And here we are little over a year later, sitting in the same general area in The Downtowner Lounge, celebrating that Next One – albeit for a short amount of time, thanks to numerous great souls that have helped us/me understand & appreciate the value of the opportunity we have earned – our second successive perfect season.

The festivities in 2009 lasted about six hours and the following week saw us look for replacements – to fill in the void to be left later on by some good [and really smart & committed as well, to say the least] players [Leslie, Russ, and so on] to graduation.

While we didn’t want to care any less about the rumors prevailing in the community that our team is/was stacked with good players and that it was a fluke that we won the championship and that our success in championship games was only 50% [the only non-rumor] and so on, it was [and still is] hard to ignore such preposterous remarks. There are few things in life that come close to matching the feeling of proving your detractors wrong, to do something that someone [or no one] thought you could do or didn’t give you the deserved credit for doing what you did. And it was 15th October 2009, about SIX months before the tentative start of 2010 season, that some of the core members of this wonderful team started our off-season work outs, almost in a religious fashion. Regiment [as in its usage as a verb] included runs, weights and attempts to be smarter, patient & mature about things that needed to be done on the field in clutch situations.

With weather being unseasonably warm by middle of March of 2010 and much of snow having disappeared, we hit the fields for early practice sessions. Many countless hours of practice and organized team activity over next 20 some weeks or so brought us – with several new faces – closer and made us better, a lot better – to understand and appreciate what each one brought to the table and come up with a plan to best utilize those resources to win games, one at a time. Just like last season, I could write about what we did right and we did wrong in each of the 15 games but it would sound more like a broken record – as such, I will just tabulate the results and talk about reasons later.

We are the first ones to concede – concede the fact that not everything we did was perfect and there is plenty of room for improvement. But we did put up the best offense and best defense – with a league high of 251 (-27 compared to 2009) runs scored and allowing only 60 (+13 compared to 2009), for a league’s best run differential of +191 (-14 compared to 2009). More importantly, most of us had fun [it might not have seemed like it but trust me, fun is a very relative/subjective entity], we got better as an individual & as a team, and even more importantly, most of the teams we played seemed to have fun too. And while there are many smaller reasons behind our success, the most notable ones have remained the same as in 2009 and many a years before. It’s noteworthy to mention that continuing to stick with/use Lagrangian / Hamiltonian Mechanics has continued to yield (very) rich dividends.

While it’s not the first time that someone initiated the smack talk against this very proud team, we respect three of the four that did so, including the one that we played when all the marbles were at stake – for they showed up to defend their words by being physically present at the game and as such, shall remain nameless. However, there was one that does need a specific mention:

Not In Picture: Dr. Robert Weidman, Kelsey Cox, Laura Hess

While there are teams [calling them a team, in the true sense of the word, is an atrocity in itself] and some individuals [local and non-local] have had [and will continue to have] issues with the success of our team [see one such assault via facebook below], we have very strong reasons to believe that the league is better off because we are a part of it. Like a team-mate phrased it effortlessly in so few words, the rising tides lifts all ships; for now, we are the big ship. And when a team that does come along to beat us fair and square, trust me, we will be happy for them – albeit a momentary disappointment.

We take a lot of pride in the way we build in our team, train the players that have never played the game before [yours-truly was one of them, eight years ago] or haven’t played in quite a while, practice at least once a week, learn the rules and regulations and follow them religiously so that we keep the game safe for everyone involved, not be the first one to initiate any kind of smack talk against any team, be humble in victory and graceful in defeat [while it might not seem so from reading this post], get better and smarter with each week/season, put in an enviable performance week in & week out and year in & year out. As a by-product of all this, we are insanely proud of our 86-7-1 record over the last seven years. There is no magic to what we do &/or achieve as a team but there sure as hell is plenty of hard work, dedication and sacrifice by everyone involved.

I believe what we do is a microcosm of progress and of what causes progress; to be not wanting to be better tomorrow than what we are today, to settle for something good instead of pursuing greatness, to hope that the competition gets lower so that we can look better and not having the ability to generalize this to almost every other aspect of our lives … is, according to us, a crime against ourselves, and making a mockery of all the wonderful opportunities that life has sent our way.

Along with being just good enough is not good enough (a Lake Superior Walk realization) and failing to plan is planning to fail (a friendly advice from undergraduate days), [settling for] good is the enemy of great is as invaluable a lesson as I have ever learned in my life – thanks to a book that a dear friend, Ian Marks, graciously let me borrow over Christmas 2009 break and it has come to be, sort of, mission statement / guiding light of our team & lives. I’m pretty sure that the double play opportunities we missed in the championship game — 6-4-3 and 4-6-3, with latter having had the more serious impact had the game been closer — will haunt us [our Short Stop and yours truly] for times to come, at least until we get another opportunity to get it right. And just to remind ourselves of the consequences of missing out on opportunities, we imposed on ourselves an eight mile run as a moderate punishment. And just like 2009, the festivities lasted about six hours or less and we are on the look out for replacements players to fill in the void that will be left by some good [and really smart & committed as well, to say the least] players [Josh Carlson, Eric Winder and so on] to graduation.

Thus begins an earnest & humble attempt to be better tomorrow, as an individual and as a team, than we are today.

As is common, our first reaction to this grief was shock [& denial] – we couldn’t believe that we had lost both games with very uncharacteristic all round performance, given how good we thought we were. Shock, being the natural anesthesia, did its part in protecting most of us from immediate pain [with some help from breweries & bars downtown]. But no sooner did shock and anger subside began a long and difficult period of pain and mourning – discussions often revolving around would have, could have and should haves. Pain showed no signs of relief as we heard the news about what our team’s pitcher and dear friend started going through. Returning a majority of the team from its 2009 edition, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to claim that the grief and the pain that life had sent our way brought us together, helped us stay closer and focused through out the 2010 season.

Regular season, like it had been in many a recent years, was a formality. We stayed undefeated through 12 games to win the regular season. Then again, we had won the regular season quite a few times before but winning the playoffs, for some reason, had always been a step [or two] too far away.

We beat the teams that we were expected to beat through much of play offs, including our arch nemesis to decide the winner of winners’ bracket – by doing pretty much everything right which we hadn’t in previous occasions. To their credit, they won the losers’ bracket and made it to the title game(s). Lo and behold, we did pretty much everything wrong and not taking anything away from them, they did every little thing right. And the result, a demoralizing 19-2 defeat. Bad side of this result was that that’s the worst we had ever played all season long. And the good side? We couldn’t play any worse.

