Sports Briefs
1/12/08
Cameron, Brewers reach agreement MILWAUKEE -- Free-agent outfielder Mike Cameron and the Milwaukee Brewers reached a preliminary agreement Friday on a $7 million, one-year contract that includes a club option for 2009. Cameron, who turned 35 earlier this month, is suspended for the first 25 games of next season after testing positive a second time for a banned stimulant. In 151 games with the San Diego Padres last season, Cameron batted .242 with 21 home runs and 78 RBIs. When Cameron returns from his suspension, it could allow the Brewers to move last year's center fielder, Bill Hall, to third base and move 2007 NL rookie of the year Ryan Braun to left field, where his defensive liabilities wouldn't be as glaring. Jones gets 6 months WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Marion Jones was sentenced Friday to six months in prison for lying about using steroids and a check-fraud scam, despite beseeching the judge that she not be separated from her two young children. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he gave her the maximum under the plea deal to send a message to athletes who have abused drugs and overlooked the values of "hard work, dedication, teamwork and sportsmanship." Hawks, Heat to replay ATLANTA -- The Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat must replay the final 51.9 seconds of their game last month because the NBA said the official scorer ruled incorrectly that Shaquille O'Neal fouled o...[viewing 1402 of 5871 characters]
www.thonline.com
Thanks to bowling, chili, Pack actually went 8-7
Joe Santoro
December 28, 2007, 4:01 AM
Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .
History is not going to be kind to the 2007 Wolf Pack football team. And that is a bit unfair. Make no mistake, nobody is going to build a shrine to a 6-7 team that suffered its first shutout on offense since Jimmy Carter was president. But in the future when you remember 2007, try to look beyond the numbers. Remember how a freshman named Colin Kaepernick came out of nowhere to put a scare into Hawaii, Boise State and Fresno State. Remember the win over UNLV. Hey, it's still the holiday season. You're supposed to think good thoughts around the holidays, right?
. . .
The real fallout of the 2007 Pack football season is that not much was accomplished this year. The Pack finds itself in much the same position as it was heading into the 2007 season. The biggest issue going into 2007 was the quarterback position. Kaepernick or Nick Graziano? That question still exists. The Pack will also go into 2008 without knowing how to beat Boise State, just like in 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and, well, you get the idea. Actually, the Pack will have more questions facing it in the summer of 2008 than it did in 2007. And the biggest question will be whether or not the Pack can rebuild its defense.
. . .
The next eight months are going to be extremely busy in the football offices. In fact, it might be the most pivotal off season for coach Chris Ault and his staff since he took over the program the first time in 1976. Thanks to Ault's amazing career, it's easy to forget how mediocre the football program was that he was handed in 1976. The program he took over had enjoyed just eight winning seasons over the past 26 years. Those 26 seasons brought a 90-126-5 record. Things certainly aren't that bad heading into 2008. But it is time to stop the bleeding before it gets out of hand. The Pack will head into 2008 on the heels of seven losing seasons in the past 11 years. Those 11 years have brought a 58-72 record. The Pack has to figure out if it wants to be a mediocre Division I-A team happy to take 6-6 teams to meaningless bowl games or one that gets to play in real bowl games now and then like Hawaii, Boise and Fresno.
. . .
Hey, enough with all the bad thoughts during the holidays. If you count the Wolf Pack's victory over New Mexico in the chili cook-off and bowling tournament in the days leading up to the New Meaningless Bowl, the Pack actually finished 8-7 this year.
. . .
What does the shutout in the New Mexico Bowl mean for the Wolf Pack offense? Well, not much. Ault is not going to scrap the Pistol and turn it into the Machine Gun. Even great offenses get shut out every 329 games or so. And, by the way, goofy things happen in bowl games. That's what can happen when you get a month to practice for one game. It's why other sports that have actual championship games don't do it. So let's not panic about one shutout in a game that took place while you were stuck in holiday mall traffic.
. . .
Roger Clemens sure is adamant about telling the world he never used steroids. The guy is even going to sit in front of Mike Wallace on Jan. 6 and deny using steroids. He must be telling the truth, right? And, you know what? I believe him. Do yourself a favor and believe him, too. You owe it to yourself to hang onto some of your childhood fantasies, right? That's what baseball is all about after all. So, yes, I admit it. I want to believe that Clemens never cheated. Barry Bonds, too. I want to believe that they wouldn't lie to us. So I will. There. I feel better already.
