Blue Jays bash Nationals

Baseball Betting Lines

06/16/2007 - Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Troy Glaus homered and finished with three RBI to guide the Toronto Blue Jays past the Washington Nationals, 7-2, in the opener of a three-game interleague set at Rogers Centre.

Adam Lind added a two-run shot while ace Roy Halladay put together another quality outing for the Blue Jays, who have won two in a row. Halladay (7-2) allowed two runs on seven hits over 7 1/3 frames while striking out six. He is 3-0 in four starts since returning from a three-week stint on the disabled list due to appendicitis.

Mike Bacsik (1-4) took the loss after giving up three runs in 4 1/3 innings for Washington, which had a three-game winning streak snapped. Ryan Langerhans' two-run homer accounted for his team's offense.

Toronto put up a three-spot in the fourth to jump in front. Curtis Thigpen led the bottom of the inning off with a bunt single, and was driven in a batter later when Lind crushed a one-out homer into the right-field seats.

Alex Rios and Vernon Wells later came through with consecutive two-out singles before Glaus doubled to left to make it 3-0.

Two more runs in the sixth upped the lead to 5-0.

Glaus hit a leadoff homer -- his 11th long ball of the year -- to kickstart the inning, and Frank Thomas followed with a walk. Winston Abreu struck the next two batters out, but then yielded a double to Gregg Zaun that brought Thomas home.

John McDonald scored on an Abreu wild pitch in the seventh to extend the lead to 6-0.

The Nationals finally got on the board in the eighth courtesy of Langerhans' two-run homer to center.

That was it for Washington, though, and Zaun added a sacrifice fly in the eighth for the Blue Jays to cap the scoring.

Game Notes

Home plate umpire CB Bucknor left in the fifth inning because of an illness...The Nationals are 5-2 on their current nine-game road swing...Since the Expos relocated from Montreal to Washington following the 2004 campaign, the Nationals have dropped six of seven games played in Toronto... Bacsik has a four-start losing streak.

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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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