So began the second [and final] game of the 2010 Church League – the ball took an odd bounce here and there, for either teams; the score swung like a not so simple pendulum and the lead changed teams, just like the weather in the UP. May be the good Lord wasn’t in the mood to call it a day and so, the game went extra innings with score tied at 9 apiece. An out, an intentional walk and a base hit saw our team have a runner in scoring position. With day light going down and heavens opening up with a few sprinkles, it was our rookie, Michael Rittenour, that jacked a warning track hit to bring the winning run home and bring home the team’s first ever championship.

Relatively wilder party ensued – Gatorade dumped on our manager, pie in the face for Michael, and phone calls to let our beloved members of the team, now staying elsewhere &/or that couldn’t play, know of the result. As many championship teams as I have ever been part of, this one meant [and still does] a whole lot more and extremely satisfying – for, the team as a whole came together to win it not just for ourselves, but for those that were once part of it and for one, that couldn’t play more.

To think that it was our destiny to win it all this season, would be a grave mistake – for, the same destiny – dressed up as our arch nemesis – kicked our you-know-whats in the first game. And for once, in 15 or so years for many of them and 6 for me, that we won’t have to worry about would have, could have and should haves; we won’t have to look at each other and hang our heads down – at least, not until we begin 2011 season.

When the Spring 2010 rolled in [yes, for once, there was actually Spring in Houghton/Keewenaw], snow melted and the way certain things transpired in later parts of March forced myself and a dear friend, Sarah, to (re)find structure in life, to regain and be more focused. Many a conversations with Amy, Scott, Lakshmi, aforementioned friends, several members of Michigan Tech Huskies family and of local community started nurturing the once buried seeds of running/completing the [10 mile version of] Hancock Canal Run.

Being the athlete she is, Sarah did all the literature search, had discussions with established runners and dug out few detailed training plans from the depths of internet. Being busy with lives and at the same time not yet having complete control over the events that take place in our lives, we decided to train individually by honor system – keeping each other in check often — in person, or via phone calls or text messages or facebook. And our aim was to not just finish but be within top ten of our respective age group.

It worked really well for the first few weeks and we stuck to the training plan we had agreed upon. With all that happened from last ten days of May through first ten days of June [procrastination, this, that, and The Legends of Table 23], to say that our training took a back seat is an understatement of cosmological proportions. If not for Terry posting the countdown to the race day and reminding us every single day till the last day, training may have never resumed and this post may have never been written. In spite of skipping few weeks in our training plan and jumping ahead to week six [or seven, I don't remember], we honored the honor system and still had plenty of fun until the very last evening leading up to the run [see evidence below].

Preparations and Thoughts via SMS

Final Preparations and Thoughts via Facebook

2009-2010 turned out to be the season that I had the most interactions ever with my beloved Huskies. Having never been an athlete but always wanting to emulate one, I decided to follow in their footsteps. While the reasons for which I woke up at about 2:30am on race day are immaterial, I did have my pre-run carb loading meal. Trust me, it did taste good and I have reasons to believe it did its job.

Weather on race day morning was near perfect – a bit chillier with west winds and relatively open areas of McLain State Park exposed to Lake Superior, all but last mile [or thereabouts] was well shaded from the sunshine. And this race re-taught me an important lesson – that there is a real difference between being an athlete and acting like one. Just like the previous & my only race, I started out running at the group pace (~9:10 min/mile) instead of the pace I was comfortable with (~11:30 min/mile). Carrying my trustworthy GPS may have slowed me down a bit but it certainly helped gather useful data.

Mile by mile progress via Garmin GPSMap 60CSx – yeah, my life is a science experiment!

Some detailed stats of the run – click on the graph to see a larger, legible version

As is evident from the Google Earth screenshot and Matlab graph generated using the data from my GPS, I did make adjustments to my speed, literally on the run, to conserve just enough energy to complete the run/race in under two hours. While I was [still am] very disappointed that I did not pass a single person during the entire length of the run, that I was the penultimate dude to complete it [121 out of 122 @ 1:52:27] and that there were only five more people who completed it after I did, I very well understand that I didn’t deserve to finish any sooner – given the [erratic] way in which I trained. And I am happy as I ever could be that I did finish it in under two hours as planned and that I wasn’t the last one to do so. Thanks to dear friend, Michael, for showing up on short notice to photograph my sorry you-know-what cross the finish line and one of me with Sarah [#92/35, 10 miles in 1:22:20], sharing the same stage [err, the same sidewalk].

Dynamic Duo of Hancock Canal Run 2010
Dynamic on your right and Duo on your left

With Amy [#87/100, 10 miles in 1:41:55] and Sophie

In summary, this one was definitely a case of mind over body and by mind, I mean my super-massive ego – a well-fed super-massive ego. While the training for and running in Canal Run 2010 did do its part in realizing my Thousand Mile Dream in part, it certainly has helped me respect my friends — supreme athletes, runners, swimmers, bikers, triathletes & iron (wo)men and, members of this wonderful community, who yet again helped me realize one more dream — a lot more than I ever have.

Many countless hours of practice and organized team activity over next 15+ weeks or so brought us closer and made us better, a lot better – to understand and appreciate what each one brought to the table and come up with a plan to best utilize those resources to win games, one at a time. I could write about what we did right and we did wrong in each of the 13 games but it would sound more like a broken record – as such, I will just tabulate the results and talk about reasons later.

While not everything did was perfect, we did put up the best offense and best defense – with a league high of 278 runs scored and allowing only 73, for a league’s best run differential of +205. More importantly, most of us had fun [it might not have seemed like it but trust me, fun is a very relative/subjective entity] and even more importantly, most of the teams we played seemed to have fun too. And while there are many smaller reasons behind our success, following are probably the most notable ones [in no/some particular order]:

1. A manager who knows how to run the show.
2. A clean and consistent roster of players.
3. A set of unselfish players who are committed to the concept of team and show up for practice.
4. Teach new players the rules and regulations of the game so that they play the game the right way, don’t get hurt and importantly, don’t hurt others.
5. Players who understand their role(s) and execute it – almost every time – to the best of their ability.
6. At least two practice sessions a week, irrespective of weather conditions, to hone individual & team skills.
7. A unified understanding that we are a work in progress and that we haven’t done anything worth talking about yet.
8. A unified understanding that we shall not speak of the L word.
9. A trash talker (or two).
10. An awesome set of supporters and die hard fans.
11. A designated driver.
12. A variety of characters to keep it fun and real.

While these have been a constant fixture of our team for many years, we unanimously decided to add a thing or two to this routine:

1. Team work outs three times a week [involved running and lifting a variety of weights - to help build strength/stamina and reduce fatigue during crunch game scenarios].
2. Our inability to properly resolve the forces involved into appropriate components & confusion created as a result had cost us dearly in previous few championship games. As such, we abandoned the usage of Newtonian Mechanics completely and resorted to Lagrangian/Hamiltonian Mechanics – based on players’ level of comfort. It seemed to pay (very) rich dividends as we only had to worry about the initial and final potentials of the system rather than zillion force components.

