Second Chances

TigerBlog wrote you 900 words for today. Then he read through it and though: "wow, this is awful."

Seriously. It was terrible. It was by far the worst blog he'd ever written.

Why is that?

Maybe the stars were not aligned. Maybe he was out of sync with his muse. Maybe he was entitled to a bad one every now and then.

Whatever the reason, it was really bad. 

It started out with animal crackers. He was eating animal crackers, and there were four different animals on the package, but there were about 10 different kinds inside the package.

From there, he talked about the word "hippopotamus," which is the second-best word a kid just learning to talk can say, just ahead of "Indianapolis" - trust TB, or try it yourself if you have a toddler - and just behind the all-time winner, "octopus."

There was one good paragraph in the original version of this. It came after he was talking about how a tree branch fell on the driveway Wednesday afternoon, landing right where Miss TigerBlog parks her car:

His first thought was that he was glad the car wasn't destroyed by the falling branch. His second thought was that his first thought should have been that he was glad that MTB wasn't in the car in the driveway when the branch fell. 

While he's on the subject of MTB's driving, her sense of direction continues to astonish him. Nobody can be that lost so many times. She has to be doing this on purpose.

There have been about five times where TB has been facing one way expecting his daughter to come down the road, only to have come from the complete opposite direction about 10 minutes later.

Anyway, he took the rest of what he wrote and did the only thing he could. He deleted it.

He didn't just delete it. Usually he continually copies and pastes into a backup document, just in case something happens to the original version. This is a lesson that he has learned the hard way, with stories through the years gone in a blink, never having been saved. Now he overdoes it.

This time, he deleted, without copying it. Then he closed out of his browser, so he couldn't hit "undo."

As an aside, it was Chuck Sullivan, once an intern in the Office of Athletic Communications and now the head of communications for the American Athletic Conference

Then he set out to write another one. This one, as it turns out.

As he did so, he was struck by a slight irony. This is, after all, a weekend for second chances.


For Princeton. And for Princeton's opponents.

Before he gets to that, TB should mention that this weekend is also about first chances, and only chances. The men's and women's track and field teams will be at Yale for the Ivy League Heptagonal championships, and the Ivy League champions will be crowned there Sunday.

Want more on the women's event? HERE.

Want more on the men's event? HERE.

As for the second chances, there are NCAA automatic bids on the line for three Princeton teams beginning today.

The one at home will be the Ivy League softball championship series, where Princeton will host Harvard. The Tigers swept Harvard during the regular season in Cambridge, but that hardly matters this time around.

Again, second chances are for Princeton's opponents too, right? 

The preview story for the series is HERE.

If you don't want to read it, TigerBlog can give you two highlights:
* Princeton is in its third Ivy League championship series and has played Harvard each time
* Princeton has won 18 Ivy League championships; Harvard is second, with six

Then there are the Ivy League lacrosse tournaments.

As second chances go, there are no shortage of storylines.

On the women's side, Princeton gets another shot at Penn, who beat Princeton 17-12 during the regular season. Should Princeton win that game, then it would possibly be Cornell's shot at a second chance at Princeton, unless Harvard would take advantage of its second chance against Cornell in the other semifinal.

Should Penn win, it would get its own second chance if Cornell wins, as Cornell beat Penn very early in the season.

If you want the basics, here's how it goes:
Princeton vs. Penn today at 4
Harvard vs. Cornell today at 7

Championship game Sunday at 11 a.m.

Oh yeah, the whole tournament is at Cornell.

As for the men, it's at Yale. It goes like this:
Princeton vs. Brown, today at 3:30
Penn vs Yale, today at 6

Championship game Sunday at noon.

So far this season, Princeton has beaten Brown and Yale has beaten Penn. Through the first seven Ivy tournaments, comprising 21 games, the team that has won the regular season game is just 10-11 in the rematch.

Anyway, that's the blog for today.

It's not the best one ever, but it's way better than the original.

Second chances sometimes make a real difference. In sports and in blogs.

TB will back next week. Hopefully the stars will align. He and his muse can get back on the same page.

Maybe he just needs a vanilla chai latte. And some animal crackers.