Baseball. It's Over!

It's over! It's Over! Strongbad says, "It's over!"

Tonight, I attended the Michigan Baseball game against Nebraska with "the Mad Latvian Slammer."

After the first couple of innings I thought we were doing pretty well. then we gave up  successive 4 and 5 run innings. The 9th inning wouldn't end with us giving up 4 runs. I suppose we just are not the best at baseball.

We did notice some interesting trends during the game. The first being that it was a perfect evening. The scoreboard gave both time and temperature during the game and we wanted to track the temperature drop as a function of time. I could include it in my next paper. It would be more relevant than my current dataset. One trend we noticed was that the temperature drop during the Nebraska at-bats was larger than for the Michigan at-bats. This probably has something to do with the fact that they cycled their lineup 3 times in the first 4 innings.

Anyway, the game was still fun. I should have brought sunscreen like I was planning. This was not because I got burnt. They just had a contest to see who could be the first to bring sunscreen up to the announcer. I missed out on a free autographed baseball.
Also, long aluminum benches make the best sound when they are whacked without any damping on them.

So it is over now. No, confetti fell. No random people came up to congratulate me. I did hold my hands up to the perfect sky and spin around. I suppose I did lose gas near the end, especially with the documentation. I think Mark Twain said that if you ever want to make a young person suffer, make them promise to keep a journal for a year. I am not even certain if the air smells any sweeter now. I do know that I can hold something over ever other Michigan fan.

Now on for the statistics.
64 events for 28 sports.

Men		Women
Baseball	1	Basketball	1
Basketball	1	Cross Country	4
Cross Country	3	Field Hockey	4
Football	8	Golf	1
Golf	1	Gymnastics	1
Gymnastics	1	Rowing	1
Ice Hockey	17	Soccer	2
Lacrosse	2	Softball	1
Soccer	2	Swimming	1
Swimming	1	Tennis	1
Tennis	2	Indoor Track	1
Indoor Track	1	Outdoor Track	1
Outdoor Track	1	Volleyball	2
Wrestling	1	Water Polo	1

The week high was six events from 30-Oct-2011 to 5-Nov-2011, including Ice Hockey (2), men's Soccer (1), men's swimming (1), women's swimming (1), and field Hockey.
The single day high was 3 multiple times.

Anyway, there were so many great moments from all of the sports, from nail biters to beat-downs to runaway victories. Here are a few awards.

The intense moment goes to Football, with the 4th quarter against Notre Dame. My heart still races when I think about it.
The most boring event goes to Men's Golf. Something about a Monday morning start time, just doesn't make golf that interesting.
The longest trip goes to Men's and Women's cross country. Wooh, nationals!
The hardest to watch also goes to Cross Country (Spectators have to run too.)
The unexpectedly fun team award goes to Field Hockey, Tennis (Men's and women's), Wrestling, and Women's Golf.
The most disappointing fans award goes to women's soccer. (We need to fix this.)
The best fans award goes to Ice Hockey followed by Volleyball and Men's soccer.
The chaos award goes to Men's and Women's indoor track.
The deflation award goes to Men's Basketball and Ice hockey for being upset in the first round.
And finally, the best moment award goes to Football: 4th quarter of The Game, touchdown review, leading by 5, "Don't Stop believing!"

Anyway, I have sealed my Michigan Superfan Status. I can't wait until next year. I already have football and Hockey tickets. Let us see what else we can accommodate.

Now, if we could just get cricket as a varsity sport...

Andrew

One more to go

This is it.

Last week I rounded out all but baseball.

Let us start with last Sunday, April 29th. It was one just one of those days where it is impossible to just sit and draw. As far as watching people hit balls with bats, this was the day. Both softball and baseball had double headers, given my choice. I saw our Wolverines face off against the Fighting Illini of Illinois in the fine game of softball. Maybe it was the day, or maybe it was the fact that we were tied for the lead of the Big Ten, but the place was packed and the crowd was great. Runs were only scored in the 4th by us (a 2-run homer) and in the 7th by Illinois, (a solo home run.) That meant our closer had a lot on her. There is something to be said about a stadium stomping out "Lets Go Blue," on aluminum bleachers. Speaking of stadiums, we have a nice one, a seriously nice one. Then again, all of our facilities are great. You see, unlike some big football schools, we actually spread the money around, and take care of all of our sports. (To be fair basketball and Hockey also bring in quite a bit of money as well.) Anyway, the game kept tension until the end, and the players had a lot of spirit. My personal favorite parts were the fact that three camera operators had to dodge foul balls, and the fact that the Illinois coach did not like it when her players were tagged out and made it very clear. To be honest, I couldn't tell. I will just trust that the umpires had a better view than me.

Oh Thursday, May 3rd, I decided to take a break from the office, and hit up the Len Paddock Invitational for both men's and women's track and field. I was going to skip out on Friday afternoon, but someone said there might be rain that day (there wasn't,) and it was just too nice to sit around in an office pretending to work. (I was waiting on data from collaborators.) On biking down there, I discovered that I made two mistakes. The first was that I didn't bring any sunscreen. That night I discovered that the left half of my face was kind of pink due to my facing north in the afternoon. I shielded my arms with my body. The second mistake was assuming that the format would be similar to outdoor track. I figured that the men or women would be doing a bunch of stuff all at once, and then the other gender would have it's turn. In stark contrast to the information overload of five simultaneous events of indoor track. Outdoor track meets go one event at a time. No wonder they take two days as opposed to half an afternoon. So, I got to watch the hammer throw, just the hammer throw. No, I have nothing against the hammer throw. In fact, I think all events are cool. It's just that I was expecting more. Still, our men threw and they threw well. There was a man from central that also threw really well. I think someone made a "Thor" joke. I'm guessing that is mandatory at every track meet. There were three things that stood out to me. The first was that there were not many spectators, which one would expect on a Thursday afternoon after the end of the school year. The second was that these dudes looked like they threw hammers. The throwing muscles were big, and the others not so much. Thirdly, you could always tell a bad throw by a cry of dismay. Also, I enjoyed it when a throw went wide and hit the safety fence. It gave a very satisfying clank.

After the men finished, it was the lady had a turn. I have to admit, that I left after one round, something about sunburn and more attempts at productivity at work. Anyway, the odd thing about the women, is I would not peg them as throwers like the men. I guess it is just because men can develop their muscles to much more than women. The women, just looked strong and athletic, but not sport specific. Anyway, our ladies outnumbered the competition, and they did a pretty good job out trowing them as well.

I really did enjoy the hammers flying through the air and taking out divots in the ground.

All that is left is baseball next week. I will probably shoot for the Thursday game against Nebraska. If I can't make it to any of the three games, then it is down to Columbus for the Big Ten Championship.

Bare with me, I am almost done. I admit that I have really slipped off as far as both attending and writing about sports, but we are almost done here people.

27 sports in a year will soon be 28!