Step 1: Break the rules. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!

So Kelvin Sampson broke NCAA rules, and is still getting paid $750,000 to leave.

That’s obviously money well-deserved.

I’m normally not one to complain about player or coach salaries. The owners/ADs don’t have to pay them that much money if they don’t want to (or don’t have it). But when people like Sampson get paid despite breaking the rules and hurting their employer (Indiana faces NCAA sanctions) and still get rewarded, that’s a problem.

Then again, at least Indiana did fire Sampson. Elsewhere in sports, Isiah Thomas still has a job. Maybe I should go into coaching.

37 days ’til Opening Day: Casey Kotchman

There are 37 days left until that best day of the year, MLB’s Opening Day.

37 is also the number of doubles Casey Kotchman hit last season, providing some power and good hitting for the Angels at first base.

Kotchman’s emergence was a welcome addition for a team that hadn’t seen a good-hitting first baseman since Scott Spiezio (Darin Erstad definitely does not count). What normally is the best hitting position on a team had a been a black hole of ineptitude for years.

Kotchman did everything a fan could reasonably ask for out of a young player (he’s only 25) in his first full season as a starter. He hit for average (.296), he got on base (.372 OBP) and he hit for power (only 11 homers, but 37 doubles).

Since he’s still young, here’s hoping he can become even better, even if Juan Rivera steals some of his at-bats against lefties.