 |
 Basketball Betting |
 |
||||
|
 |
||||
|
||||
Michaels lifts Astros over Cubs in 12 inningsBaseball Betting Lines07/21/2010 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jason Michaels delivered a tie-breaking, two- run, pinch-hit double and scored in the 12th inning to lift Houston over the Chicago Cubs, 4-3, in the rubber match of a three-game set. Brandon Lyon (6-4) worked his way out of jams in the 10th and 11th innings to grab the win for the Astros, who have captured each of the first three series between the teams this season. Gustavo Chacin served up a two-out, two-run home run to Geovany Soto and survived a very shaky 12th to earn his first career save. Angel Sanchez had three hits and drove in a run for Houston, which has won back-to-back series at Wrigley Field for the first time since the 2002-03 seasons. Bob Howry (1-3) took the loss after allowing two runs on a pair of hits while recording only one out for the Cubs, who have lost three straight series to Houston for the first time since June 5 - July 5, 2006. Howry opened the 12th on the hill in a 1-1 game for the Cubs and allowed back-to-back singles to Jeff Keppinger and Chris Johnson to start the frame before Jason Castro bunted into a force at third. James Russell came on to replace Howry and got Michael Bourn to ground out, which advanced the runners to second and third. Jeff Stevens then took over and gave up Michaels' two-run double into the alley in left-center field. Sanchez followed with a base hit to right field to plate Michaels and give Houston a 4-1 edge. Chacin retired the first two hitters in the home half of the inning before Kosuke Fukodome walked and scored when Soto blasted his long ball to left. Ryan Theriot kept the rally going with a single and moved to second base when pinch-hitter Jeff Baker walked before Tyler Colvin lined out to right to end the game. The Cubs missed out chances to end the game in the ninth, 10th and 11th innings. They put runners at the corners with one out in the ninth, but could not score after Alfonso Soriano flied out to shallow center and Colvin struck out against Tim Byrdak. The hosts loaded the bases with one out in the tenth on a Starlin Castro double and a pair of walks, but Lyon navigated his way through the jam by striking out Fukodome and getting Soto to fly out. Chicago left runners at second and third in the 11th after Derrek Lee flied out to end the frame. The Cubs broke up a scoreless game in the fifth on a two-out, run-scoring double by Castro that plated starting pitcher Ted Lilly, who had singled to pick up his first hit of the year earlier in the inning. Houston start Brett Myers tossed seven innings to extend his franchise-record to 20 consecutive starts to open the season lasting at least six innings. The right-hander yielded a lone run on five hits and two walks while striking out eight and left trailing, 1-0. Lilly took a five-hit shutout into the eighth inning before Pedro Feliz led off with a pinch-hit home run to left to tie the game. Sanchez singled with one out to chase the left-hander from the game and bring on Sean Marshall, who retired Lance Berkman and Hunter Pence to end the frame. Lilly allowed seven hits while walking one and fanning six over 7 1/3 innings. Game Notes The Astros last back-to-back series wins at Wrigley came when they took three of four from August 12-15, 2002 and two out of three from May 30-June 1, 2003. Feliz snapped an 0-for-14 drought with his long ball and is just 2-for-23 during the month of July....Roy Oswalt was the last Houston pitcher to string together 20 straight starts of six innings or more when did it from May 11- August 22, 2005...Keppinger went 2-for-5 and has 30 multi-hit games this year... Houston right-hander Felipe Paulino was diagnosed with a mild rotator cuff strain after being examined by team doctors Tuesday. He is expected to be out for approximately another four weeks...The Cubs have been held to three runs or fewer in 17 of their last 29 games...Lilly is 7-0 in nine starts against Houston since July 14, 2007. He had thrown 26 2/3 consecutive scoreless frames against the Astros until Feliz's home run...The Cubs are 12-21 in one-run games.
<< Chivas USA acquires Zizzo through lottery
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sal Zizzo, a 23-year-old U.S. youth international, is now a member of Chivas USA following a weighted lottery which took place on Wednesday. The Goats had the third best chance (16.28 percent)
<< Dodgers' Kershaw, Torre, Schaefer suspended for Tuesday's incident
<< Ottawa inks Foligno for two years
<< Report: Alabama DE Dareus declared ineligible
<< Twins to reinstate Casilla from DL
Astros add Figueroa among host of moves >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Astros have claimed pitcher Nelson Figueroa off waivers from the Philadelphia Phillies. The team also claimed infielder Anderson Hernandez off waivers from the Cleveland Indians. To make r
Thunder sign G Ivey >>
Ducks sign D Syvret >>
MacArthur a free agent after Thrashers reject contract decision >>
Finger injury sidelines David Lee for world championships >>
FOOTBALL TRASH TALKNFL Football Trash TalkTrash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing). Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion. Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site). Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com. Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season. The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation. What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill. Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies. But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply. In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?" A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook. In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small. "Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets." But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?" Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year. This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here. Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions. In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries. No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning. And that's all any bettor can ask for. To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs. |
|
