Reyes, Mets deal Marlins first loss

Baseball Betting Lines

04/11/2009 - Miami, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jose Reyes finished 2-for-5 with a two-run homer and three RBI as the New York Mets doubled up Florida, 8-4, in the middle test of a three-game set from Dolphin Stadium.

Carlos Delgado collected three hits and two RBI for the Mets, who snapped a two-game slide. Luis Castillo was 4-for-4, scored three runs and drove one in, while Alex Cora and David Wright knocked in a run each.

Livan Hernandez (1-0) allowed six hits and two runs over his 6 2/3-inning start.

Emilio Bonifacio was 3-for-5 with an RBI for the Marlins, who lost for the first time in 2009 after beginning the year with a franchise-best four consecutive victories. Hanley Ramirez, Wes Helms and Ross Gload added an RBI each in the setback.

Starter Ricky Nolasco (1-1) allowed seven hits and four runs over five innings for the loss.

Already ahead by three, the Mets put the game away with three runs in the eighth.

Facing Hayden Penn, Brian Schneider singled and moved to second on Jorge Cantu's throwing error. Castillo laid down a sacrifice bunt, but an error by Bonifacio left runners at the corners. Pinch-hitter Cora's groundout scored Schneider, and after Reyes fanned and Daniel Murphy walked, Wright and Delgado each brought in a run on back-to-back base hits for an 8-2 contest.

In the ninth, Florida picked up two runs -- one off Darren O'Day, as Gload's pinch-hit sacrifice fly brought in Cody Ross, and one against Francisco Rodriguez, on Ramirez's two-out RBI single. Rodriguez, though, induced a game- ending fly out from Cantu in the next at-bat.

The Mets picked up a run in the third as Castillo led off with a single, moved to second on Hernandez's sacrifice, then scored on a Reyes double.

Reyes added a two-run shot in the fifth for a 3-0 New York lead, and later in the frame a Delgado double scored Murphy for a four-run edge.

In the sixth, Ryan Church led off with a double and scored two batters later on a Castillo single.

Florida got on the board in the seventh, plating a pair of runs with two outs. First, pinch-hitter Helms drove in Dan Uggla off Hernandez, then Bonifacio scored Ross with a base hit after Brian Stokes entered the game.

Game Notes

Church finished with two doubles and a walk for the Mets...Cameron Maybin was 2-for-4 with a run scored for the Marlins...O'Day was charged with three hits and two unearned runs in 1 1/3 relief frames.

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Albert Pujols to be This Year's Home Run Champ Says Online Sportsbook

Barry Bonds is a 50-1 long shot to be this year's home run champ odds.  The favorite to be this year's home run champ is none other than Albert Pujols, however.

Now that Barry Bonds is signed and in Giants camp, it is on to his pursuit of all of sports most prestigious records: the all-time home run mark. Bonds sits just 21 homers shy of tying Hank Aaron for the career mark at 755. Word out of Giants’ camp is that Bonds is the healthiest he has been in a few years. Bonds is just two seasons removed from his injury riddled 2005 campaign where he played in only 14 games and hit only 5 home runs. He did come back last year and had a solid season hitting .270 with 26 bombs. All eyes will be on Bonds this spring and summer not only because of his home run chase but his highly publicized steroid abuse allegations. If and when Bonds breaks the record, he surely will not get the positive attention one should for breaking a record that was once thought of as “unbreakable”. Despite Bonds decent season last year, he is just 50-1 at MySportsbook.com to lead the MLB in long balls this season.

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Be sure to log onto online sports betting site MySportsbook.com to check out the odds for who will lead the MLB in home runs this season. Below is just a sample of the players listed. With the highest credit card rates in the industry, MySportsbook.com is the place to bet on baseball this summer.

World Series odds

Adam Dunn 15-1

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Alex Rodriguez 12-1

Alfonso Soriano 15-1

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To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com - this sportsbook accepts credit cards.

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.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.