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ESPN reports that only 881, out of more than 5.9 million Tournament Challenge brackets, picked the Butler-Connecticut national title game match-up.
Mista Oh! confesses that, for the 2011 college hoops season, he hasn’t been the March Madness fanatic he’s been in years past. But he is still pretty stoked over the improbable unpredictability of the match-ups in NCAA March Madness Championship Basketball. He ain’t takin’ credit for being one of the few to have predicted correctly from the outset, but as things began to heat up, Mista Oh! did post his UConn/Butler bracket picks a couple of days ago.
Read on for excellent coverage of Butler and UConn: A Tale of Two Cinderellas by Eamonn Brennan, posting on ESPN.
The NY Yankees front office denies that pitching staff assistant coach Brett Weber was flashing signs to the hitters during The Yanks’ Opening Day 6-3 win over the Tigers. After being questioned by officials from MLB, NY Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman responded by saying that Weber was merely flashing the velocity of the opponents’ pitches because the scoreboard had malfunctioned.
The Baseball Nerd however, reports that since the 2010 season, from his own seat in the stands at Yankee Stadium, he has observed someone seated dead-center behind home plate and 4-5 rows behind the backstop, signaling information about pitch type, speed and location to players in the dugout and on-deck circle. Observing signaling to be “…heavier early in a game,” he further reports… “without fear of contradiction that this is no coincidence,” that he has also seen A-Rod look for the signal, nod, and look away–at which point the signaler stopped.
Although there have been many jokes about the pic that Baseball Nerd shot and posted on Opening Day, Major League Baseball officials have taken this a bit more seriously, calling the NY Yankees front office on Saturday to remind them of baseball operations bulletin C-4, which forbids team staff from communicating pitch types and pitch speed to players via hand signals.
NY Daily News Sports Writer Anthony McCarron identifies the signaler as Brett Weber, a former minor league pitcher who was hired by the Yankees more than two years ago to pitch batting practice, run the radar gun and compile offensive and defensive charts during the game. The Yankees have officially denied any wrong doing. Read more from the Baseball Nerd…
UPDATE: The New York Yankees say they are finished flashing hand signals from the stands — at least for now.