. . .
The NFL sure is going a bit overboard over the New England Patriots. The Patriots-New York Giants game is going to be broadcast over three networks (NBC, CBS and the NFL Network) Saturday night. In the Boston and New York areas, the game can be seen on four different networks at the same time because it will also be on local TV. The president doesn't get as much exposure during his state of the union address. The strange thing is that this isn't even the most important game in the Patriots' quest for perfection. If they beat the Giants, they still have to win three postseason games to equal the Miami Dolphins' 1972 perfect season. There's no truth to the rumor that the NFL is currently negotiating with TV networks on Mars, Venus and Neptune if the Patriots reach the Super Bowl.
. . .
Who is in college football's championship game? I forget. Has the game been played already? College football simply has to get rid of its bowl practice season.
. . .
Why is the NFL making such a big deal about the official who wrestled Green Bay Packers' linebacker Nick Barnett out of a pileup last weekend? Did the big, bad official hurt the poor helpless Barnett? NHL officials manhandle players all the time. How else can you stop a fight? By politely asking the guys to stop punching each other? We're all for officials getting physical with NFL players. If the Wolf Pack defense tackled as well as that NFL official, the Pack might have had a winning record this year.
. . .
Every year it's the same story. The NFL gets to the final weekend of the regular season and everyone gets all upset about teams possibly resting some of their starters. Relax people. Other sports do it all the time. The uproar over the NFL doing it couldn't be because of the betting angle, could it? Of course not. Betting isn't a concern of the NFL, right?
. . .
Does anybody play defense in college football anymore? OK, New Mexico. Who else? Just asking.
. . .
If college football's loony system of picking a champion was in place in the NFL, the Patriots would find themselves out of any championship consideration if they lost to the Giants. And then they'd get to play in the Motor City Bowl.
. . .
What is the University of San Francisco thinking? Eddie Sutton? Really? A 71-year-old guy with no real connection to the university who was involved in a drunk driving accident a few years back? That's the guy you want to coach your men's basketball team? Just when you thought Bay Area sports couldn't become more ridiculous.
. . .
It seems like it's only a matter of time before the Minnesota Twins deal Johan Santana to the New York Yankees. It's only fair, I guess. The Twins, after all, allowed David Ortiz to go to the Boston Red Sox. They do owe the Yankees a future Hall of Famer, right?
All contents (c) Copyright 2007 nevadaappeal.com
Chester County Deputies: Gambling Ring Nets More Arrests, Tips On Other Houses
POSTED: 4:27 pm EST November 19, 2007
UPDATED: 6:13 pm EST November 19, 2007
CHESTER, S.C. -- A sports gambling ring discovered by authorities last week has now led to more than a dozen arrests.
Monday morning 15 people in Chester County were charged with being involved with an illegal gambling house that police say took in $20,000 a week.
Investigators say the operation was run from a house on Hughes Street in for five years.
The homeowner, 36-year-old Larry Tolliver, is accused of running the operation that took bets on NFL football games. He's out of jail on a $3,000 personal recognizance bond.
Robert Robinson is one of the 14 others who are charged in the case. He told Eyewitness News it was just a game to him.
"It was just for entertainment, for fun. It's nothing that was outrageous," he said.
Scott Thompson is the undercover sheriff's deputy who led the raid on the house. He said it's more than just fun and games when hundreds of people are putting up thousands of dollars.
"When you're dealing with that amount of money, you're going to have guns there to protect people from being robbed. And we did recover a pistol from the house," he said.
Neighbors told us they saw dozens of cars pulling up at the Hughes Street home every night of the week.
Robinson said he and his friends are football fanatics, and shouldn't be arrested for betting on games once in a while.
"Gambling and what not is what people do," he said. "Not everybody's guilty of that."
Thompson said detectives are now following up on calls they received after the raid, tipping them off to other similar gambling houses in Chester County.
(c) 2007, WSOC.
All booked up in Vegas
By Bill Ordine | Sun Reporter
Las Vegas - Wearing a Ravens baseball cap and an old No. 31 jersey, Charlie Carnaggio was a beacon of Baltimore pride sitting among several hundred fellow gamblers packed into the Las Vegas Hilton's cavernous sports and race book last Sunday. There were Romos and Bradys and Mannings all over the place, but Carnaggio was the only one sporting purple and black.
"My father goes back to the 1958 Colts championship game and used to work the gate at Memorial Stadium," Carnaggio said. "Me, I go back to Bert Jones. I went to nearly every game in the 1970s and '80s."