Like a good [bad] old saying goes, there are many ways of doing the same thing to get the same result, and I am sure there are other ways of winning championships but trust me, I wouldn’t want to experience it any other team’s way.

The first 12 hours or so after the championship game had been pretty euphoric and celebratory [thanks in part to Mr. League Commissioner, Dave Fritz and Mr. President, Randy Harrison - for getting us the trophy the same day], the last 6 or so have been pretty disappointing and depressing – may be because the mind (and the body) knows that there are no more practices, no more games and that I wouldn’t get to see / hang out with my teammates as regularly as I had found myself doing so.

As someone who stopped watching this game after the likes of Sampras, Graf, Agassi, Edberg, Seles retired – citing lack of grace as the prime reason – what followed this game was even more wonderful. Roger breaking down into tears after loosing, Rafael & Roger exchanging genuine mutual admiration for each other and portraying a living example of the very definition of sportsmanship – being graceful in defeat and humble in victory … gave me chills. It wasn’t just me, dear friends Prashanth (who watched the game all along) and Adam (who joined for the coronation festivities), agreed too. And I am sure, anyone that has played good at any level in their life would agree as well.

If this game – between these two – was any example of how the game used to be played and how it should be played, I felt I had missed a lot by not watching any of their previous encounters. And more importantly, if you were like me (thinking the grace factor no longer existed), I am happy to realize that it’s very much alive and kicking!

Fast forward several hours – somewhat of a lame Super Bowl XLIII turned into an exciting contest in fourth quarter. Don’t get me wrong – every team that wins the big one deserves some credit and as is the case, it gives them the (often abused) right to say just about anything they like. But for the coronation ceremony (master of ceremonies from NBC, FOX & CBS, the winning coach, winning owner, winning players and even the league commissioner) to completely ignore to publicly acknowledge the efforts of loosing team is beyond ridiculous. It wasn’t just the Super Bowl, but the grace evidently didn’t get its due credit in the AFC & NFC Championship games held about two weeks ago.

Being humble in victory DOES NOT make the victory any less heroic/valuable/memorable and I hope this is the last time I see such things in what has become a very favorite game of mine in recent years. When players of recreational leagues & bush leagues across this planet take a moment after the game to appreciate the efforts of the other team, I don’t see any reason why the professional leagues can’t do it on the so called big stage.

Huskies blew away Wildcats in Marquette’s Superior Dome (NMU’s home field) in a nationally televised Division II Football Game of the Week (thanks to CBS College Sports Network and FSN Detroit) to lay claim to the Miner’s Cup. During my recent trip up north, a bunch of these football players had promised to break my jinx and true to their words, that JINX is history now

God bless the internet and Skype, I got to watch this with buddy Kyle in Alaska. Honestly, I don’t think I have ever watched a game on TV (or any other program for that matter), in which I could claim personal acquaintance to so many – athletes, coaching staff and fans included. In spite of being over a thousand miles away from the venue, I couldn’t forget my usual role in such events and as such, ended up shooting some pictures:

These and rest of the pictures from this game are here.

Weeks and even months passed waiting for The Call and finally when I had given up any remaining hopes of playing at all for the season, I heard a kind-hearted gentleman speak to someone enthusiastically about a softball in the work-place cafeteria. Needless to say, I had to poke my nose (shamelessly) in his conversation to check if he knew of any league/team that was looking for players; and true to his words, he sent an email to the league the same day.

Game #1 – NVA Nads Vs Stray Macs: Following the league’s website, I realized there was a game scheduled in Middletown the same evening. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to watch the game, I showed up and acted as a catcher during batting practice. Little did I know, one of the teams, was short of players and were happy to recruit me. My batting was pretty bad (2/3 with no RBI) and fielding (starting at 3B and finishing at 2B) left a lot to be desired. NVA Nads beat us pretty bad (17-8). May I could blame it all on the work-clothes I was playing in and the lack of play-time for almost 10 months?

Game #2 – MRT Vs Stray Macs: Having dressed up in sports-clothes, I had no excuse to play bad in this game. Our dear manager put me up in a some what familiar spot in the batting order. May be it was humidity or some other unknown factor, every time I hit the ball, it seemed to come off of the sweet spot. I got a double to start off, then a 2-run triple, then an inside the park grand slam and then a single – to complete the Full Cycle. Icing on the cake was being walked intentionally during last at bat [I am sure thinking about some PERL scripts/syntax I had discussed with buddy Kevin played its part as well]. Never had I had a full cycle at bat (it was getting dark and they probably couldn’t see me – just like Bucky had mentioned in the letter), never had I had an inside the park grand slam (or grand slam of any kind) and never had I been walked intentionally. Although my personal fielding skills (in the out-filed) still left a lot to be desired, rest of the team defended well, pitched excellently to beat MRT (a team from higher division) 19-17 in an exciting fashion

Game #3 – NVA Nads Vs Stray Macs: The game got off to a bad start and we gave up 22 runs in the first four innings – mostly due to simple mistakes repeated a multiple times. But our plan to catch up on them worked to near perfection – we shut them down for the last three innings and scored consistently to be trailing by (only) 7 runs in the bottom of 7th innings. To be part of the 7 run rally with 2 outs was very exciting and but equally lame was the overall finish to the game – we needed just one more hit (which we knew we would get) but the game was called with score tied at 22 apiece.

Just like the teams that I have played with in Upper Michigan, I had plenty of fun (made a lot of noise and almost lived up to Bucky’s recommendation) with Stray Macs and post game celebrations were equally entertaining. As much as I wish to have played more than just three games, I am equally glad that the season didn’t go down the drain completely. If – for whatever reasons – I am still here the next season, I know a team that I can play with

It was the mid 90s – while much of our community was enjoying the new found concept of Satellite TV (Star Sports, BBC, CNN and Chinese Entertainment were the only satellite channels on the menu), the concept of TV itself – as was everything else that had anything to do with technology – was a pretty new phenomenon in our household. With only two channels [decent looking Doordarshan (DD) and mostly scrambled Doordarshan2 [DD2]) and an occasional news paper subscription to stay tuned with happenings around the world, I had rarely seen any sport in action – other than Cricket, Soccer, (Field) Hockey, Tennis and Swimming to some extent.

