Miscellaneous March Mayhem

From the Cheap Seats

by Chris Hahn

From the Cheap Seats sends its support to the troops around the world fighting for the freedoms we enjoy.  Thanks you, and you are all in our thoughts and prayers…

It’s March Madness!  Nobody has time to read an entire article, let alone write one.  We should all be watching basketball, digesting brackets, and deciding which 12 seed (OK, this year it’s just Butler) needs to win for us to have a chance at winning the office pool.

That said, FTCS still believes in fulfilling the sports fixation.  Therefore, here are some miscellaneous thoughts to get you through the last week of March:

• The committee did a horrendous job this year not only in picking the appropriate bubble teams but in the seeds as well.  I could easily write an entire article about it, but that’s not necessary now that we’re down to the Sweet 16.  We will leave it at this…while Auburn has justified their selection, the most impressive ‘Take that!’ to the committee has been the Big East’s 8-0 performance after the snubbing of Boston College.

• It appears increasingly likely that baseball will reinstate Pete Rose soon.  Given the world we live in, there is no doubt that Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.  The big debate now is whether reinstatement should allow him to manage again after he admits betting on baseball.  Knowing the way Bud Selig operates, he may allow it.  Selig can’t stand that he and Jim Gray turned Rose into the public’s martyr and is the biggest ovation at any MLB event he is allowed to attend.  Selig just wants Rose to blend into the sports and not leave any controversy on the issue left worth talking about…

• A high school basketball coach resigned this week after an amateur rules violation.  The coach promised to pay his players $1 for each charge they took, and at the end of the season dished out over twenty dollars to the team.  Earl Carson voluntarily resigned without fighting the issue, admitting “I did the crime; I need to do the time.”  The unfortunate fact is that the way he has acknowledged his wrong and accepted the consequences make him the exact type of coach that should continue to educate our youth!

• Tiger Woods demolished the field at Bay Hill…is there any doubt that he’s ready to make history at Augusta by winning his third straight green jacket?  He went into Sunday with a five-stroke lead and despite a bad case of food poisoning, doubled that margin and won by eleven strokes!  Forget 3 straight Masters…Tiger is ready for all 4 majors!

• Is there really any better time during the sports year than this?  March starts with the blitz of the NCAA Tournament, and then leads the sporting world through the emergence of golf weather, MLB Opening Day, the Kentucky Derby, and the Indianapolis 500.  If you can’t find something to look forward to over the next couple of months, perhaps you should stop reading this column and find a pulse!

Until we are down to Four, I’ll see you in the cheap seats...

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