And in January 2001, he was in Tampa, Fla., for the Ravens' Super Bowl.
The former Parkville resident now calls Southern California home and works in the movie business as a prop master. But six times or so every fall, he makes the pilgrimage to Vegas, where he'll spend most of a weekend betting on football.
And Carnaggio has plenty of company among football gamblers. For the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, casinos in Nevada - the only state with widespread legal sports gambling - had revenues of $101.7 million on football betting alone. And that represents only a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions, wagered on the Internet or with illegal bookies or in friendly office pools.
Undoubtedly, having a little something on a game is as much a part of America's infatuation with football as come-from-behind touchdown drives.
Carnaggio began making his football trips to Vegas 20 years ago, when an $11 bet (to win $10) could make him break out in a sweat. He has grown quite a bit since then. Last Sunday, his mid-range wagers were $100 to $200. Games he liked a lot warranted $300 to $400. He never goes against the Ravens, but if he's unsure of them, he keeps his bets to a modest $50.
However, against the Cincinnati Bengals, when the Ravens were actually about a three-point favorite, Carnaggio's hometown pride did him in. He wagered $200 on Baltimore, ultimately a 21-7 loser.
The years of watching his bankroll ebb and flow with the fortunes of whatever team he has adopted at the moment have made Carnaggio stoic. He sat Zen-like at a long banquet table, eyes fixed on the wall of massive television screens that showed every NFL game, and didn't wince once as Ravens quarterback Steve McNair coughed up the ball early and often.
"First of all, I just like watching football, even when I don't have anything on the games," Carnaggio said. "That's what I do every Sunday.
"And when I'm here in Vegas, for the 10 or 12 hours I'm here in the sports book doing this, it takes my mind off everything else in my life. It's an escape. And when the trip is over, I go home and I'm done with [gambling]."
Grayson Meese of Las Vegas is never done with sports gambling. It's his life. He has been a full-time "handicapper" since 1994, spending his days online researching football, baseball, basketball and especially NASCAR, and then trying to parlay that information into a livelihood at Vegas casinos.
Meese was dressed in a T-shirt and sweat pants, with gray hair reaching the small of his back. He made bets ranging from the low hundreds to "a dime" ($1,000), he said. But what's impressive is the number of wagers he'll make; he'll be invested in 20 to 25 college games on a Saturday.
"I need two things: an edge and volume," Meese said.
He said he believes his knowledge of the games is solid enough that if he makes enough wagers, in the long run, he'll overcome the vagaries of luck and even the casino's built-in advantage, its commission, also called vigorish or juice.
"Some guys like to find a huge edge on one game and bet big on that one game, but that kind of opportunity comes around so infrequently because the numbers are so sharp," he said.
The numbers Meese referred to are the point spread, the oddsmaker's way of leveling the field between two opponents to make them equally attractive betting propositions.
Meese said he makes most of his money on auto racing. He contends a bettor can still out-research the oddsmakers in that sport, presumably because they're concentrating on the big-revenue games in football and basketball.
"It's a war, and they want to grind you into the ground," Meese said of the casinos.
Once, he said with pride, he had the perfect bet. He was able to get money down on an exhibition baseball game that had already been played. The starting time had been changed, but because it was during March Madness, the sports book didn't notice while preoccupied with the college basketball tournament. He had no compunction about collecting.
"These guys will take every nickel you have if they can," he said.
If sports gambling is "war" for Meese, it's an excuse for a yearly getaway for Gary Whitfield of San Diego and Peter Danpf of Los Angeles, a couple of Connecticut expatriates. Whitfield and Danpf, their brothers and some buddies meet in Vegas once a year to bet football, knock back some beers and stay up late (although they acknowledge not as late as when they started doing this 22 years ago).
Whitfield, who works in marketing, said he's a $20 bettor, maybe a little more if he really likes a team, and he'll plunge for 20, 25 bets, including parlays and teasers, which are wagers typically involving more than one game. Last year, Whitfield eked out a $4 profit, which he considered a triumph.
"Ordinarily, I could care less about any of these teams," he said as he watched Wisconsin beat Michigan (he had bet on the Wolverines because his father went there and some guys at work suggested it). "But because I have this $20 bet, I'm cheering my brains out for them.
"I look at it this way - for 20 bucks, I get three hours of entertainment. At a blackjack table, you could lose $20 in five seconds."
