Baseball loses three of its own in past week

They say bad things come in threes.

Major League Baseball proved that it is not immune to this, as three baseball figures past away just in this past week.

The first was Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, who was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. Andrew Thomas Gallo was reported to be nearly three times the legal limit when he collided with a car containing 4 people, including Adenhart. Two other passengers died, and one went to the hospital and was in critical, but stable, condition.

Adenahrt had just pitched the night before against the Oakland A’s, where he threw six scoreless innings in his season debut. The young pitchers life became just another tragic story of an irresponsible person taking a promising life.

Mark Fidrych, a former pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, past away Monday at the age of 54 in what appeared to be an accident on his Massachusetts farm.

Fidrych was known for his on-the-field antics, such as manicuring the mound or talking to the ball. He was only in the league five years, but won American League Rookie of the Year Honors and was named to the All-Star team.

On the same day as Fidrych’s death, Phillies long-time announcer Harry Kalas died at the age of 73.

Kalas collapsed in the broadast booth before the Phillies’ game against the Washington Nationals. He was the voice of the Phillies for nearly four decades, and also provided the voice over for NFL Films.

It was only fitting that the man whose wonderful captured so many memories in Philadelphia was able to see his team win the World Series in his last full season with them.

Fantasy baseball update: Players to watch for

TOR OF Adam Lind: Lind is currently one of the hottest players in league. He's gone 10-21 with 3 HR and 11 RBI in the first four games of the season. He recently switched to DH, so is only focusing on hitting. Lind is still available in a lot of leagues, so if you're in need of an OF don't hesitate to pick him up. He's only going to get better, and with the pace he's on, could very well earn a spot on the American League All-Star roster.

FLA 2B Emilio Bonifacio: Bonifacio has put up multi-hit games in each of the first four this season. According to CBSSportline, Bonifacio is the early front runner for the NL MVP. He is hitting .578 with 1 HR, 4 RBI, and 4 SB so far.

TB 3B Evan Longoria: Since failing to homer in the season opener, Longoria has homered in the last three games since then, including two in Friday's game. The reigning AL Rookie of the Year is hitting .444 with 4 HR and 8 RBI.

ARI 2B Felipe Lopez: Lopez is a very valuable player on any fantasy team because of his ability to play up to four positions. He's also a guy that is still available in a lot of leagues. He's hitting .313 with 2 HR and 4 RBI on the season so far.

Although it's still very early in the season, and still too early to tell trends in players, but these players are good early season additions in you're looking to jump out to an early lead in your leagues.

Jose Canseco throws out possibility of Ramirez using steroids

When Jose Canseco’s book “Juiced” came out in 2005 naming countless baseball players who were potentially connected to steroid use, many baseball figures doubted him.

Now it’s 2009, and Canseco has become a pretty credible source in this field. He admitted his own usage of steroids, and subsequently published his book naming roughly 104 players from around Major League Baseball.

Some of the names on his list were Miguel Tejada and Alex Rodriguez, who admitted just in this past year that they were in fact using steroids.

Canseco has now thrown another name out who could possibly be linked to steroids: Manny Ramirez. He says the reason Manny wasn’t given a contract extension was not because of his age, or the large amount of money he was wanting, but because his name is “most likely, 90%” on the list.

Although baseball fans don’t want to believe it anytime a player in linked to steroid use, one almost has to seriously consider the possibility nowadays when Canseco throws a name out there. Afterall, he does appear to have some inside knowledge on all of this.

Championship game features two hot teams

As a sports fan, I always want the championship of any sport to be a good match-up, and this year's Michigan State vs. North Carolina will be just that.

This game features two of the most storied college basketball programs, as well as two of the best coaches in college basketball.

Michigan State has had no easy time getting to this game. They came back from a huge deficit against defending champion Kansas, then beat the overall No. 1 seed Louisville in convincing fashion, and did the same thing to UConn, another No. 1 seed.

