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The Braves winter shopping appears to be complete, as the team has reached agreement on a one-year deal with free agent Troy Glaus to play first base, according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports.

Terms of the contract were not disclosed and the deal is pending a physical. Glaus, 33, missed all but 14 games in 2009 with the St. Louis Cardinals due to lingering effects from shoulder surgery.

Before that, Glaus was one of the game’s most reliable right-handed power bats, averaging 35 homers and 101 RBI over his 12-year career that started with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He was a key member of the 2002 Angels team that won the World Series, winning MVP honors in the Fall Classic. He’s a career. 338 hitter in postseason play, with nine homers.

The four-time All-Star will be manning a new position with the Braves. He’s played only six previous games at first base.

source: http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves/report-braves-sign-troy-253704.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746

Finish Line, Inc. (NYSE: FINL) is the second largest athletic retailer based in the United States, with international headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company, founded in 1976 by Alan Cohen and David Klapper, operates over 700 stores in 48 states under the Finish Line name, among other chains owned.

History

In October 1976 two childhood friends, Alan Cohen and David Klapper opened the doors of Finish Line as a franchise of The Athlete’s Foot at the Speedway Shopping Center in Speedway, Indiana.

By 1981, the owners’ vision had widened beyond the 10 franchises they owned. They were ready to expand beyond Indiana, but The Athlete’s Foot franchise rights ended at the Indiana border. At this point they decided to start their own company called The Finish Line. Cohen and Klapper approached another childhood friend, Larry Sablosky, with a full partnership opportunity. Dave Fagin, a manufacturer’s rep who had been selling product to Cohen and Klapper, was offered the same deal.

By 1991, the company had grown to 105 stores located primarily in Midwestern and Southeastern states with an annual gross of nearly $100 million. The foursome took the company public in 1992.

Selection and product lines have expanded significantly since then. Known for its signature “shoe wall”, a typical Finish Line store will show between 600 and 1,300 different kinds of athletic footwear, including basketball, running, walking, gym, aerobics, hiking, cross-training and skate shoes, not to mention cleats, casual shoes and sandals. Brands carried by Finish Line include Nike, Adidas, Reebok, New Balance, And 1, Oakley, Puma, Converse, Fila, Lugz, Saucony, Timberland. Additional Brands now carried by Finish Line include Pastry, Brooks, Asics, Havaianas, Jordan, and Pearl Izumi.

Today, approximately 20 percent of all sales come from apparel and accessories. This includes the latest in performance and fashion products from Nike, Oakley, Adidas, Fossil, Jansport, professional and collegiate licensed products, t-shirts, shorts, caps, and outerwear from other well-known manufacturers

How To Buy An Exercise Bike

Exercise bikes work your legs, heart and lungs without putting impact or stress on your joints. They have always been very popular pieces of cardiovascular equipment because the exercise motion is very familiar to most people; you simply pedal as you would on a regular bike. You can set your own pace, and even read while exercising.

• Types of Bikes
  • Upright Bikes
  • Recumbent, Semi-Recumbent Bikes
  • Dual Action Bikes
• Resistance
• Feedback mechanisms
• Size

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Types of Exercise Bikes

Upright Bikes

• Similar in form to traditional bikes and still the largest seller
• Good lower body and cardiovascular workout
• Fit easily in limited spaces

Recumbent Bikes, semi-recumbent bikes

• These have chair-like, or bucket seat
• More comfortable than an upright bike and provide better back support
• Promote more efficient blood flow throughout the body
• Prevent you from cheating on peddling because you can’t stand up

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finish_Line

 Texas A&M senior guard Derrick Roland (above) had surgery Tuesday night at Harborview Medical Center to have a rod placed in his broken fibula and tibia.

The Aggies were scheduled to leave their hotel at 5:30 a.m. for the airport, but several players want to stay with Roland, who will spend Christmas in Seattle, until his mother can arrive from Dallas. Texas A&M is having difficulty getting her on a flight because of the holiday travel.

A&M Coach Mark Turgeon told Katz: “Derrick was the heart and soul of this team. Everyone is devastated. Our guys had their eyes swollen in the last five minutes of the game. They were crying during the game. They never came out of it.”

POST-GAME ANALYSIS:

It’s a little unfair, but you got to put an asterisk on Washington’s 73-64 win over No. 19 Texas A&M.

I’m sure the Huskies don’t feel that way. They’ll say a win is a win.

They’ll say no one will remember the circumstances of the game in March.

And they’re right.

But after watching how things changed so drastically after the Aggies lost Roland, it’s impossible to say his injury didn’t change everything about this game. He was A&M’s best perimeter defender, second leading scorer and he played more games (103) than any other Aggie.

Washington led 34-33 when Roland landed after jumping for a rebound and fractured his lower right leg with 17:30 left. Losing Roland left the Aggies visibly shaken. Several players were fighting back tears, including senior guard Donald Sloan, Roland’s high school teammate, best friend and A&M’s best player.