Carnaggio, the Ravens fan, is an old hand at the Vegas sports betting game. He's a big enough bettor - several thousand dollars a weekend - to get free hotel rooms, and he knows to arrive early at the sports book on game days. To get a good seat last Sunday, he got to the Hilton's sprawling sports and race room, with its bar, deli and jumbo TV screens, at 8:30 a.m.
Over a tall coffee, he pored over a newspaper tip sheet crammed with stats and scouting reports, and he didn't plan on leaving until 8 or 9 that night. He keeps the action going by betting three of four early NFL games, a couple of late-afternoon games, and then the Sunday night game.
"And before I go back to L.A., I'll bet the Monday game, too," he said of the Seattle Seahawks-San Francisco 49ers game the next night. "So tomorrow, I can watch it at home with the [betting] ticket in my hand."
He paused for a moment, then leaned close with a betting sheet of point spreads. "So, who do you like, the Seahawks or the 49ers?"
bill.ordine@baltsun.com
Copyright (c) 2007, The Baltimore Sun
Goodell wants world passionate about American game
By Steve Ginsburg
LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has exported the United States's most popular sport to Europe in the hope of getting the world excited about American football.
"Our goal is to translate America's obsession to the world's passion," he told reporters on Thursday, three days before the Miami Dolphins face the New York Giants at a sold-out Wembley Stadium. "This Sunday is clearly just the beginning."
The NFL has ventured into Europe before but Sunday's game before 95,000 fans in north London marks the first time the league has played a regular season game outside North America.
Despite its immense popularity in the United States, Goodell conceded that the NFL's growth "in the future clearly means expanding our presence in the sports marketplace.
"We've come a long way since we started bringing our game overseas," he said. "While we are the number one sport in the U.S., our future success will depend in large part on our ability to globalize.
"This game (on Sunday) is a milestone for us and the international growth of the game."
Goodell's staff have worked hard to give Londoners a crash course on American football.
Massive inflatables of uniformed Giants and Dolphins players can be seen outside London subway stops, while cheerleaders of the two clubs greet the rush-hour throng.
NFL TIPS
A U.S.-based pizza chain was handing out "A Guide to American Football," a 12-page leaflet with A-to-Z tips on the game, including one that instructs fans to scrap the word "pitch" in favor of "field" or "gridiron".
"For some fans, the highlight of a football game is the players' celebratory dance done in the end zone following a touchdown," the pamphlet states, encouraging fans to watch the pageantry as well as the game.
It does not seem to matter that while the Giants are 5-2 and battling for a playoff spot, the Dolphins are winless in seven games this season and one of the worst teams in the NFL.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said the league was not considering creating a Europe-based franchise, despite the league receiving a million ticket requests for Sunday's game.
"We don't even have a team in Los Angeles," he told reporters. "What we're doing in London is just expanding our sport, nothing more than developing fan interest for more people to watch our game."
The Giants-Dolphins match-up is the latest attempt by the U.S. professional leagues to tap into the potentially lucrative European market.
Last month the NHL opened its season with a two-game series between the champion Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings at London's O2 arena while the NBA's Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves recently had an exhibition game there.
The NFL's first regular season game outside the United States was in 2005 when the Arizona Cardinals beat the San Francisco 49ers 31-14 before more than 103,000 in Mexico City.
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Parity makes the game fun, but college football needs it giants
The Virginian-Pilot
October 12, 2007
COLLEGE FOOTBALL did not get big by spreading the wealth.
No, college football was built on the bones of those who got regularly trampled by the behemoths, the greedy gorillas of the game that bellow, beat their chests and do not share well with the lesser gorillas.
The world was fine this way, and college football thrived.
This new parity does not become the old gal. The level playing field just makes it look distracted and frumpy, and less alluring in the big picture.
I'll grant that it's lose-your-head fun when a Boise State can tip an Oklahoma off of its high horse in a big-time bowl game. Or when an Appalachian State, a gorilla on its own level, can smack a Michigan, delivering a hush to the bad old Big House.
Yes, there is room for the fleeting bolt from the blue sky - or the blue turf, in Boise's case - the unexplained phenomenon that appears and vanishes just as quickly is permissible. It's a hit of double espresso, an extra dash of Tabasco in the omelet.
But let's be real. If Boise and Appy State played last weekend at the end of your block, you'd have broken your neck finding another way to get to the sports bar to watch LSU-Florida on TV.
