Angels resume set with White Sox hoping to keep Thome in the yard

Baseball Betting Lines

09/15/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chicago slugger Jim Thome will attempt to become the 23rd player in major league history to reach the 500 home run mark this afternoon when the White Sox resume their three-game series with the visiting Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at U.S. Cellular Field.

Thome remained stuck on career homer No. 499 on Friday, as he finished 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in Chicago's 5-3 win. Jermaine Dye finished 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI and a run scored in the victory, while Paul Konerko finished 2- for-3 and scored twice for the White Sox, who have won two in a row after a three-game slide.

Jose Contreras (9-16) yielded 11 hits and three runs over 7 1/3 innings, winning for the third time in his last four starts. Bobby Jenks pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his 38th save.

Angels hurler Bartolo Colon (6-7) was charged with eight hits and five runs -- three earned -- over 4 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking two in his first start since July 23. He is 0-5 in his last seven outings and turned in a poor start after missing almost seven weeks with right elbow troubles.

Garret Anderson had three hits and scored twice for the AL West-leading Angels, who have dropped two straight and four of six. Howie Kendrick and Maicer Izturis added two hits and an RBI each and Kendry Morales added a run- scoring single.

Thome, the only player in Chicago's starting lineup to not reach base on Friday, can become the third player to hit his 500th home run this season. Toronto's Frank Thomas accomplished the feat on June 28 and the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez did so on August 4.

Jered Weaver will have the task of trying to keep Thome in the park today, as he tries to improve upon his 11-7 record. Weaver was tagged with the loss on Sunday against the Cleveland Indians and was charged with six runs and nine hits in five innings, raising his earned run average to 4.00.

Weaver held the White Sox scoreless over 5 2/3 innings to get the win earlier in the year in his only other appearance against them.

Chicago will pin its hopes on righty Jon Garland, who is 9-11 with a 4.59 ERA. Garland was tagged with the loss on Sunday against the Minnesota Twins, as he allowed five runs (one earned) and five hits in eight innings.

Garland has struggled mightily in his career against the Angels, going just 3-7 against them with a 4.86 ERA in 13 starts. However, one of those wins came the last time he faced them back on May 5.

Chicago has won four of it seven meetings with the Halos this season, with the Angels taking two of three from the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field in April.

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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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