship series.

Still, it's makes for a pretty exciting end of the leagues season.

So that's Ivy baseball and softball.

As for Prince, rest in peace. You left behind a long legacy of original music and millions of fans, even if TigerBlog wasn't one of them.