The rise of the little guys is only so much fun. After awhile, it just gets to be time to pat them on the head and shoo them home.
College football needs its big guys to stand up and be big. The sport is best when the giants lumber across the landscape, not when upstarts like South Florida - and Lord bless the plucky, fifth-ranked Bulls - start crashing around the top 10.
Tradition is college football's currency, after all.
Order is its identity, its selling point, its comfort zone. College football sleeps better when Nebraska and Texas play as if they know what a football is and what they're supposed to do with it, which isn't necessarily the case right now.
So far this season, college football has looked in the mirror and seen an insecure muddle that looks a lot like Charlie Weis, or maybe Joe Paterno.
The national polls, the game's skeletal system, scream for a re alignment. But there is a chronological template that demands to be filled even in the most rumpled of seasons.
Polls do not care about an inflated marketplace or that there might not actually be 10 teams that deserve to be called "Top 10."
Polls just stare back at you like a bored waiter, till you cower and slot Boston College fourth behind LSU, California and Ohio State, because you just can't put South Florida there.
Never mind that the 6-0 Eagles have defeated a chump-of-the-week slate with a combined 10 Division I-A victories. Or that you'd get rich betting that lower-ranked Florida, Oklahoma or Southern Cal, to name three, would thump them.
There they are in this strange reality.
As for the dark nether regions of the polls, past the freakish Cincinnati-Hawaii-Kentucky hodgepodge, well, safe travels as you search for truth and vision along the border of No. 25 and the others-receiving-votes crowd.
Down there, it's pretty much a "pick 'em" anarchy. That's a fitting Vegas term for a season in which a Pac-10 dish rag, Stanford, whom the bookies gave 41 points just to get gamblers to look at the game, can beat a No. 1-ranked (cough, cough) USC in Los Angeles.
Enough.
Stunners are fine for a temporary thrill. But upsets are called upsets for a reason - because they are upsetting.
Tom Robinson, (757) 446-2518 tom.robinson@pilotonline.com
Copyright 1993-2007, HamptonRoads.com
How to Leverage Sports Betting Tips from Professionals
Posted by EditorChoice
Friday, 21 September 2007
Sports betting is bigger than ever these days, and profiting from this industry isn't impossible, many professional sports betters do it everyday. Knowning what to bet on is another story, and knowing who to bet on can sometimes be a difficult and tricky task. In order to make money you're going to have to win your bets. While nobody wins every bet 100% of the time, there is a way you can significantly increase your odds so that you´ll be winning more than youll be losing.
Having a mentor or expert advising you along the entire process would be worth it's weight in gold - luckily the folks over at sportsbetting4u offer this service, but on an affordable subscription basis. You might ask yourself, "How do I know that the advice is actually worth my time?" Sportsbetting4u offers a great 7 day completely free trial so that you can get a feel for their service, and to judge the quality of the advice for yourself before you ever have to pay for it.
Having a professional sports better give you advice on what teams to keep your eye on is not only fun and exciting, but it can put money in your pockets as well. Don't take betting advice from amateurs or friends who just want to bet on their favorite teams - ultimately this kind of advice will cost you big time in the long run.
Instead, get a professional on your side that keeps track of the latest sports on a full-time, professional basis. These guys know what they're doing, it's their job to know. Best of all about this professional service is that you can try it out for 7 days at absolutely no cost to you. If you don't like it, you can cancel the service at any time.
Rest assured these professional betters cover every sport you could ever want to put money on. They cover sports like football, tennis, soccer, basketball, baseball, rugby, darts, snooker, cricket, golf, and more. We only work with sports where the odds are in our favor, with only a couple different possible outcomes. Because of this, the odds are shorter and you will see more wins than losses.
The best part about this subscription service is that we want to help make you the most money possible. We know that if you don't make money, then eventually we won't be making money either! It's simply paramount that we provide you with the best advice that will give you the best betting results for the most winning bets.
There's no reason to not try the 7 day free service. Take good advice from our betting professionals and you'll see a stark increase in the odds of winning your bets. Put the odds in your favor and leverage these sports professionals so that you can win bets. They want you to win, it's their job to give you the best advice that will ultimately make you the most profits in the sports betting industry.
http://www.SportsBetting4u.com offers a professional betting tips advisory services with highly experienced veterans, possessing immaculate knowledge of a vast range of sports and the respective sports personalities.
(c) 2007 PR-GB.com... News from origin
|
