Meek, Pirates hold off Cardinals
Baseball Betting Lines
08/24/2010 - Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Evan Meek escaped a bases loaded jam to hold down Pittsburgh's 4-3 victory over St. Louis in the second test of a three- game series at PNC Park.
Meek gave up a single to Skip Schumaker and an infield base hit to Randy Winn before Aaron Miles bunted each runner up one base, putting the tying run at second base. Jon Jay then smoked a hot-shot grounder to short that loaded the bases for St. Louis' big bombers.
Albert Pujols scalded a grounder that bounded off Jose Tabata's glove and into shallow left, scoring one run and keeping the bases loaded. However, Meek bared down and got Matt Holliday to pop out to second before Felipe Lopez skied to short to finish off his second save.
Joel Hanrahan (3-1) picked up the victory with 1 1/3 frames of hitless relief. Paul Maholm started and pitched 6 2/3 effective frames, giving up two runs on seven hits with four strikeouts and one walk. Neil Walker drove in three runs and Tabata had two hits and two runs scored for the Pirates, winners in two of the last three games.
Adam Wainwright (17-8) was hit with the loss, giving up four runs on seven hits with six strikeouts and four walks through seven frames. Holliday hit a two-run homer for the Cardinals, who saw their three-game winning streak come to an end.
The two big hitters for the Cardinals came through in the first as Pujols lined a two-out single to left-center and Holliday followed with a long home run into the bullpen in left-center field.
After working through a two-on, two-out jam in the first and navigating a one- out single in the second, Wainwright retired 11 straight batters until Andrew McCutchen smoked a two-bagger past Holliday in left. Tabata followed with a long drive that skipped to the wall, allowing the fleet-footed McCutchen to score as Tabata took third. Walker then came through with a game- tying single to right.
Maholm exited with a runner on first in the seventh, but Hanrahan induced a Pujols pop up to end the frame. The Pirates then seized the lead in the home half, as Ronny Cedeno doubled and moved to third on Delwyn Young's sacrifice bunt. After McCutchen grounded out, Tabata walked, stole second and joined Cedeno in crossing the plate on Walker's single to center.
Game Notes
Wainwright was attempting to become the first 18-game winner this season...Pittsburgh had lost 13 of 15 before Tuesday's victory...The Pirates scored more than two runs for just the second time in their last 13 games...Wainwright has lost two straight starts...St. Louis dropped to 9-5 at PNC Park since the start of the 2009 season...Pujols finished 3-for-3 with a double and a run scored, but stayed stuck at 399 career home runs.
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Josh Hamilton belted his 29th h
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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."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
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.
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