---

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while watching the needle on the thermometer drop in a hurry, just in time for the start of the MIAA Tournaments:

**Yes, ladies and gentlemen, all is right with the world today. Amid the sweet songs of a heavenly choir, Tom Brady returned to the practice field Tuesday in an "official" capacity with the New England Patriots.

OK, I've got to admit, I don't know about the heavenly choir part. I wasn't there. Neither was anyone else in the New England media, because Tuesday was the first day of another "organized team activity" and no one from the media will be allowed to watch any of it until Thursday.

Seriously, that's not that big of a deal. The Patriots deserve some time away from us. We deserve some time away from them, too. It's not as if I don't have other things to do, and there's not a heck of a lot that anyone can learn from watching pad-less OTA practices that won't be covered in the June minicamp - except, of course, confirmation that Brady can stand straight up, take seven steps back and fire the ball into the hands of his wide receivers without crumpling into a heap at the center of the Gillette Stadium practice complex. And I think we already know that.

Brady's return, however, isn't just your every-day story. There's an awful lot of interest in how well one of the best quarterbacks in the game (if not the best) is responding from a serious knee injury. So, there will probably be a very good media turnout at Thursday's practice to see how he's doing, and we'll all probably leave taking Brady's word for it that he's fine. The pre-practice hype got a boost this week from Sports Illustrated's Peter King, who got to sit with Brady and chat about the twists and turns of his life since last season's fateful opening game. There aren't many blockbuster revelations within the story, but it does serve as a tasty morsel of football within what's usually a break from the day-in, day-out coverage from July through free agency and the draft.

Brady fans should be very encouraged, in fact, by the quarterback's stated desire to continue playing for at least another decade. Calling last season's inactivity the "halftime" of his career, Brady said, "I want to play until I'm 41. And if I get to that point and still feel good, I'll keep playing. I mean, what the hell else am I going to do? I don't like anything else.

"People say, 'What will you do if you don't play football?' Why would I even think of doing anything else? What would I do instead of run out in front of 80,000 people and command 52 guys and be around guys I consider brothers and be one of the real gladiators? Why would I ever want to do anything else? It's so hard to think of anything that would match what I do: Fly to the moon? Jump out of planes? Bungee-jump off cliffs? None of that (expletive) matters to me. I want to play this game I love, be with my wife and son, and enjoy life," he said.

Sounds like a plan.

**The area may have caught a little bit of a break when the schedules for the MIAA baseball and softball tournaments came out Tuesday. The next couple of days aren't supposed to be the best, weather-wise, but very few of our local teams were scheduled to play before Saturday. There were three local softball games on the Thursday docket and one baseball game on Friday before a potential bonanza of 12 local games (and at the very least, nine) were scheduled for Saturday.

I'm not counting the lacrosse games as threatened because that sport is played regardless of weather conditions, and tennis (whose pairings come out today) will usually just get pushed over from day to day until the weather's good.

**With the Patriots playing the Bucs in London this season, the team has come up with a good idea to help fans who might want to travel overseas to attend the game in Wembley Stadium, but don't yet have passports.

On June 4 from 4-8 p.m., fans can apply for a passport at Gillette Stadium's Fidelity Investments Clubhouse. They must bring with them a completed passport application (those can be downloaded from www.usps.com/passport); evidence of U.S. citizenship such as a birth or naturalization certificate or a previous U.S. passport; a state- or government-issued photo ID such as a driver's license, government employee ID, or a military ID; and two photos sized 2 inches by 2 inches (or they can have photos taken on-site). And, of course, they have to pay the usual passport fees, which can be found at the USPS Web site.

Those who attend this session will have a chance to win two tickets to the Oct. 25 game at Wembley, as well as receive $5 off admission to The Hall at Patriot Place.

You can also apply for passports at your local post office, but this sounds a little more fun. **It will be very, very interesting to see how David Ortiz reacts to being dropped in the Red Sox batting order from third to sixth.

**As I prepare to head out to the baseball and softball diamonds of the area, I'm reminded of one story that explains why I'll be parking my car about as far away from the fields as possible.

The first brand-new car I bought in my lifetime was a 1977 Plymouth Horizon hatchback, and not long after I got it, I drove it proudly to Norton High School and parked it in the middle of the parking lot next to the old Adams Field diamond. It wasn't more than two innings into the game when one of the Lancers hit a foul popup sky-high into the parking area - straight up, and straight down onto the hood of my car.

Until the day I turned the car in five years later, that hood had a round indentation that would hold a pool of water after each rain to remind me of that game. "Never again," I said. So far, so good.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.