It was around the same time (and for the next few years) that one of those two national channels started televising a 30-minute Sunday pre-noon sports show. Much of its coverage was Cricket and other regional happenings, the penultimate section being international sports and concluding with follies to keep the audience laughing. It was then that teams like Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Yankees were playing very well and as such, forever gained a soft spot in the sporting section of my mind/heart and great admiration for individual athletes like Micheal Jordan, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Pete Sampras, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Leander Paes, …

Time passed and through a series of fortunate events, I found myself across the Atlantic, for what seemed at first, purely academic reasons – only to (re)find my passion(ate addiction) for sports, photography, computers and the holy spirits. As much of my stay on this side of the Atlantic was in the beautiful Upper Peninsular of Michigan, I naturally happened to follow pro-sports teams from Michigan & surrounding areas – Detroit Pistons, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Tigers.

In spite of Detroit Tigers putting on a remarkable turn around couple seasons ago beating the Yankees on their way to MLB Championship, it was hard to dis-affiliate myself from the Yankees. The team that I played with for the first four years in Michigan Tech Graduate Summer Softball League (2003-2006; four straight finals appearance, two back-to-back championships, one perfect season and an enviable 43-6-1 record — all as a result of countless hours of practice & execution and, super-supportive fans) was hated by almost every other team in the league and was often referred to as the Yankees of Graduate League!

With Detroit Tigers playing so well and Detroit being so far away from where I lived, it wasn’t always easy to find economical ways/tickets to watch them play. And being historical about some of the things I do (like picking the as historical a venue as possible for the Major League games – especially the first one), I too once hoped to be in the Yankee Stadium, for my first Major League Baseball game. Previous attempts to even see the stadium were marred once by poor planning (in 2006) and once by the rude behavior of Yankees personnel (in 2007). May be it’s one of the blessings in disguise that I moved to East Coast for work purposes and considering it was the last season for the house that was built for Ruth [yes, the house that was built for Ruth as opposed to the commonly held notion that the house that Ruth built. Allow me to explain please: the house that Ruth Built is just a play on the British nursery rhyme, The House That Jack Built. And I remember reading - the reference to which I cannot find now - that the construction of the stadium had something to suit Ruth's way of hitting, making it the house that was built for Ruth. But he did hit a home run in the very first game played in the stadium, hit a lot more later, attracted lot more fans much to the disappointment of the then New York Giants (another baseball team) and as such, the stadium was more popularly known as the house that Ruth built!], I started searching for tickets to see one game. Of all the games I could get the seat for, I ended up getting (a bit of planning, a bit of luck and good timing) it to see one of the most storied rivalries in sports:

Boston Red Sox coming to play the New York Yankees for the last game of the penultimate series in regular season in the Final Season of the Yankee Stadium

Pre-Game, Game & Post-Game

I met with my advisor, Dr. Pandey, and Kavi around 2pm in Edison and after a good discussion about varied topics with elderly people & watching parts of rain-delayed Wimbledon Men’s Final, we set off towards the city. A short stop in Tom’s Restaurant (a.k.a. Seinfeld Restaurant), Columbia University and few subway segments later, we were in the neighborhood of Yankee Stadium. I was very pleasantly surprised with cordial Yankees personnel, considering the opposing team, magnitude of the game and all – although I would have been even more happier if they had let me carry in my 70-200mm lens (instead of politely asking me to keep it in baggage storage facility). While searching for our seats, we did get a very good view of the interiors of the stadium – from behind the home plate. Seats were good although the view was partially obstructed.

This was by far the most exciting of all the major league games I have been to: (inter)nationally televised game on ESPN (Sunday Night Baseball), A-Rod Home Run #536, good pitching (first four innings took only about an hour), double plays (one from each team), kinda bad pitching (next 5+1 innings took about three hours), Dustin Pedroia’s 2 run single with two outs in the fifth inning to take BOS ahead 3-1 that hushed most of Yankees Universe, Joe Girardi’s ejection, Robinson Cano’s 2 run triple to tie the game at 4-4 in seventh inning that woke up the sleeping Yankees Universe, singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game as part of seventh inning stretch, seeing Mariano Rivera strike out Manny Ramirez – amidst the chants Manny Sucks – in 3 pitches to preserve a 4-4 tie game, Mr. Nobody (a.k.a. Brett Gardner) – with two outs – hitting a game winning RBI single off of Jonathon Papelbon in the bottom of 10th inning to an erupting crowd of ~60,000 and to have witnessed it all in Yankees Universe with my advisor (I later learnt that it was his first MLB game too) and Kavi (a die hard New York fan) … were just some of the moments that I will cherish for a very long time.

These and other pictures are here. Getting out of the Stadium and catching the last train out of New York Penn Station, needless to say – with the same ocean of ~60,000, was a unique experience in its own merit. All said and done, I get to scratch off one more item from my wish list and more importantly, re-realize the fact that…

But for sports, distance between New York and Boston wouldn’t be measured in games!

If the Yankees do somehow manage to make it to the playoffs and somehow manage to win the MLB Championship to bid a fitting adieu to this holy cathedral, I could look back and proudly say, I was part of The Final Season!!

As much as people love competition and challenges, there seems to be an inexplicable hatred towards sports teams that do perform consistently well over a considerable length of time. What makes it so ironic is that the team being hated so much is called Patriots and their uniform reflects national colors – go figure! Although I have no personal experience, I have very strong reason to believe that Chicago Bulls (these poor guys repeated a 3-peat of NBA Championships), L A Lakers (these guys pulled off a 3-peat as well), New York Yankees (well, everybody knows – they won 26 MLB Championships including 4 in 5 seasons in recent years), … have all gone through a similar phase during their respective good/great days. In my personal opinion, these teams have done so well that the popular term, Dynasty, is an understatement.

Again, being just a sports fanatic, I have very little or no knowledge/experience of what goes on inside these pro-teams’ locker rooms, on and off the field. But from a personal experience of playing with a certain team (name of the team has been left out – if you can guess it, consider yourself smart!) in a recreational league (Michigan Tech Graduate Student Council’s Summer Softball League) for four consecutive seasons, I got the first-hand experience of this hatred myself (and as a team). Until recently (and even today), not many from opposing teams realized the amount of dedicated hard work that we put in to produce the fairy-tale like numbers almost every week. Just to give a hint, most of us sacrificed Friday evening parties/bar (beer) time so that we could get up in time for Saturday morning practice – this happened every week, through out Summer and every season. Everyone who showed up for practice, did so with whole-heartedness for about 3-4 hours every week – meticulously learning the game, its rules and regulations, all the while getting to know each other and building the team concept. Why does any one need to know rules and regulations in a recreational league? First off, it makes the game safe (for yourself and those who play with you); and second, it reduces conflicts/confusions during the game… If the afore-unmentioned team went 44-5-1 over 50 games in four years with back-to-back championships, there were plenty of reasons that rest of the league didn’t care to know about!

