Remembering The Rain

So Monday was Bruce Springsteen's 70th birthday.

Seventy? And still rocking like he does?

In honor of the occasion, the people at E Street Radio had a voting for the top 100 Springsteen songs. The only rule was that they had to be off of a studio album, as opposed to a live cover, which left off, among others, "Jersey Girl," "Pretty Flamingo" and "Jole Blon," all of which TB would have had in his top 20.

The countdown was played Monday, and TB caught much of it. He heard the last eight songs while he was out on his bike, and he thinks the voting was pretty accurate.

The top three were, in his own mind, not debatable, and that's how it would play out: No. 1 was "Thunder Road," No. 2 was "Born To Run" and No. 3 was "Jungleland." TB thought it might go "Born To Run" and then "Thunder Road," but those were the correct three.

If you want to see the complete list, you can click HERE.

He doesn't have too many complaints. He would have had "4th of July Asbury Park" higher than 31st and "Out In The Street" higher than 37th. He would have had "Mary's Place" way higher than 74th.

The whole thing got TB thinking about how someone like Springsteen can still have that level of energy at this stage of his life. The same applies to other musicians who have moved into their 60s and 70s.

Heck, Mick Jagger is 76 years old. Keith Richards? He's 75. And they're still touring, right?

Contrast that with athletes. The physical toll just takes too much out of them. That, and the fact that there's a finite number of spots available. You can't just keep adding players to rosters, the way you could with musical acts.

As you may be aware, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played a concert in Jadwin Gym once, back on Nov. 1, 1978. He would play seven of the top eight songs on the 70th birthday list in that concert, which was 41 years ago.

Presumably, there was no live tweeting of the concert.

A world without Twitter. Who even remembers such a thing?

As TB has said before, the best thing about Twitter is the way it can be used for in-game highlights of Princeton sporting events, of course.

And postgame celebrations too.

The short video that TB made of wide receiver Andrei Iosivas after the 49-7 win over Butler Saturday night had more than 3,000 views. The one of the team in the locker room celebrating had more than 8,000.

Those are pretty good numbers.

Up next for the Tigers is a trip Saturday to Bucknell, with a 3:30 kickoff. This will be TB's second football game ever at Bucknell, after a game in 1996 that is pretty hard to forget.

If, instead of the top Springsteen songs, you're making a list of the 100 Princeton football games played in the worst conditions, you might want to include that 1996 game. 

That game had to be the wettest football game TB has ever attended. It rained all afternoon and night on Friday and then never let up on Saturday.

TB brought his nice pants and shoes to wear to the game but instead went with jeans and sneakers. He's pretty sure he was never able to wear those sneakers again.

The field at Christy Mathewson Stadium was all mud, which made any attempt at offense difficult. In fact, the teams would combine for 205 yards of offense, or less than half of what Princeton put up against Butler in the first half alone Saturday night. There would be 14 fumbles, 19 punts and no touchdown drive longer than 15 yards.

The final score would be Bucknell 10, Princeton 6.

As TB remembers it, the winning points came after a great Princeton goal line stand and then subsequent fumble and touchdown for the Bison. He remembers mostly a defensive struggle, with a lot of mud-covered uniforms.

This year's game doesn't figure to be a repeat of that. For starters, Christy Mathewson Stadium is now FieldTurf. For another, the forcast for Lewisburg for Saturday is for sunny weather and a high in the 80s.

It's too bad that there was no in-game tweeting back in 1996. People love to see football highlights in terrible weather.

Anyway, Princeton will be playing its second game when it travels to Bucknell. After that comes the Ivy League opener against Columbia, on Powers Field on Oct. 5.

This team looks like it'll be a lot of fun to watch.