The Blue Workhorse

“Fuk-a-dome-e….Fuk-a-dome-e….Fuk-a-dome-e…”

It was the sound of the Cubs’ faithful on a cool and windy Opening Day at Wrigley Field in the ninth inning when the Cubs had runners on first and second trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth.

And Kosuke Fukudome delivered.

The weak were weeded out. What once was a field of 65 is now down to 4.

Everyone thought all four #1 seeds wouldn’t make it to the Final Four, but they proved the naysayers wrong. UCLA, North Carolina, Memphis, and Kansas each punched their tickets to the Final Four. Each will head to San Antonio with thoughts of national championship, and it is only thanks to some great individual performances throughout the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

But who had the most outstanding individual performance in the Elite Eight? Who has earned the right to be named the ‘Elite Eight Workhorse?’ In honor of the elite eight, here are the eight candidates:

While there have been some great team performances this year in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, it has been the individual performances of players such as Stephen Curry, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, and Tyler Hansbrough that everyone is talking about.

So who had the single most outstanding performance? Who deserves the honor of being the ‘Sweet 16 Workhorse?’ The candidates:

This year the battle could be just as highly contested as only the San Francisco Giants won’t bring a high-caliber team to the field each and every day. Arizona won the division last season but went out and made some huge trades. Colorado rode a late season hot streak all the way to the World Series. San Diego is determined to return to the playoffs after losing their last three games cost them a trip last season, and the Dodgers are looking to end one of the longest World Series droughts in the franchise’s storied history.

Here are our previews and predictions for all five NL West teams including last year’s records, key additions, key losses, projected starting lineup, projected rotation, overall outlook, fantasy impact players, and our prediction for this season:

I got an e-mail earlier today suggesting I check out YouMail and their voicemail greetings. I was skeptical at first, but since we recently got some love from SicEmDawgs.com, DawgSports.com, and on a message board at DawgRun.com, I figured I’d at least check out YouMail.

I’m not a big technological person when it comes to my cell phone since it really only works when it wants anyways, but I was impressed by the personalized team NCAA messages the site is promoting for March Madnes.

Thankfully for the Seattle Mariners, when they lost 15 of their last 17 games last season and ran themselves out of a possible playoff berth, they were overlooked because a team in New York was having an even more colossal collapse. After all was said and done, the M’s ended up 6 games behind the division champ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, or whatever they want to call themselves.

This offseason Seattle made sure they had a pitching staff that wouldn’t be able to go through the rotation more than 3 times with only two wins. They traded for Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva to bolster their pitching staff. However, LAA of A also made significant moves in the off-season by signing free agent Torii Hunter and trading away Orlando Cabrera to strengthen their starting rotation with Jon Garland.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is traditionally about great and, often improbable, team runs spurred by uncanny individual performances, and this year’s tournament has been no different. There have been upsets and a lot of near upsets as any of the four #2 seeds could tell you after their second round contests as they each had to battle down to the wire against three #7 seeds and a Goliath-slaying #10 seed in Davidson. Those contests each had their own outstanding performances.

But who had the most outstanding performance to make them worthy of the distinction of being named the ‘2nd Round Workhorse?’ Here are our candidates (in alphabetical order):

There were several great games in the first round of this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, whether it has been an upset (San Diego over Connecticut, Siena over Vanderbilt), a near upset (Duke surviving Belmont), or double-digit comebacks (Villanova over Clemson, Drake against Western Kentucky only to fall in OT), and each of the great games has had key players.

But who had the best game of the first round and has earned the right to be deemed the “1st Round Workhorse” or most outstanding performance of the first round of the NCAA tournament?

Here are our candidates (in alphabetical order):