Following my discussions with several different people, I have come to understand one reason for hatred against perfection: people like other teams to have chance at winning championships. However, who prevents those teams from performing beyond expectations to lay claim to the championship? Like a HOF Coach once said, if one needs to be the best, then they need to beat the best. Indianapolis Colts and Boston Red Sox are a classic example of this statement – not many (at least outside of Colts/BoSox-nation) felt sorry when they repeatedly lost to Patriots/Yankees and failed to win the big one. As much as I personally dislike these two teams, I do have great admiration for the way they fought and eventually won the title, beating their arch-nemesis along the way…

All said and done, more these teams (that have already established themselves as a Dynasty or better) win, more hatred comes their way. If only I could understand/explain this hatred towards PERFECTION…

It was a very pleasant day – given the time of the year – with snow flurries giving near-perfect demonstration of Brownian motion. Few tens of steps around in this Spring-like weather brought me into the Packers Pro Shop: /me got myself couple of #4 jerseys, copies of Deanna’s book – Don’t Bet Against Me and a Patriots (small) helmet – (almost) all for decoration purposes. Banners/Flags of nine (yeah, NINE) NFL Championships along with three Super Bowls and few minutes I spent in Packer Hall of Fame took me way back in time. Wish I had more time to spend, for it’s well worth more than the $8 price tag. Seeing a bunch of Packers (Driver, KGB, Grant, …) in practice uniforms was yet another highlight of this trip. All these and the memories of being one of the 70,000+ fortunate souls that watched the game live on Nov 19, 2006, should I still say I had goosebumps all over? And unlike last time, I didn’t need to take pictures to make more memories.

As much as I love this game, spending a bit of time in learning about the history of the game has helped me enormously to appreciate many of the game/events as they happen. The day after I returned from this trip was the opening day of hunting season. While many brave fellas braved the cold weather hunting deer in the woods, their better halves showed up at the game with signs reading Shh Our Hubbies Think We Are Out Shopping, How Favre Will He Go? and so on and the ever growing Touch Down meter! It’s only fitting (to my trip) that Brett Favre & Co went on a hunting trip of their own, beating the Carolina Panthers to make it a complete package

PS: The extra copy of Deanna’s book is for circulation – let me know if you are interested in reading it.

Well, that is not the meat of this entry. Eversince Chicago Bears won their seat in the Super Bowl XLI, the commentators (and just about every other sportscaster, news reader, and so on) started the flood of statements – all in effect meaning — Lovie Smith, the first African American Head Coach to appear in Super Bowl. This flood only increased as Colts also so booked their Super Bowl ticket — Tony Dungy joins Lovie Smith as the first African American Head Coach to appear in Super Bowl.

Here’s something I don’t understand. For as long as I can remember, we have been trying to get past identifying people and their achievements not based on the color of their skin or the race they belong to. And for every one step we take in the positive direction, we seem to be taking two more steps in the backward direction – revoking unnecessary thoughts and forcing people to identify their fellows by color and/or race.

Just like just about anybody in the NFL family (owners, coaches, players, officials, front office staff, fans, …), I have the highest of respects/regards for Dungy and Smith. But come Super Bowl Sunday, I am more than 100% sure that much of the TV/Radio commentary will hover around two African American Coaches leading their respective teams. And come to think of it – one of them has to loose and the other has to win. What will the legacy of these two head coaches will be? The way media is portraying things, we will tend to (or be forced to) forget all the great things that these two have done to all the teams they have been with and just remember that Coach A was the first African American to win the Super Bowl and that Coach B was the first African American to loose the Super Bowl. Personally, I consider this to be a very big shame – on the media and on just about anybody who would make such a remark. Last year’s Pro Football (NFL) Hall of Fame induction ceremony also had one of them speak a lot about such things.

It’s not the first time that this has happened and it wouldn’t be last time that this will happen either but it’s about time (and we have been saying this for a loooooooooooooong time) that we stop saying and actually start acting/doing something about it. Now that I think about it, we would be accomplishing a lot in this regard if don’t even say anything – a rather very special case where doing something does not require any talking! If we don’t talk about it, sooner or later, we will (hopefully) stop thinking about it…

Have a good time watching these games, if you are into it

PS: Yeah, I took this format from Wiki and changed it to meet my requirements.

OK, before I go on to write anything about my experience on this day, I am obligated to warn you that the much (or almost all of the material) contained pertains to National Football League (a.k.a. American Football, Pile-Up Game, or whatever else you may know it as…) and that you may not appreciate the material if you do not know understand this wonderful game.

Build Up

That said, now to the details. First things first – most of my interest in this game is due to Evan Dixon taking time to explain the rules, plays as they happened during my two year stay at Dave Bezotte’s place. Since then, it had been my wish/dream to attend one such game and thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long for it. Since we are keeping records, just note that all this happened on Sunday, the 19th November 2006 – the event was Green Bay Packers hosting New England Patriots in an inter-conference regular season NFL game. Why did I pick this game in particular? Number of reasons and /me will explain few of them, in no particular order:

1. All the great things that have happened in Lambeau Field
2. Amount of history contained in this field
3. All the great things that the two *starting* QBs have done to their respective teams – both very likely will have their busts in Canton, OH, some day…

Update #1: Thanks to Mike Larsen, NFL seasons are now technically correct.

Love for Packers originated mostly from the geographical proximity of Houghton to Green Bay, and later cemented by watching few tens of games (some old, some live, some clips, some documentaries) involving #4 and #92 (you should know what these numbers mean) for Packers, including 1996-97 SuperBowl win over Patriots and 1997-98 SuperBowl loss to Broncos.

Not only I wasn’t a fan of Patriots when they won the second SuperBowl of the current millenium, I hated that team – mostly because their name kept reminding me of pages from history I grew up with. The day they beat Panthers to achieve that feat, I did not want to watch the game and spent in our computer lab. However, in the ensuing year, my Patriotism started after the AFC Champioship Game and was cemented greatly due to TO being one of the 53 Eagles. In the two weeks that led to the SuperBowl XXXIX (and during & after the game), watching some historical games and documentaries of individual players (mostly #12 at that time, but now the list extends to #54, #93, #28, #ex-83, and so on) turned me into a die hard fan of this team.

