Games Beats Season On Perkins

Baseball Betting Lines

In 405 career games with the Rockies, Fowler has hit .262 with 84 doubles, 39 triples, 15 home runs and 115 RBI. He has set the Rockies' single-season triples record in each of the last two seasons.

 

For his career, Meek has compiled a 7-7 record with four saves and a 3.08 ERA in 144 games, all with the Pirates.

 

Minneapolis, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Minnesota Twins agreed on Tuesday to one-year contracts with left-handed pitchers Francisco Liriano and Glen Perkins, avoiding arbitration. Liriano, 29, posted a 9-10 record with a 5.09 earned run average, 112 strikeouts and 75 walks in a disappointing 2011 for the Twins in which they finished last in the American League Central Division with a 63-99 mark.

 

The highlight of the season for Liriano came on May 3 when he threw a no- hitter in a 1-0 win over the Chicago White Sox.

 

Perkins, a St. Paul native, posted a 4-4 record with a 2.48 ERA, 65 strikeouts and 21 walks for his hometown team last season. Perkins has spent his entire five-year major league career with the Twins and has a 23-16 record in 145 games -- 44 starts -- with 224 strikeouts and 100 walks.

 

In 426 career games -- all with the Giants -- Schierholtz has a .273 average with 18 homers and 102 RBI.

 

San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The San Diego Padres agreed to one-year contracts with nine arbitration eligible players on Tuesday, including offseason acquisitions Edinson Volquez and Carlos Quentin. Catcher Nick Hundley and infielder Chase Headley also agreed to contracts for the 2012 season, along with pitchers Luke Gregerson, Tim Stauffer and Joe Thatcher, outfielder Will Venable and catcher John Baker.

 

Quentin, a two-time All-Star and former Silver Slugger Award winner, was acquired from the White Sox in exchange for pitchers Simon Castro and Pedro Hernandez. The 29-year-old catcher has belted at least 21 home runs in each of the last four seasons. In 2011, he batted .254 with 24 home runs, a career- high 31 doubles and 77 RBI in 118 games.

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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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