Helmets for base coaches

First and third base coaches will be wearing some short of head protection MLB said at its annually winter meetings. They came up with the idea after Mike Coolbaugh a first baseball coach for the Rockies double A team was hit by a line drive and died from it. http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/story/10460250 Because of this sad accident MLB is making the base coaches wear helmets. MLB has not decided on what type of protective head gear it will yet. I think this is a great idea for MLB to do to prevent this from happening again. The President of the Detroit Tigers said “everybody just felt like it was a situation that made sense”. I am some what surprised that it took this long for a rule to be put in that the base coaches had to wear protective head gear while in the coache’s box. I know when I played baseball in high school I had to wear a helmet if I was going to coach first base. I believe this is one of the more important this that was brought up during the winter meetings this year more so than instant replay. I believe this because wearing helmets will protect lives and be more important in the future since the players get getting bigger and stronger. This is also one of the best things that has come up since Bud Selig, that I can remember, has been the commissioner of baseball.

NCAA and Money

Should teams that play in the play-in game for the men’s basketball tournament get paid more money? The answer is I’m not sure but the NCAA is going to give the teams that play in the Tuesday night game before the tourney starts the same amount of money that teams that play in the first round get. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3090606 The amount will be around 200,000 for the schools but will get nothing for winning the game but the fact that they get to move on according to the NCAA. Now that more money is involved more pressure is put on the coach of that team that is on the cusp of making the tourney. With the money from the tournament game it can really help out a program that is struggling with financial issues. Now the athletic departments will pressure their coaches to make the tournament to get the prize money. Also the coaches will have a shorter leeway when the have a down year or a rebuilding year with the money that is at stake for the schools. This also leads me to another point that some school only care about the money that they get from winning. This is not the point of college athletics it is not to see how much money you can get for your school out of athletes but to give the athletes memories that will last a life time. That is the problem with sports now-a-days all the people that are in charge of the programs think about money and publicity that the school gets instead of thinking about the athletes that get them the money.

Suspended Players

In today’s world of you most win at all cost it was surprising to hear that University of Georgia suspended its leading scorer from last year for the season and two other players fifteen games and the other six games. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3081116 Senior Takais Brown the leading scorer from last year was only going to be suspended only nine games but because he broke athletic department polices he was dismissed from the team. The polices are about unexcused absences of classes and missed academic appointments. The reason that Georgia has this new policy is to increase their graduation rate. I was some what shocked when I read this because normally you don’t see a team suspend one its better players to improve their graduation rate. Also they will be without two other players Mike Mercer and Albert Jackson for the first part of the season for similar rules violation. The AD also said that the two suspend players that when they return after suspension will be academic eligible by the school, SEC and the NCAA. The coach Dennis Felton said that Takais will stay at the school to graduate, which he is set to do in the summer. I hope Takais stays at Georgia to finish up is degree it seems that there are a lot of people that want to help him out and to make sure that he does graduate on time. It’s nice to see that the school wants to help out a suspended player so much even though he will not help out the basketball team. This should be done at more colleges to help the athletes graduate on time even if it means that they can not play on the team.

Another player involved with the law

The Sacramento Kings gave Justin Williams an indefinite leave of absence due to recent police investigation a team spokesman said. This is all the NBA needs a player involved with an investigation of sexual assault of a female acquaintance. http://www.sportsline.com/nba/story/10417184 With what all the NBA has one through this is one thing that they don’t need to have more bad publicity for them. Williams has not been charged yet and he is cooperating with the police. The Kings have not said if they are going to suspend Williams at this point. I think that the Kings should suspend for some at least for some amount of time depending on what happens in the case. This is just another case of were athletes don’t get it with all the athletes that have gotten in trouble this past year you would think that other athletes would make better decisions. I know has not even be charged with anything yet but his name just mention in a police is not good for the league which has enough issues with the gambling refs. The good thing that the team did was give him a leave of absence to show the league that there were proactive in this to maybe try to limit a possible suspension by the league.

Mitchell Investigation

With the results of the George Mitchell investigation coming out with in the next few weeks the questions is does anybody even care about it any more. Mitchell said he would be to talk to anybody that has a question about why they are on the list. http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/story/10404410 They also said that they might not tell the teams who is on the list before it is released to the public. Honestly I think that they should tell the teams if they have a player on the list so they can be warned before the public knows. First so the clubhouse knows so if questions are asked they can answer them with some knowledge about it. Now back to does anybody can anymore about it. I for one don’t care anymore because it has be going on for so long I just want to hear that it is done with. Another question is what are they going to do with the players on the list in the first place. Are they just going to suspend them for like 10 games or are they going to kick them out of MLB because they are know for steroids usage or owning them. I also think they just need to get done with Mitchell’s investigation because it keeps a black eye over baseball with steroids and all the other things that come along with that. Finally I think it was a good idea in the beginning but it took to long to get to the conclusion of investigation.

Player gives up scholarship

This is something that you don’t here about everyday one player giving up his scholarship so the school can have room for an incoming recruit. Washington State senior Taylor Rochestie gave up his scholarship for the 2008-2009 season so they go offer the scholarship to Marcus Capers from Orland, Florida. http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10390866/1 Taylor said his family could afford the 25,000 dollars for school so it was a no brainer to help the team out. How often do you see an athlete give up going to school for free to help out his team? Would you give up your scholarship to help out your team get a star recruit? I know I would most likely not give up my scholarship if I had one even if it helped out the team because in my view I earned it and I would not want to give it up. It is nice to see that he is not all about me, me, me like so many athletes now a day but instead what can I do to help the team. That is what I call a senior leader he is helping the team in the future by making room on the team for an impact freshman on the team. Taylor said that he wanted to give back to the team that gave him a chance after he transferred from Tulane. There should be more players like Taylor Rochestie that are willing to do anything to help out their teams and be a mentor to the younger players like Marcus Capers.

Salary Cap

Should there be a salary cap in baseball? That has been a topic for many years now to try and balance out the competitive balance in the MLB. Every other pro team has one why not baseball it would make a lot of sense to do so. In MLB you have teams with payrolls of 100 plus million dollars and teams with payrolls of less 30 million dollars, its not fair to the smaller market teams because they can not get the best players during free agency like the big market teams can which tends to lead that the bigger market team will have a better season than the smaller market team. A-Rods salary for this year alone 22.7 million http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/players/playerpage/8023 is almost as much as the entire payroll of the Tampa Bay D-Rays 24.1 million http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/salaries. With a salary cap there would be a more balance the payrolls of the teams. But there are some teams that did or will make the playoffs with smaller payrolls like the Indians with a payroll of 61.7 million http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/salaries and they have the second best record in the AL. That is one of the few cases that smaller market teams can make the playoffs but it is few and far between so there should be a salary cap in baseball to fix the competitive balance in the MLB.