Adding to the list of reasons why I picked to watch these two teams play, I realized that I wouldn’t have to worry about who wins/looses but instead can enjoy the game, absorbing the experience of watching it live. It was one of those hot summer days (which, you know, forces me to hit KBC) that Leroy mentioned about Patriots coming to play Packers at home and my senses lit up on hearing that. I did some search for the tickets and found a reliable, Packers-certified website to buy the ticket. Please do not ask me how much I paid for it, but trust my word – watching Packers and Patriots play each other (with #4 and #12 in action) in Lambeau Field on a pleasant Sunny day for my first ever NFL game – every cent I dished out was worth it Although numbers aren’t completely the same, following picture of a certain other fan summarizes my excitement:

Reaching Green Bay

After finishing up some school related work and watching Tech basketball tournment, /me headed off towards America’s Dairyland – my first ever such trip – around midnight. After a trouble-free ride punctuated by a 20 minute nap, I was in Green Bay around 4 am (CST). Knowing the craze for sports, I should have planned this a bit more elaborately – searching for a room to crash turned out be a real nightmare. Fortunately, /me did manage to find one (the only one left), not too far from the final destination. When I did wake up, it was to a town bathed in green and yellow – just about anything and everything (shirts, pants, shorts, sleeping pants, hair bands, scarfs, bandanas, kerchiefs, sweatshirts, wrist bands, caps, helmets, other gadgets, sandals, goggles, automobiles,….) had some connection to Packers! At the morning breakfast area, yours-truly was one of the two who didn’t have explicit Packers support – guess everybody was wondering what team did I support. If mine was bad, the state of a girl from Boston wearing Bruschi shirt initiated even horrible response from the breakfast crowd – eveybody stopped eating, looked up with a clear question, what are you doing here?, on their face. Using that as a hint, I was hoping to see quite a bit of hostility at the Lambeau Field later in the day…

Pre-Game

Finishing up breakfast formality soon, I was in the Lambeau Field premises around 8.45 am – reaching early made finding a spot to park real easy and painless. /me talked to few security officials to make sure that shooting pictures was OK and once they gave the green signal, I roamed around shooting pictures of interesting things and here are few good ones:

Lambeau Field, Green Bay

Vince Lombardi – there is a reason why SuperBowl Trophy is named after him…

I won’t tell you who this is… but you can guess

Any hopes of seeing a hostile environment for non-Packers supporters vanished soon after I saw this (and more like this through out the stadium – father/son pair, bf/gf pair, …. dressed to support different teams) and was forced to believe that this field is probably the most hospitable one (I don’t have anything else to compare with, but /me feels that it’s a good guess).

Friendly Mixture of Opposites

Some more pics from around and inside the field are below:

Tailgating…

Does the title ring any bells?

Playground

Playground, view from another angle

View from my seat

Patriots warming up — can you see #12?

Packers Huddle

#4 – The Iron Man of NFL

#12 – The Lord of the Rings

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee – a die-hard fan of #4 and #12

The Game

You probably saw this game on TV and/or read about it in (e)news-papers – so, I will not bother too much to explain what happened. In a nutshell, a near-perfect execution of tight Patriotic defense and literally unchallenged Patriotic offense meant that Packers were at the receiving end of a second blow out of the season (interestingly, Patriots scored as many points they had given away in 1996-97 SuperBowl) and a mild injury to #4 (hope it doesn’t stop him from making 252nd consecutive start against Seattle Sea Hawks in next Monday Night Game) along with season-ending injury to GB #12 (FYI, my presence had nothing to do with either of them). Thanks to the new weapon in my armour (no, not any gun; 70-200 VR lens), I was able to get some decent shots as action took place. Some are here:

Find an empty seat and you will win $100

Patriots discussing their first attack while Packers wait on…

Rooting for Packers

Nifty, heh?

Just before the hike…

Packers discussing their plan while Patriots wait on…

Just before the hike…

Jubiliant Patriots (this one came from Miluwakee)

Jubiliant Patriots

Jubiliant Patriots (these came all the way from Boston)

Calling home to tell the story….

Packers fans – faces tell a lot about what happened on the field…

Update #2: Something I forgot initially was the fact that every ticket-holder for the game was given a Brett Favre figurine (see below), as part of 10th year celebrations of Packers’ SuperBowl win.

Update #3: During the closing minutes of the game, die-harder fans of Patriots and Packers (sitting around me) shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and agreed that Packers lost the game as a sign good gesture (remember, Packers had beaten Patriots in 1996-97 SuperBowl) & as a token of their hospitality.

Post Game & Return Journey

All in all, it was a wonderful (and inexplicable) experience that one has to live through at least once in their life time, though I would have been happy if Packers had scored points. Arrangements for people to watch this game (security measures, seating arrangements, refreshment facilities, etc… were better than anything I have ever seen before, especially for such a huge mass of population (approximately 70000). Last time that I was part of such huge mass was, incidentally, 10 years ago – when India & Pakistan played in Bangalore during World Cup Quarter-Finals; and trust me, the facilities — there were none. Like my fellow grad student and dear friend, Patrick Younk, had hinted, there were no bad seats in the house (Lambeau Field) and mine was as good as any could have been. I did get lost, due to one-ways and road closures, while trying to get back onto US-41 but I was in the hotel soon afterwards. Looking at the looooooooooong series of cars/vehicles driving out of Green Bay (on I-43, US-41, US-141), I think it would only be wise to head back early tomorrow…

Update #4: If any of you recorded this game on DVD/VHS, I would greatly appreciate a copy of it.

These and other pictures are here.

If you have known me, for any amount of time, you would know my crazyness/freakiness for technology and my dependence on it. To that effect, I have been making arrangements to have a new cell phone ready by the time I reach Bangalore. Just to get into the proper mood, I have been speaking to few friends of mine — catching one of them was lot tougher than talking to God himself. One other, while driving behind yet another friend, was acting like an amplifier for swear words. I will speak to few others before I start.

What else have I been doing? Been involved in looooong chatty-discussions with a nephew of mine – about things on which we don’t really agree with each other, but it has been a healthy debate so far. Apart from that, I roamed around a bit with few friends during the weekend – it was the first time all along this summer that I actually swam in L. Superior. First it was dip in Brunette Park (there weren’t any brunettes there, for miles) and next it was near Silver City (Ontonagon county) with Porcupine Mountains in the backdrop. Pretty sight indeed. For those friends of mine who are eager to know how I look (and have somehow picturizing me with few extra pounds), I am still the same old guy in many ways and still quite athletic — got pictures to prove it this time (Picture Courtesy: Bharath Choudhary and Santosh Karre, respectively)

While I am at it (that is, at my crazyness/freakiness), let me mention that I bought a ticket for an NFL game, later this November. Two of my heroes amongst current NFL players will be playing in that game. Let me kill the suspense and let it out. New England Patriots visiting Green Bay Packers in Lambeau Field. I get to see Brett Favre and Tom Brady in one game – former in what appears to be his last pro-season while the latter hasn’t even reached his prime (he has three super bowl rings, with a 10-1 play-off record – that’s an entirely different story and I will reserve it for an other day). In a nutshell, I am excited about it.

