Jays begin series in Oakland

Baseball Betting Lines

08/16/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Shaun Marcum hopes to put the brakes on a personal two- start losing streak this evening when the Toronto Blue Jays begin a three-game series against the Oakland Athletics at the Coliseum.

Marcum had closed the month of July with three straight wins, but has lost his initial two starts in August, surrendering 13 runs in 10 innings of those outings. His most recent setback came on Wednesday against Boston, which ripped him for eight runs and seven hits in four innings to drop him to 10-6 on the season, while raising his earned run average to 3.87.

"Marcum certainly didn't have his good stuff tonight," Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said. "They kind of beat up on us."

Marcum beat Oakland back on May 2 and is 2-1 in five starts against the A's with a 3.54 ERA.

The Blue Jays pulled out a series win over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Sunday, as Ricky Romero tossed seven solid innings to help Toronto to a 4-1 win.

Romero (10-7), who was signed to a five-year extension worth $30.1 million on Saturday, gave up a run on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts for the Blue Jays, who have won three of four. Adam Lind hit a solo home run while Aaron Hill drove in two runs in the win.

"I had my fastball, curve ball and cutter going good today," said Romero. "I stayed in the strike zone and got groundball outs. It worked out for the best today."

Oakland, meanwhile, enters tonight's opener on the heels of getting swept in a three-game set by the Minnesota Twins that culminated with a 4-2 loss on Sunday at Target Field.

Vin Mazzaro (6-5) was tagged for two runs (one earned) on seven hits over six- plus innings for the Athletics, who have dropped five of their last six. Coco Crisp and Kurt Suzuki each drove in a run in the loss.

"We've been playing well, but this was a tough series," said Crisp. "We felt like we could compete with them, but they got the best of us this series. They have a good ballclub all around over there. You have to be on top of your game when you play these guys and we weren't."

Hoping to turn things around for the A's this evening will be lefty Brett Anderson, who has lost two of his last three starts. Anderson endured a hard- luck loss on Tuesday in Seattle, as he allowed just a run and five hits in seven innings, but fell to 3-3 nonetheless, lowering his ERA to 2.88 on the year.

Anderson has never faced the Jays.

Toronto took three of four from Oakland earlier in the season.

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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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