Welcome to NY, CC

It has been reported by several sources that today, on the first that that free agents can sign with other teams, that the New York Yankees have offered pitcher CC Sabathia a reported 6 year $140 million dollar contract. The Yankees promised to make a big splash this off season and they seem to be living up to their word. While it has been reported that Sabathia would prefer to stay in the National League, where he can also hit, $140 million will change people's minds pretty quick.

Melrose Out In Tampa

It is just 16 games into the NHL season but already the have the first coaching casualty of the year. Tampa Bay Lightning first year head coach Barry Melrose was fired Friday after seeing his team get out to a 5-7-4 start, good for 4th place in the Southeast Division. The Lightning, who signed several big name veterans over the offseason on top of drafting Steve Stamkos #1 overall in the 2008 draft, had very high expectations coming into the season. Just 14 points in 16 games is not exactly living up to the hype.

Its too bad to see something like this happen to one of the good guys in sports. Melrose was a very well known, well respected analyst for ESPN prior to the Tampa job. With any luck that position will still be his for the taking now that he is unemployed. The bottom line is that while Melrose is well liked and probably did not get a fair chance to turn the team around, something needed to be done to shake things up and unfortunately it was Melrose who fell victim to the chopping block. It will be interesting to see how the Lightning respond to the move. Rick Tocchet will take over as head coach, for the time being.