Brewers edge Phils

Baseball Betting Lines

04/22/2009 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - J.J. Hardy went 2-for-3 with a solo home run, as the Milwaukee Brewers hung on to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1, in the middle installment of a three-game set at Citizens Bank Park.

Mike Cameron went 1-for-4 with a two-run double for the Brewers, who had lost three of their previous four outings. Corey Hart went 2-for-4 with a run scored.

Braden Looper (2-0) allowed five hits in a scoreless six-inning start to collect the win for Milwaukee. He also walked two in his third start of the season. Todd Coffey gave up a solo shot in the ninth, but was able to get out of a jam to pick up his second save of the year.

"Looper did a good job. Usually we hit him pretty good, but we couldn't muster any runs," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said.

Jayson Werth went 2-for-4 and had the lone run of the game for Philadelphia with a solo homer.

Joe Blanton (0-2) gave up three runs on eight hits with five strikeouts to take the loss for the Phillies, who won 11-4 in the opener of the series on Tuesday. Blanton dropped his ERA to 7.31.

Trailing 3-0, Philadelphia tried to come back in the ninth. Coffey started the frame by getting Ryan Howard to go down swinging, but allowed Werth to hit a solo homer over the center-field wall. Raul Ibanez followed with a single to left and was thrown out at second when Pedro Feliz grounded into a force out. Pinch-hitter Matt Stairs set up a first and third with two outs by stroking a single to right field. Coffey got pinch-hitter Chris Coste to go down swinging to seal the victory.

The first run of the game didn't come until the fifth when Hardy belted a homer for Milwaukee. After Cameron grounded out to begin the frame, Hardy drove a 3-2 changeup from Blanton over the wall in left. A Jason Kendall single was sandwiched between fly outs from Craig Counsell and Looper to end the inning.

The Brewers added two runs in the sixth to extend their lead to 3-0. Hart singled and Ryan Braun walked with one gone. Blanton got Prince Fielder to fly out, but allowed Cameron to stroke a two-run double down the left-field line. Hardy went down looking to end the inning.

Looper ran into a bit of trouble in the home half of the sixth, but was able to work his way out of the jam. After retiring the first two batters, Looper walked Howard and gave up an infield single to Werth. Ibanez lined out to right fielder Hart to end the frame, though.

Mark DiFelice and Carlos Villanueva retired the Phillies in order in the seventh and eighth inning, respectively.

Game Notes

Ibanez went 1-for-4 to improve his hitting streak to nine games...The last time Blanton faced the Brewers, he pitched the Phillies into the NLCS...Philadelphia won five of six versus Milwaukee last year, including a four-game sweep at home from September 11-14 that caused the Brewers to stumble down the finish and heading into the playoffs.

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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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