Returning to the main topic of discussion, I believe people (most of my relatives, some of my teachers and few friends) will be surprised to see the new me and many things (living/non-living alike) in India will equally surprise me too. Like it or not India, here I come…

Coming to sports, no – weather before that. Spring is finally here in Houghton area. How did I get so smart to know that, you ask? I didn’t but Dr. Beck (indirectly through Dr. Windl) gave the following pointer – when something drops down from the sky in our area and we don’t have to shovel it, then it’s Spring!. This means that we need to get things rolling for the upcoming softball season. I consider it a previlige to be co-ordinating the league this time but it wouldn’t be me but we; we as in all teams and all people who have been part of this leage – some much longer than my lifetime! I did meet Wil Slough, Dr. Weidman, Dr. Suits, Matt Seguin, Bob Gilreath, Matt King, Nick about proposed rule changes and I will be meeting Rick Vendlinski following Monday. I will write in detail about the agenda for Team Managers’ meeting in a subsequent blog entry.

Finally, Google! AdSense responded to my appeal — before I post their reply, I must post my answers to their questions:

From: “Gowtham S”
Subject: Re: [#xxxxxx] *Google AdSense Account Disabled
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:17:11 -0500

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to appeal the disabling of my account and I am providing all the information that you asked for:

> Your name :
S Gowtham

> Your company’s name (if applicable)

> Your publisher ID number (located in the AdSense code on your website with the format, pub-################)
pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> Your website’s URL
http://sgowtham.net (http://sgowtham.net)
Former is a symbolic link to latter – a measure that had to be taken to overcome dynamic IP address allocation problem of SBC Yahoo! DSL service.

> Date your account was disabled
Friday, 24 March 2006

> Your website’s audience
Type A : People who are interested in learning about Linux, who are trying to install Linux on their machines and who are trying to do post-installation customizations. (Beginners as well as Geeks)

Type B : People who are interested in learning about LaTeX (as in document preparation system) and other things mentioned in Academic Links section of my website.

Type C : People who are interested in Photography – Gallery section of my website has over 700 pictures, taken during my travels in US.

Type D : People who come to read my blog, research interests, resume and check my schedule.

> The source of your website’s content
Linux and LaTeX related content is my own – I make note of every configurational change I do to my systems and post them in my website – in a step-by-step fashion, so that others don’t have to go through the same struggle. I also provide a local repository for packages (all of them released under GPL) mentioned in these pages.

As far as LaTeX goes, I have prepared template files for different formats (starting from a simple text-only document to quite complicated one with text, graphics, equations, bibliography, etc)

All photographs were taken by me using my own camera(s).

Blog, schedule and research pages contain things that I do on a daily basis.

> Frequency of content updates
Linux, Blog and Photography related pages are updated on an average once a week. Very rarely few times a week when I change the style sheets in my site or add new features or while I am travelling.

> The primary sources of your website’s traffic
Google! Search Engine — 90% of my traffic originates from Individuals, Small/Medium/Big Industries, Academic Institutions in & outside United States – searching for Linux/LaTeX related things. Many pages of my site have also been cited in several discussion forums across the globe (Linux Users’ Group of some European countries, CNET, FedoraForum, Photography related websites, …). Some others come through the Graduate Students list of Physics Department, Michigan Tech University,

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/gradlist.html

and very few through our research group website:

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/pandey/

StatCounter.com keeps track of last 100 visitors to my website and given below is the link:

http://my5.statcounter.com/project/standard/pageload.php?project_id=202915

> The number of people involved with the administration of the site
Just me (only one person)

> Any relevant information that you believe would explain the invalid click activity we detected
My rough guess is that one (or some) of visitors must have wanted to know the contents of links displayed in Google! Ads.

I am certain (and honest) that the invalid clicks detected on my ads were not due to my actions or negligence. Hoping to hear from you.

Regards,
Gowtham

I personally do not have absolutely any idea as to what they did with my request, but I noticed some hits for my website from a familiar looking entity:

Navigation Path

So, all that Google! spent in analyzing the contents of my website was 2 minutes and 32 seconds, and I get an email (please note the time of arrival) with following contents:

From xxxxx@google.com Fri Mar 31 13:22:06 2006
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:09:17 -0800
From: Google AdSense
To: Gowtham S
Cc: mail@sgowtham.net
Subject: Re: [#xxxxxxxxx] *Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello Gowtham,

Thank you for your appeal.

After receiving your response, we re-reviewed your account data thoroughly. We have reconfirmed that invalid clicks were generated on the ads on your site in violation of our Terms and Conditions and program policies.

https://www.google.com/adsense/terms

https://www.google.com/adsense/policies

We have these policies in place to help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers. According to our policy on this matter, we are unable to reinstate you into the program.

Please bear in mind that subsequent or duplicate appeals may not be considered and you may not receive any further communication from us. We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Well, anyway I will convince myself that I never displayed ads for Google! and/or for their advertisers, and conclude that Google! AdSense didn’t really make any sense (cents). Hopefully, Google! will return the money back to their advertisers. Recently, one of my friends reported a milestone – having crossed 1000 hits. Though I am very much sure that it had taken much longer for me to reach a similar milestone, following is the graph displaying number of hits my site has got since July 2003, till 28 March 2006 – just to satisfy my ego (or as is said locally, just for kicks).

Hey, give me a break – I am human too!

Couple of fellow graduate students did their prelims and our Department, as it has been the tradition, hosted Spring Feedback Pizza Party. Many of the new students complained about weather conditions and qualifiers, while yours truly, as usual, brought up physerver disk usage and aging issues. During this meeting, it was also mentioned that some old machines in the Physics Grad Lab would be replaced with new ones. Upon hearing this, after the meeting, I proposed to the department about using them to set up a Cluster Work Bench. When built, this cluster work bench will serve as good instructional resource, and other reasons for this proposal are as follows:

1. CPU cylces can be used instead of the machines sitting idle in some closet
2. People (faculty and students alike) who would like to learn building a clusters (a.k.a. getting their hands dirty), can do so
3. Research groups planning to have a cluster of their own, can learn proper usage techniques
4. Research groups that have a cluster already, may use it as a not-so-risky platform to test new compilations
5. Some others, who may not be in a position to afford a cluster, can get their research done
6. This set up can also be used for small Summer projects, course-work projects, etc
7. Since we (dept) need to pay for disposal, part of that disposal money can be used to pay for network connection

For the last few days, I have been somewhat occupied with preparing slides for the upcoming APS meeting in Baltimore, and we have couple of practice talks scheduled in the next week. Almost all preparations from my side are done – request for leave of absence, transportaion (air and local), list of talks to attend, list of other (non-research) things to do, complete mailing address of all people I am planning to visit (I still have to print driving directions though), … Hopefully, everything will go according to the plan. Preparations are also underway (thanks to Kyle Schneider) for attending the PenguiCon 4.0, in Livonia, just the weekend before Tech finals. I have nothing to worry about as I have no finals to take I am about to complete planning for the conference in Cochin (India), later this year – should be fun times, to meet my teachers and friends….

