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Ramirez's homer lifts Cubs over PhilsBaseball Betting Lines07/16/2010 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Aramis Ramirez continued his hot streak with a game-winning solo home run in the eighth inning, and the Chicago Cubs edged the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3, in the second of four games at Wrigley Field. Ramirez, who was hitting just .165 following a game on June 25, has raised his batting average to .220 by going 24-for-64 in his last 16 games, including 3- for-4 on Friday. Marlon Byrd added a two-run homer for the Cubs, who won consecutive home games for the first time since June 16-17. Ted Lilly was solid in the start, yielding three runs, four hits and a walk while fanning 10 over seven innings. Sean Marshall (6-2) earned the win for one perfect inning, and Carlos Marmol notched his 17th save. Ryan Howard hit a two-run homer for the Phillies, who have dropped two straight following a four-game win streak to end the first half of the season. Shane Victorino also homered in defeat. Joe Blanton allowed three runs on five hits and three walks in seven innings. Ryan Madson (2-1) was dealt the loss for giving up Ramirez's home run. With Madson on the mound in the eighth, the first two Cubs batters were retired. Ramirez, however, hammered a 3-2 belt-high pitch into the left-field bleachers for a 4-3 Chicago advantage. Marmol came in and struck out Jayson Werth, Howard and Francisco in succession to end the game. The first three innings moved rather quickly, with the teams producing just one baserunner -- a Byrd one-out single for Chicago in the second. He was erased on a subsequent Alfonso Soriano double play groundout. The Phillies finally cracked the scoreboard in the fourth on Victorino's one- out blast into the left-field bleachers, but the Cubs tied the game in the fifth. Ramirez led off with a single, and Soriano worked a one-out walk. After both runners moved up on a groundout, Geovany Soto was intentionally walked to get to Lilly, who went down in the count 0-2 after a swinging strike. Blanton, though, issued three straight balls, then Lilly fought off a pitch down the middle. Blanton's next pitch was just high, walking Lilly and forcing in Ramirez for a 1-1 score. Both teams blasted a two-out, two-run homer in the sixth -- Howard for the Phillies and Byrd for the Cubs -- to keep the game tied, 3-3, heading to the seventh. Chicago nearly went ahead in the seventh, as Starlin Castro led off with a single and moved to second on an errant pickoff throw. Soto's fly ball sent Castro to third with one out, but pinch-hitter Kosuke Fukudome and Ryan Theriot both struck out to end the threat. Game Notes The Cubs lead the season series, 3-1...Blanton struck out eight...Howard homered in back-to-back games for the third time this season, and he has 12 RBI in eight games...Victorino hit his 15th home run, setting a new career high.
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Wolfsburg, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Wolfsburg have wrapped up the signing of Croatia striker Mario Mandzukic on a four-year contract from Dinamo Zagreb. The 24-year-old joins the Bundesliga club as a potential replacement for Edin Dzeko,
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Palermo, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Top-seeded Flavia Pennetta defeated Spanish qualifier Nuria Llagostera Vives 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinals at the $220,000 Palermo International tennis tournament. Pennetta of Italy will next battle eighth
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Mens NCAA Basketball Tournament odds Right behind the Gators are the 5th ranked UNC Tar Heels at 9-2. The Heels (21-3, 7-2) are absolutely loaded with top notch talent and are as deep as any team in the country. A concern for the Tar Heels might be inexperience. Of their top four scorers/ minute earners, three are freshmen and the other is a sophomore. The rest of the regular season, the Tar Heels play only one team that is currently ranked (Duke). Their remaining opponents do combine for an impressive 107-58 record though. Arizona 20-1 To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your Sportsbook betting needs.
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. |
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