The baseball world lost a good one this week when Sheldon “Chief” Bender, former farm director of the Cincinnati Reds, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 88.

During Cincy’s vaunted Big Red Machine days, Bender ran the scouting a player development department, helping to produce such stars as Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey Sr., Don Gullett, Mario Soto and Barry Larkin, among others.

Bender began his tenure as the Reds’ minor league director in 1967 and ran it until 1989, finally retiring in 2005. By that point, he had accumulated 64 years in the sport as a player, manager and executive.

Marc Savard is one of the NHL’s hottest players currently. Now, with the trade deadline passed, there’s really nothing left to do, but focus on the performance of your players. If you’ve been hoarding passers, waiting for your team to land a sniper and it didn’t happen by Tuesday, you made a poor fantasy choice. I’m [...] more

Larry Hughes led the Bulls to victory while Captain Kirk watched from the bench. (Gus Chan/The Plain Dealer) Should Kirk Hinrich owners be worried? Captain Kirk is having a week from hell, capped by a benching in the second-half Wednesday as he could only watch while Larry Hughes led a Bulls’ rally. In today’s Daily Dose, [...] more

Dear RotoRob,   One more thing: in this setting, would you deal Justin Morneau and Grady Sizemore for Prince Fielder?   I’m in a 10-team, 5×5, H2H league and I can keep 12 players.    My roster: Miguel Cabrera Robinson Cano Nick Markakis Justin Morneau Hunter Pence Alex Rodriguez Jimmy Rollins Grady Sizemore Justin Upton Johan Santana Jake Peavy Brandon Webb Cole Hamels Felix Hernandez Carlos Zambrano Yovani Gallardo Takashi Saito Rafael Soriano  Thanks for your time.   James James, If you deal those [...] more

Baltimore freed up some cap space by restructuring Jonathan Ogden’s contract. New Baltimore Ravens’ head coach John Harbaugh faces a major uphill battle as he tried to rally this team after a devastating 5-11 season in which it sunk to the bottom of the AFC North. One of the first orders of business, and this is more [...] more