Riddled by injuries the past several years, Mets' pitcher Pedro Martinez suffered another set back in his first start of the season Tuesday night against the Marlins in Florida.

Martinez appeared to suffer an injury to his groin or hamstring as his cleat got caught in the muddy mound at Pro Player Stadium.

The veteran was shaky at best before his exit, allowing a two-run homer in each of first two innings pitched (first time he's managed that in his career) and threw just 57 pitches.

He did manage to walk off the field under his own power, so that is a good thing. Fantasy owners will need to keep their eyes on this and likely need to pay attention to Pedro and his injury status all season long.

The Indiana Hoosiers wanted to make some noise before Final Four weekend in San Antonio. They wasted no time following Tom Crean's team being knocked out of the tournament to ink the Marquette coach to fill its vacancy. 

The move closes the six-week nightmare that cast a dark cloud over the school. From the dismisal of Calvin Sampson to the 3-4 mark posted under the interim coach Dan Dakich. An Indiana season that started with so much promise ended nastily for the school.

Crean led Marquette to the Final Four in 2003 and now has the challenge of rebuilding Indiana as a national power while reshaping their tarnished to reputation to become a squeaky clean program. He went 190-96 in nine seasons at Marquette.

Assuming freshman Eric Gordon announces he's going pro during his scheduled Monday press conference, Crean may enter next year having lost all five starters.

Starting forwards D.J. White and Lance Stemler both finished their senior seasons, and it's uncertain whether Bassett and Ellis, two of the starting guards, will return after being punished for missing an appointment last week. When they didn't show up to run laps the next day, Dakich decided to dismiss them from the team.

Some fantasy and Bengals' fodder from Gregg Rosenthal, Rotoworld.com in his off-season update:

Ben Utecht signs with Bengals
Relative unknown tight end singings usually don't register, but this might be an exception. Utecht was quietly productive with the Colts (19th among tight ends in yardage last two years) and should step into a starting role. The Bengals have never used a tight end to catch passes, but their wideouts can open up chances underneath. Utecht will be on the radar as a deep sleeper. Know him.

Impactmeter: 3

Houshmazilli, Ocho Cinco skip offseason workouts
Not all offseason "holdouts" are created equal. Carson Palmer, for instance, appears less cool with Chad Johnson's truancy than T.J. Houshmandzadeh's.

Fantasy leaguers shouldn't care too much about either. There is nothing more overrated than an offseason worth of holdout stories because players always show up when it's time to get paid. Look for Housh to get a new contract. And look for Johnson to be playing for the Bengals on Sundays. I don't think Johnson is quite dumb enough to turn into a T.O-in-Philly like distraction, but that will have to be monitored. Whether the Bengals consider trading him or not (not likely), his holdout remains just noise for a while.

Impactmeter: 4

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sidd Finch was the subject of the notorious article and April Fools' Day hoax "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch" written by George Plimpton and first published in the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated.

Plimpton reported that Hayden "Sidd" (short for Siddhartha) Finch was a rookie baseball pitcher in training with the New York Mets. Finch, who had never played baseball before, was attempting to decide between a sports career and one playing the French horn. What was astonishing about Finch was that he could pitch a fastball at an amazing 168 mph, far above the record of a "mere" 103 mph. He also wore only one shoe—a heavy hiker's boot—when pitching.

Finch grew up in an English orphanage and was adopted by an archaeologist who later died in a plane crash in Nepal. After briefly attending Harvard University, he went to Tibet to learn "yogic mastery of mind-body," which was the source of his pitching prowess.

The subhead of the article read: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga — and his future in baseball." The first letters of these words (through "yoga") spell out "Happy April Fools Day." Despite this clue and the obvious absurdity of the article, many people believed Finch actually existed. The magazine printed a much smaller article in the following April 8 issue announcing Finch's retirement. It then announced it was a hoax on April 15.

With the #1 seeds all making it to the Final Four, it is the year where the person that only takes the higher seeds in a bracket to have their glory. The people filling out brackets were the only bandwagon types to benefit. Those that like to bet on favorites have also been highly rewarded.

Gamblers backing favorites have been fortunate, with the 'chalk' posting a 47-13 (78%) straight up and 38-21 (63%) against the spread record through the first 60 games.

Total players should note the 'over' has gone 35-25 after four rounds, including a 3-1 mark in last weekend's Elite Eight action.

Interestingly enough North Carolina is the only one of the remaining teams to cover in all four efforts. Kansas is 3-1 and Memphis and UCLA were both 2-2 against the spread.