Giants ready to turn things around
Baseball Betting Lines
04/20/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With the bulk of the attention, both positive and negative, surrounding Barry Bonds' chase for Hank Aaron's home run record this year, the San Francisco Giants' season seems to be about one individual. But truth be told, Bonds and the crew are beginning to play some solid baseball after a rough start.
Since losing to the Padres on April 11th, which drooped the Giants to 2-7 on the young campaign, San Francisco has won four of its last five contests, including a two-game sweep of the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals most recently.
Coming as no big surprise, Bonds rose to the occasion when the Giants needed it on Wednesday night. With the team trailing by one in the eighth inning, Bonds belted the 738th home run of his career, while delivering the Giants into an extra inning scenario.
Rich Aurilia took it from there, however, as he singled home Randy Winn in the 12th inning. But it was Bonds' blast, and three scoreless innings from Jonathan Sanchez, who picked up the victory, which really gave the Giants a chance to down the champions.
It was the unfamiliar face of Ryan Klesko which came up big for the Giants in Thursday's victory over those same Redbirds, though. Klesko went 3-of-4 from the plate in the contest, while driving in two runs and scoring once himself. Klesko's effort was highly appreciated by Noah Lowry, who pitched seven strong innings while allowing just four hits and two runs for San Francisco.
BACK ON TRACK
After an injury plagued 2006 season which left fans and critics saying he had nothing left, Bonds has certainly proved something in the early going of 2007. The Giants' slugger has already launched a team-high four long balls, driven in a team-high 10 runs, and is hitting a healthy .306.
Sitting just 17 home runs shy of Hank Aaron's mark, it seems inevitable that Bonds will pass the legend this season. But his consistent production, should it continue, is what will determine how far the Giants can go as a team this season.
HEAD FIRST
For as well as he played on Thursday, Klesko must have known he wouldn't be able to avoid questions about perhaps the most ungraceful move of his career.
"It wasn't a slide," Klesko told the San Francisco Chronicle when asked about his unorthodox, head-first slide into third on a triple. "I think it was a fall... I usually don't dive headfirst, as you can tell. I'm just glad I've got the skin left on my chin."
WHO'S HOT
Notorious for getting off to slow starts, it seems as if Barry Zito has found his groove after just three games in 2007. On Monday at Coors Field, where baseballs fly out of the stadium at record pace, Zito had it going on to say the least.
The staff ace received some early run support and made the most of it, as he breezed through six scoreless innings of play, while scattering just three hits and fanning four. After signing a big contract in the offseason, Zito is beginning to show the form which had the Giants drooling. And that can't be good for opposing lineups.
WHO'S NOT
Giants third basemen Pedro Feliz, who is making over five million dollars for the club this season, is hitting just .190 on the season, and has been particularly dreadful as of late.
Feliz has just three hits in his last 22 at bats, and has struck out six times in the last six games. San Francisco's offensive load can't simply be carried by Bonds and Aurilia. A high priced player such as Feliz needs to step up and earn his money in the Bay Area.
ON DECK
After winning four of their last five outings, the Giants (6-8), despite being in the cellar of the NL West, are just four games behind the first-place Dodgers. San Francisco will look to gain some ground this weekend, as they host the Arizona Diamondbacks for a three-game weekend series.
Russ Ortiz (1-1, 5.27) will square off against Doug Davis (1-1, 3.38) in game one of the series, while Zito (1-2, 5.29) will attempt to school Edgar Gonzalez (1-1, 5.40) on Saturday. Matt Cain (0-1, 1.80) and Micah Owings (1-1, 2.93) will be left to battle it out on Sunday.
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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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