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.