The Shailesh-tival

A few memories from the past have resurfaced in the past few days: Read the rest of this entry →

I love sports. I love watching them. I love playing them. I love college sports. Some people argue that college sports take valuable resources away from the rest of their respective universities. Read the rest of this entry →

I never really thought it was realistic for an average person to run 26.2 miles until my friend Ninad’s dad ran one a few years ago. Then my friend Tim ran the Chicago marathon twice and my friend Tom ran it once. Since that time I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to run one. Read the rest of this entry →

I already posted once tonight about game seven of the NLCS being a classic in the making. Now I’d like to offer a little piece of trivia for all of you. Read the rest of this entry →

The playoffs have sucked up to this point. And that’s a huge dissapointment. Read the rest of this entry →

I’ve been an Illini fan for 9 years. I’ve seen the Illini play at many other stadiums throughout the Big Ten. Strangely my worst experiences as an Illini fan have been at Illini home games. So today, I present you with:

Shailesh’s guide to being an Illini fan

Read the rest of this entry →

On September 12, 2006 the Baltimore Orioles 6-5 loss to the Boston Red Sox clinched the 9th consecutive losing season for the Baltimore Orioles. They haven’t won more than half their games since their AL-best 98 wins in 1997.

During Thursday’s make-up game with the Detroit Tigers, many fans dressed up in black T-shirts reading ‘Free the Birds’ to protest Peter Angelos’ mismanagement of the Baltimore Orioles. Read the rest of this entry →

I think a 16-year-old girl just broke my right foot.

Stay tuned for details.

Saturday marked the return of college football. Since it was a long weekend, I had the opportunity to witness the Illini take on the Eastern Illinois Panthers.

The Illini looked improved from last season, when they struggled to beat similarly talented teams. The offense put up 42 points, which I pretty much excepted and the Illini running game racked up almost 300 yards. Isiah “Juice” Williams played a few drives and did ok, although he did fumble on one scramble.

The defense still looks suspect. The secondary gave up a number of big plays to Panther wide-outs.

Next week I expect a very tough challenge for the Illini. Yes, we beat Rutgers last year, but they did manage to go to a bowl game and they’ll be at home. I do favor Rutgets to win, but this is definitely a winnable game for the Illini.

And I’m heading back to Champaign in 7 days for corporate recruiting.

I’m hoping to make it back for the Indiana and Ohio games in October too. We’ll see how that works out.

I spent the past weekend in Chicagoland. On Saturday, I played golf with Darren, Bova and Gartley. The course was Crane’s Landing in Lincolnshire. Anyways, as we got ready to tee off the golf course ranger comes up to us and starts explaining the rules of the course. He also tells us that the pace for the course is 2 hours on the front nine and 2:20 on the back nine.

The GPS unit on the golf cart is also nice enough to keep time for you, so it warns you about how you are doing relative to the course pace.

Anyways, we get to the 9th teebox and some guy from a charity accosts us and starts asking us to donate. We listen to his spiel for 5 minutes and finally tee off. As we are standing on the 9th green, the almighty ranger walks up to us and tells us we are running 10 minutes behind.

We explain that half of that time was lost due to the charity guy that the course gave permission to harass on the golf course.

He just shrugged his shoulders.

Anyways, we finish the hole and I’m still walking back to the cart when Darren gets in and yells, “Hey I don’t know where he got 10 minutes. The cart only says we’re 5 minutes behind.”

I yelled back, “Maybe he added our 5 minutes to the other carts 5 to get 10.”

The ranger was standing about 50 feet away. Oops.

Anyways, we teed off on the 10th and another ranger comes by and starts harassing us. We tell him we’ll try to hurry up but mostly ignore him.

We continue to play at the EXACT same pace and at the 11th hole, the first ranger drives up to us and thanks us for hurrying up.

For the record we finished the course 4 minutes ahead of pace.

After the golf course, Darren and I headed to Wrigley for the Cubs-Cardinals game with Tim and Paul. I, of course, was decked out in my Cardinals regalia — jersey and hat. The Cubs won the game and we actually ended up leaving early, in the 8th inning.

On the way out, I wanted a picture of the four of us, so I asked the usher to take one. He tried to take it, but I hadn’t set the time on the camera so it wouldn’t take a picture. The Wrigley crowd started yelling at us, “Who knows if that thing works, dude, it’s a freakin’ Cardinal camera!!!”

True, but I’ll guarantee one thing: It works in October.

Anyways, I came to a big realization on my drive back to Detroit today: The Washington Redskins have won more championships at Wrigley Field than the Chicago Cubs.