What they have been doing well it utilizing their strengths, and exploiting theire opponents' weakness. That may seem like an obvious thing that any team needs to do to win, but Michigan State has truly been definition of those phrases. They have made all of their opponents play at a slower tempo, and forced them to play "Big Ten basketball." They are not the biggest team, and rely heavily on their guard play. This just further proves that great guard play wins tournament games, more so than great big men.

This team is very young. Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers are both sophomores, and are the main offensive threats on this team. Another sophomore, Chris Allen, also provides solid minutes off the bench. Freshmen Korie Lucious and Delvon Roe are terrific freshmen that eat up a lot of minutes as well. The upperclassmen that the Spartans do have though, are solid. Raymar Morgan is another inside presence, to go along with Goran Suton, and Travis Walton is one of the best defenders in the nation.

To win, they're simply going to have to do what they have been doing: Making teams play their game. Travis Walton is a shut down defender, and will either be on Ty Lawson, or Wayne Ellington. The Spartans do not want to get in to a running game with UNC because they will have a tough time keeping up with Lawson and the Carolina backcourt.

The Tar Heels have some of the best inside options in Tyler Hansbrough, Ed Davis, and Tyler Zeller. Aside from Suton and Morgan, Dremond Green is really their only athletic big man that can hang with the Carolina front court.

The Spartans have surprised a lot of people this tournament, and pulled off some unlikely upsets, so this game is a toss-up as far as picking a winner. Michigan State doesn't make many mistakes, and utilize their strengths.

This kind of matchup is exactly what any fan wants to see in a championship game.

Remember, this game is being played in Detroit at Ford Field, essentially a home game for Michigan State. However, these two teams met earlier this season, a game that North Carolina won 98-63, also at Ford Field. However, both Tom Izzo and Roy Williams agreed that that game is no indication of how the title game will turn out. The Spartans had just played three games, and were without Goran Suton.

Stat to remember: Tom Izzo is 10-0 in the NCAA tournament as a No. 2 seed.

Final Four Preview

The Final Four tips off tonight at Ford Field in Detroit, but who is the favorite to win it?

Here's a little breakdown on the two games, and my prediction of how this Final Four will play out.

Michigan State vs. UConn: This may not look like an intriguing battle on paper, but if you have watched Michigan State play this season, you know what they're capable of. The Spartans completely took Louisville out of their own game plan in the Elite Eight, and made the Cardinals play Big Ten basketball. That's what this team is good at. They know they're not going to match up size-wise with UConn, so their shooting will have to be lights out. However, they are playing close to home, so that has to be taken in to consideration.

On the other end, UConn has played arguably the best basketball in the tournament so far, and it would be a belated April Fools joke to say they weren't the favorite in this one. Hasheem Thabeet is the most dominating defensive presence in the Final Four, and Michigan State has absolutely no answer for him. Goran Suton is not nearly as athletic as Thabeet, and will have a very tough time against him. Also, Jeff Adrien and Stanley Robinson have come up huge since Jerome Dyson's injury took him out of play for the remainder of the season.

The story in this game is going to be how much can Michigan State contain Jeff Adrien and Stanley Robinson down low, and how many three's and open jump shots can Kalin Lucas, Durrell Summers, and Chris Allen hit. The Spartans are going to try force UConn to shoot outside, because A.J. Price is their only real three-point threat.

However, in this one I have to give the edge to UConn. They're just playing too well right now, and Michigan State is still a young team.

Villanova vs. North Carolina: After getting blown out last year in the Final Four by Kansas, UNC has one mission: Win a National Championship. Tyler Hansbrough has basically done everything else a college basketball player can do, except win a national title.

With him comes arguably one of the best teams ever assembled at North Carolina. Ty Lawson has been nothing short of magnificent this whole season, and has been playing as well as anyone after coming off of his injury. Danny Green and Wayne Ellington come in to the game shooting the ball well and been playing great defense. Freshmen Ed Davis Davis compliment Hansbrough inside very well, along with Dion Thompson.

