This week in sports

I love March madness. This is the best month of the year. It is the month of the NCAA Tournament and all the conference tournaments. The NCAA Tournament is the greatest sports event known to man. The conference tournaments are important because the winner of all 30 tournaments get an automatic bid to the field of 65. Only the Ivy League awards its regular season champion the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The rest of the field is the 34 best at-large teams sectioned by the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee. Just to let you know that there are 341 Division I schools for the committee to chose from. The very best thing about the NCAA tournament is the upsets and close games that can and do happen. Anything can happen, anyone can win on any given day, and it’s one game not a best-of-three or best-of-seven series. As Dick Vitale says it’s “survive and advance”. There is nothing like it in the world.

I know I’ve said I don’t like the Yankees and I don’t, but in the last few weeks they have done two things that have given me a new respect for them. On March 13th Actor/Director Billy Crystal played in a spring training game for his 60th birthday on March 14th. Some people have criticized this move, but Billy Crystal is a life long fan that was born in Manhattan and made a movie about the Yankees. He was the lead off batter for one at-bat and that was it. The next time his spot in the batting order came up Johnny Damon replaced him in the line-up. He managed to make contact, fouling a fastball up the first base line. He did struck-out but he struck-out swinging. Get off his back, at least he tried.

On March 18th the Yankees played a spring trainning game at Virginia Tech. Last year on April 16th, Virginia Tech was the scene of the worst campus shooting in US history. The Yankees not only played a game there but also donated $1 million dollars to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. The Yankees players visited the April 16th memorial and not only singed autographs for the fans but also the Virginia Tech players. One of the greatest stories I saw was the Yankees spent a inning in the Virginia Tech dougout with the players. Must have been a great day.

The Boston Red Sox started the 2008 baseball season last week in Japan. I don’t mind playing regular season games overseas, what I have a problem with is us playing games in a market that has professional baseball. You see, baseball has been played in Japan since 1872. They have had a professional league in Japan since 1920. You need to be playing games in Europe and in places like China that are new martkets to baseball.

Thanks my take: I would like to hear yours

Jamie Lazaroff