Coming to other things, Tech basketball teams (both men and women) lost in the GLIAC quarter-finals. David Otokpa has promised me to send his comments/suggestions about my photos and I am eagerly looking forward to that. I have also been planning to find a new place to live – not that there is anything wrong with the current place, but with quite a few friends planning to visit me in the next three semesters or so, it will be a good idea to have a separate place. I had signed a contract too, for a place in Hancock, but have requested them to cancel it as a result of some unforeseen circumstances. Over the last few days, I was informed about this website, kalyanvarma.net and the wildlife photos (in and around Karnataka, India) are just too good. I modified certain parts of my website, mostly related to photo gallery, to make them more user-friendly. After some struggle, searching around and LUG members’ help, I have managed to get Kannada fonts in Mozilla Firefox under Linux (Red Hat Enterprise). This means that I no longer have to boot my laptop in Windows just to read some of my friends’ blogs. A fellow graduate student told me the best computer-related joke ever….

When Microsoft finally makes a product that doesn’t suck, it will be a Vacuum Cleaner!

Until next time, have fun

Berry Events Center @ Northern Michigan University, Marquette

Women’s game was first up and it was the first time I was sitting in the front row of any game – our team didn’t too well in the beginning and led by just a bucket at half time. Somebody (probably the coach) must have given them a whipping and result was pretty evident. Home team was demoralized half way through the second half and it was not a good sight to see their gaurd wait for the coach to call every single play – practically turning a first-half fast-break approach into a half-court one. In my opinion, they lost valuable time and literally gave up. Our team won by 10 (67-57), a relatively easier looking victory from a final-score point of view.

As is the case with most well-written great dramas (Porter’s Scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Kalidasa’s Abhijnaana Shaakunthalam or Bhasa’s Swapna-Vaasavadattam, so on), NMU Dance Team and the other team (I don’t know what to call it – they did a lot of gymnastic/acrobatic stuff during breaks) provided the much required (comic) relief and setting the stage up for more dramatic (sometimes heart-stopping and/or heart-breaking) events. Honestly, they sucked and sucked very bad, even in pro-NMU fan’s opinion, and they don’t have a pep-band either

Fan-filled Berry Events Center @ Northern Michigan University, Marquette

Men’s game started off an a defensive note – with both teams playing hard and points coming very slowly. If you just read the final score and feel that Tech lost by 5 points, trust me, you are missing a whole lot – actually everything, This was one of the instances when score fails to narrate the entire story. I ran out of batteries (I had three sets of them), TV6 camera person almost ran out of space (as well as battery) but the game never seemed to end. The game went for four overtimes, swung in favour of each team multiple times, and finally it took three extra people for NMU to beat Tech! 23-23, 46-46, 53-53, 63-63, 72-72, 76-81 were the scores at the end of each period – just for record purposes. One could probably say that we didn’t rotate our players well, but no one forsees a four-overtime game. Watching the games (and shouting, yelling, jumping out of my seat for almost every good point) sitting amidst non-MTU or pro-NMU supporters, was some new experience. If we had our pep band and dance team travelling along, we probably would have won the second game too Well, ifs and buts don’t win the game but even such a loss has lot of positive outcome – most commonly strengthening the mindset to overcome physical fatigue, atleast in my opinion. It wouldn’t be exaggeration to claim that there were more Tech fans for both the Marquette games, latter of which was one for the ages, marking a fitting finish to the Rivalry Week.

Ever saw people (mostly on the other side of world) wondering why is that US (and European countries) get bucket-loads of medals at Olympics while we get one bronze in 20+ years? Though I knew part of the reasons for it while in other side of earth, I guess I seem to know more now. After having been in US for almost four years – having played close to 50 softball games, watched another 50+ live games (and on TV, who is counting?), the answer to above questions can be summarized in the following questions, directed towards parents (mine, as well others – possibility of my parents reading this is zero though), and parents-to-be:

1. How many times have I (or we, just we from now on) encouraged my (or our or neighbor’s) kid(s) to play?
2. How many times have we prevented them from playing sports, for obviously and unexplicably stupid reasons?
3. How many times have we encouraged them to watch sports, live or on TV?
4. How many times have we prevented them from watching sports, live or on TV, again for obviously and unexplicably stupid reasons??
5. How many times have we been there watching and supporting games that they played?
6. How many times have we undermined and spoiled the joy, as a result of a sports victory, that our kids brought back from the field?
7. How many times have we failed to realize that a good performance on the field carries over to and influences off-the-field performances (say academics)?

Well, the above list of seemingly simple questions can just go on and I guess I have made the point – next time, when you see a bunch of kids playing in your neighborhood or in some field, take a moment to pause and support. It’s a cyclical relation – players feed off of fans’ support while fans feed off of players’ performance. If in case you don’t have time to appreciate, then definitely don’t make extra time to ridicule them. I cannot stress more on the effect that sports can have on life, in moulding and enhancing mental toughness, team work and making better human beings of ordinary individuals.

Of the games that I have been going to at Tech and watching on TV, it’s heartening to see nearly full house crowd every time (average capactiy for basketball/hockey games is few thousands while that for football games is quite close to 100 thousand) – irrespective of whether it’s at home or away, and tickets for these games are by no means cheap (average cost being $8+ excluding travel expenses while the average income is $12/hour). So, if you see US (or other European countries) topping the medal tally in next Olympics, you know what the reason is and more importantly, you know why the other side isn’t doing as expected.

Until next time, have fun

As if my strike-out wasn’t enough to put me down, Pistons lost their first game in the NBA finals too, to completely turn me off… Well, this is definitely a good day to forget.

Finals, against IT : I was, from the match against the same team last week, under the impression that EE would be a our opponent in this game. But as things had turned out on Field #2, IT had beaten EE with home-team advantage . The poster was about half ready and I guess being home-team gave us some advantage. After holding IT for zero, we scored 8 in the first and again, 7 of these came after we were two down and the innings came to a halt as a result of my poor shot. This IT was not the same which had beaten us 18 – 31 in the first game. If batting was at it’s brutal best and base running lightning fast, defence was at its greatest. Hardly anything that went up in air reached ground and IT running was no match for our solid defence. We made plenty of plays at the first and second bases and effected a double play too, to make it spicy. Home runs flowed and with everybody (Patrick, Mary, Tilvi, Haiying, Marg, Daniel and many more) cheering us all along, we beat IT 20 – 5 (yes, twenty to five) by the bottom of sixth (call this the sweetest revenge!) and celebrations began soon – on the field and carried over to the Downtowner for rest of the evening… All the hard work we had put in under scorching Sun on Sundays had paid off.