— Finally, the Huskies won this game with their defense. They ourtrebounded the Aggies 55-45 and held A&M to 30.3 percent shooting from the field. Both teams took 66 shots, but UW made 24 and A&M sank 20. Washington converted on 23 of 31 FTs, which was also helped. And UW had just 14 turnovers.

SOME QUOTES:

Romar:
(Opening statement) “The last time that I was involved with a situation like that, I was at Saint Louis and we played Cincinnati in the conference tournament. Kenyon Martin broke his leg, same deal, you just feel for him. It’s hard for his teammates, how do you respond to that? It’s a tough deal. That kid’s a senior. He’s going through all this and when you’re a senior, this is [your] last year and [you want] to get the most of this and something like this happens. We’re still in non-conference. It’s sad to see something like that.”

(Are you finding an identity yet?) “I think we’re coming close to that. I think we’re getting there. That’s what we talk about. Our identity can’t be how many baskets we make, how many time we dunk or how many times the crowd applauds, it has to be our defense. We shoot 36 percent tonight and we won the game by almost double digits because of our defense. And our rebounding, that’s part of defense, we outrebounded that team by 10. That’s a pretty good job because that’s a good team.”

source:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/huskymensbasketballblog/2010572891_update_on_derri.html

In the amount of time it takes a seven-footer to jump in the air and land in a crumpled heap on the floor, the Trail Blazers’ playoff dreams may have went up in smoke — or at the very least, sent GM Kevin Pritchard’s cell phone into overdrive.

Joel Przybilla, thrust into Portland’s starting lineup earlier this month after Greg Oden was lost for the year with a fractured kneecap, landed awkwardly while going for a rebound in the first quarter of Tuesday’s game against the Mavericks.

Simply looking at his misshapen kneecap as he writhed in pain suggested a serious injury, and sure enough, not long after he was helped off the court and examined by doctors, the team confirmed he suffered a ruptured right patella tendon and dislocated patella. Officially, he’s “sidelined indefinitely,” which is merely a polite way of saying he’s almost certainly done for the year. (Kevin Pelton and Will Carroll of Basketball Prospectus discuss the severity of the injury and how it compares unfavorably to Oden’s injury.)

As it happens, the Blazers held on to win the game, 85-81, but that’s a minor victory in the face of the potentially devastating loss of Przybilla, who entered the game as Portland’s lone healthy center. Without him, the team will likely be forced to play LaMarcus Aldridge, a finesse four, out of position at the five, or rely heavily upon 36-year-old Juwan Howard, who hasn’t averaged more than this season’s 12.1 minutes per game since 2007, and hope he’s not the next to break down.

In a rare stroke of good luck, the Blazers did recently activate rookie power forward Jeff Pendergraph, the first pick of the second round last June, after he missed the entire season to date recovering from hip surgery in September. He made his season debut on Tuesday, scoring two points in three minutes, and will likely go from being a total afterthought to potentially the first big off the bench in a matter of days.

Przybilla’s situation, of course, is just the latest in a series of surprising injuries for the Trail Blazers — the team was already so ravaged by the injury bug that the NBA had already granted a roster exemption, allowing Portland to sign a 16th player, which it used to pluck power forward Anthony Tolliver out of the D-League.

Dipping into the D-League is all well and good if the team’s goal is stay afloat, but if they have any hope of playing deep into the postseason, they’ll almost certainly have to make some kind of move to bolster their suddenly paper-thin frontcourt. Talented big men are always in short supply, and it doesn’t help Portland’s case that Denver, sitting atop the Northwest Division with a two-game lead, is also in the market.

Pritchard has long been regarded as one of the league’s savviest general mangers, and he can’t be held responsible for the fluke injuries like Oden and Przybilla have suffered, but with the benefit of hindsight, his inability to add a free agent like Paul Millsap or David Lee last summer — not to mention his decision to pass on rebounding stud DeJuan Blair not once but twice — suddenly looks like a glaring mistake

source:

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2009/12/23/blazers-lose-joel-przybilla-to-gruesome-knee-injury/

Mark Hulet gives us his list over at FanGraphs with a little blurb on each player. As expected, Jesus Montero came in as the Yankees top prospect. The recently traded Arodys Vizcaino was ranked the Yankees’ fourth best prospect. 

Michael Dunn came in very high, as the sixth best prospect in the system, a spot ahead of Mark Melancon. They’re both relievers, and I don’t see how anyone could rank Dunn higher than Melancon with his control problems.

So according to Hulet, the Yankees just gave up Melky and two of their top six prospects for a year of Javier Vazquez; I’d be curious to hear his thoughts on the deal. Other than that, a solid list from Hulet, so you should definitely go check it out

source: http://mvn.com/pendingpinstripes/2009/12/michael-dunn-arodys-vizcaino-make-fangraphs-top-10-yankee-prospects/