Villanova is no cupcake, though. Head coach Jay Wright has this team playing their best ball of the season at the right time. Scottie Reynolds' game winner over Pittsburgh in the Elite Eight is one of the iconic memories of this years tournament, and gave the Wildcats their first Final Four berth since 1985.

Reynolds is definitely a great guard, but Dante Cunningham and Corey Fisher are also outstanding players. Cunningam is the leading scorer on the team, but is really their only big presence inside.

The match-up everyone will have their eyes on in this one is without question Ty Lawson vs. Scottie Reynolds. However, aside from that, I don't really see Villanova matching up well with anyone on North Carolina's team. The Tar Heels are simply too good, and score too easily and efficiently for Villanova to stop them. They're a much deeper team, and have tremendous contribution from their bench, so I see North Carolina moving on in this one to face UConn in the Championship game.

Well Played

Cutler dealt to Bears

After a month or so of turmoil with new head coach Josh McDaniels, Jay Cutler was finally sent out of Denver Thursday.

The Broncos traded the unhappy quarterback to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, two first-round picks in the 2009 and 2010, along with a third-round pick.

This is a absolutely a great pick-up for the Bears. For a team that has struggled to find their "franchise quarterback" for many years, this is huge. Cutler will be their quarterback of the future.

Josh McDaniels clearly screwed up on this one. Let me just recap what he did.

He leaves his spot in New England as the offensive coordination and takes over as head coach of the Denver Broncos after long-time coach Mike Shanahan is fired, which was a mistake by the way. But after he arrives in Denver, one of the first things he does as the new coach is he tries to bring his quarterback from New England, Matt Cassell, to Denver.

So what was the mistake here? Well, McDaniels made many here.

First, he comes to a team in which Jay Cutler is the established offensive leader on, and tries to remove him as the starting quarterback by bringing in Matt Cassell. After this, he wasn't truthful with Cutler at all about this whole situation.

Cutler had every reason to be upset with McDaniels and not to trust him. Why should he? I would be upset too if a young, first time head coach came to take over my team and go behind my back to replace me with a quarterback who just so happened to be the beneficiary of an injury to the leagues top quarterback.

Did McDaniels forget that Cutler was a Pro-Bowl selection and set the record for the most passing yards in Broncos history? Let's not forget that John Elway was once the quarterback for this team.

Throw out the fact that the Bears gave up a number of draft picks and their starting quarterback, because that doesn't matter. The Bears still got the better end of the deal on this one.

Traditionally, the Bears haven't done much with their drafts picks anyway, so picking up a guy like Cutler, a guy that franchises can be built around, was much more valuable than drafting an offensive or defensive lineman in the draft.

McDaniels will soon realize that he made a colossal rookie mistake, and the Bears have finally solved their long-term quarterback issues.

Calipari in at Kentucky, but was it too much money?

Kentucky introduced John Calipari as its new head basketball coach on Wednesday, but was he worth it?

Calipari agreed to an eight-year, $31.65 million deal with Kentucky, making him the highest paid coach in college basketball. He leaves a Memphis program that he had been at for nine seasons.

To me, I see this as an insult to coaches like Mike Kryzewski, Tom Izzo, and Roy Williams, who are clearly the top three coaches in the country. These coaches are going to be paid less than Calipari, a coach who has yet to win a national championship, or even coach in a major power conference like the SEC.

Calipari's success as a coach and recruiter is undeniable. However, he fell just short of his first championship last year at Memphis, losing in the title game to Kansas.

Next year looked promising for Calipari and his Memphis squad, who potentially has one of the top recruiting classes in the country, depending on what Xavier Henry and Demarcus Cousins decide to do with the news of Calipari departing for the Bluegrass state.

It's likely that Cousins will follow Calipari to UK, but Henry's future is still up in the air.

Calipari's first recruiting job at Kentucky may not be to a high school senior, though. Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson have expressed interest in enterring the NBA Draft, so convincing one of the top scorers in the nation and the team's main inside presence to stick around in Lexington should be at the top of his priority list.