Baseball Betting

Mussina, Yankees begin set with Devil Rays

Baseball Betting Lines

07/20/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mike Mussina attempts to extend an impressive streak of home supremacy over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays when the New York Yankees hurler starts tonight's opener of a four-game series between the American League East foes.

Since joining the Bronx Bombers prior to the 2001 season, Mussina has won all seven of his starts against Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium and amassed an amazing 1.07 earned run average over the course of those games. For his career, the veteran right-hander owns a 16-6 record and a 3.30 ERA in 28 starts versus the Devil Rays.

Mussina wasn't as sharp when he faced Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field this past Sunday, however. He yielded a season-high 11 hits and did not record a strikeout in six innings, but was able to hold the Rays to three runs and did not factor in the decision of New York's 7-6 come-from-behind victory.

Edwin Jackson opposed Mussina in that contest and will do so again tonight for the Devil Rays. The young righty also received a no decision after allowing four runs on six hits, including a two-run homer to Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, while striking out six over six innings.

It has been a trying first full season in the big leagues for Jackson, a one- time heralded prospect in the Dodgers organization who has amassed an ugly 1-9 record and 7.14 ERA in 17 starts and one relief appearance this year.

The 23-year-old made his first career start against New York on Sunday after four previous relief outings versus the club. Jackson has no record and a 5.56 ERA over 11 1/3 total innings logged versus the Yanks.

New York enters this set trailing rival Boston by seven games in the AL East standings and has the same deficit to Cleveland in the race for the league's wild card berth. The Yankees closed the gap with a five-game win streak that came to an end with Thursday's home 3-2 setback to Toronto.

Chien-Ming Wang held the Blue Jays scoreless over the first six innings, but the Taiwanese star was touched for three runs in the top of the seventh to suffer the loss.

Both Yankee runs came on a two-run double from Bobby Abreu in the first inning. New York mustered just four hits against Toronto starter Dustin McGowan and relievers Casey Janssen and Jeremy Accardo the rest of the way.

Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui was able to extend his hitting streak to 14 games with a sixth-inning single.

Tampa Bay comes in off its first series win in nearly a month, as the Rays took two of three games with the AL West-leading Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Tropicana Field. The Angels averted a sweep, however, with a 3-0 victory on Thursday.

Kelvim Escobar scattered nine hits and three walks over 7 2/3 innings for Anaheim, while Francisco Rodriguez threw a 1-2-3 ninth for his 25th save of the campaign.

The Devil Rays, who stranded 10 baserunners, received three hits from Carl Crawford and a 2-for-4 performance out of Delmon Young.

Andy Sonnanstine (1-5) pitched well in a hard-luck defeat, as the Tampa rookie gave up three runs on eight hits while striking out six without a walk over seven frames.

Since taking two of three matchups with the Dodgers from June 22-24, the Devil Rays have lost 17 of 21 games.

These divisional inhabitants have split eight meetings so far in 2007, including a pair of games in a rain-shortened series at Yankee Stadium to begin the season. The Yankees won three of four encounters with Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field last weekend.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.


Online Sportsbook Football Betting

Why Sports Betting is so much fun?

Betting Sports

The most popular sports to bet on are NFL and college football along with NBA and NCAA basketball. There are multiple betting opportunities within those sports, beginning with the basic wager on a game’s outcome (also called betting the side). College Football Point spreads are used in both football and basketball in an attempt to even the attractiveness of each team in a match-up. ( See our article detailing how and why point spreads are made)

But you could also simply bet on the money line, or straight-up winner of the game. Oddsmakers use the money line so that more money must be risked on the favorite or expected winner and less money on the underdog to balance the action on both sides. While money line gambling is an attractive option for football and basketball bettors who only care about picking a winner, it is the primary option for those bettors who enjoy wagering on MLB baseball and individual sports like boxing, tennis, golf and racing events such as NASCAR. ( More details on playing the Money Line)

Points (or Runs) Scored

Another bet across all major team sports including football, basketball, baseball, and hockey involves wagering on the amount of scoring in a game, called an Over/Under total. For example, the Over/Under total on Super Bowl XXXIX was 48, which means a bettor could wager whether there would be more or less than 48 points scored by both teams combined in the game.

The final score of Super Bowl XXXIX was 24-21; the scoring of both teams added up to 45, which means the game went Under . So Under bettors won, and Over bettors lost.

Future Bets

Sports gambling doesn’t end there. Betting sides and totals are the most common wagers available everywhere, but many sportsbooks also offer future bets on big upcoming events like who will win next year’s Super Bowl and what movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting far in advance. For example, with NFL futures you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season even starts. A NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl odds might be 20/1 in the preseason; but by midseason, their odds might decrease to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.

Proposition Bets (or Prop Bets)

Proposition bets , also known as prop bets, focus upon the more exotic aspects of a game and are generally reserved for events that are widely televised. Prop bets are extremely popular when it comes to wagering on the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. The Imperial Palace Casino’s sportsbook is well-known for the enormous number of prop bets offered. For example, you can bet on:
  • What team will win the coin toss
  • What player will score the game’s first touchdown
  • What will be the exact margin of victory

Types of Bets

Straight Bet

Involves one individual wager, whether it be on your team to cover the point spread, to win the game straight-up on the money line, or to go over/under the total.

Sports Betting Parlays

A parlay is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. The benefit of the parlay bet is much better odds than placing each individual bet separately since the difficulty of hitting it is much higher.

Standard payoffs on a two-team parlay are 13/5; while a three-teamer pays 6/1; and a four-teamer 10/1.

Parlay cards are also fairly common in sportsbooks and popular with bettors, as they are released early in the week with set odds that do not change in return for a slightly lower payoff.

Round Robin Betting

Adventurous bettors who enjoy betting parlays sometimes put together a series of parlays called a Round Robin . A three-team Round Robin consists of one three-team parlay and three two-team parlays. For example, Joe likes teams A,B,C – with a Round Robin he has a three-teamer with ABC, and two-teamers with AB, AC, and BC.

Betting Teasers

Similar to a parlay, a teaser bet is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers, but is different in that the point spread is adjusted to your advantage on each individual wager. In exchange for the points, you get less of a return on your bet compared to a parlay. For example, a 6-point teaser would move the line on a 7-point favorite from -7 to -1, meaning the team would have to cover 6 less points. Each of the individual wagers must win or the bet is a loss.

These are the main types of sports bets available today. But as sports betting continues to grow, sportsbooks will continue to develop new and creative ways to bet. We’ll continue to track these changes to the sports gambling landscape, so check back often and we’ll tell you all about it!

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.