This Week in Sports Betting, A-Z
by Nicholas Tolomeo - 2/11/2011
A – Alcohol. Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the prices for hooch at the Super Bowl. With margaritas going for $19 (more than a ticket to Super Bowl I), and wine going for $12 and beer going for $10, drinkers had a hangover in their wallets, too, on Monday. And you thought the $900 parking spots outside Cowboys Stadium was bad, $10 for a Miller Lite is worse considering the fact that no one binge parks.
B – Bieber Fever. Apparently all New York Knicks fan received a vaccination from Bieber Fever before entering Madison Square Garden last week. When teen singing sensation Justin Bieber was shown on the JumboTron at a recent Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, Bieber was vehemently booed by the MSG faithful.
C – Cleveland Cavaliers. Everybody knows about the Cleveland Cavaliers 25-game losing streak. What nobody knows is how in the name of Charles K. McNeil were the Cavaliers favored for the game two nights after losing their 25th? Cleveland was -1.5 at home against Detroit on Wednesday night. Of course the Cavs lost, 103-94, to extend their streak to 26 games.
D – DWI. Athletes of all sports get busted for DUI and DWIs all the time, but what really draws people’s attention is when you are a NASCAR driver and you blow a 0.32. NASCAR Nationwide driver Michael Annett’s blood-alcohol level was measured at a whopping 0.32 after he rear-ended another car at a red light at 1:32 a.m. No word on if the arresting officer waved the caution flag when pulling Annett over.
E – Eva and Eduardo. There may be love after Tony Parker for Eva Longoria. After breaking off her marriage with the San Antonio Spurs point guard late last year, Longoria has been spotted canoodling with Eduardo Cruz, brother of actress Penelope Cruz. The new couple was spotted at a Super Bowl party in South Beach, Fla. Apparently neither Cruz or Longoria realized that last year’s Super Bowl was in South Beach and this year’s was in North Texas.
F – Flyover. Remember that Super Bowl flyover before the big game on Sunday? Probably not because the roof was closed at Cowboys Stadium and the four Navy F-18s that flew over the stadium were visible on TV for about half a second. Well it gets worse: that flyover alone cost $450,000. And it gets even worse: the NFL did not even foot the bill, the taxpayer did. The same taxpayer who probably couldn’t afford a ticket, parking spot or a $10 beer.
G – Glee. The ratings of Fox’s musical series “Glee” plummeted from the 26.8 million who watched the episode that aired immediately after the Super Bowl to 11.5 million on Tuesday night. This proves that over half of the people who “watched” Glee on Sunday did so by accident.
H– Hawk, Tony. If you never knew that legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk was married, well, this will really shock you. Hawk is currently not married, but only because he just got divorced for the third time. Hawk, 42, filed for divorce from his wife, Lhotse Merriam, last week. Hawk has a total of four kids with his three ex-wives.
I – Illness. The curse of the VISA commercial? After repeated airings of that awful VISA commercial celebrating the fact that four rich white guys have been to every Super Bowl, the streak came to end this season for one of the fortunate four. Green Bay Packers fan and 79-year old Wisconsin resident Robert Cook was too sick to attend the game, thereby breaking his streak of 44 consecutive Super Bowls. His seat was probably deemed unsafe anyways, so the streak may have been in jeopardy as it was.
J – Jersey Ads. Recent studies are saying that the big four North American sports league are leaving about $370 million on the table every year by not whoring out their jerseys for ad space. That may seem like a lot of money, but first picture a New York Yankees jersey with a Pizza Hut patch sewn to the sleeve and then look at the two local sports leagues who do sell ad space on their jerseys, MLS and WNBA. How’s that working for them?
K – Khloe Kardashian. The only Kardashian sister no one wants to see naked decided to get naked, but thank god for everyone Khloe Kardashian did not show her junk. She dropped her clothes for a commercial with equally unclothed Lakers forward Lamar Odom to promote the couples unisex fragrance, Unbreakable. The commercial did not show too much, but it was evident neither Kardashian nor Odom were clothed.
L – LeBron James. The Cleveland Cavaliers are in a precarious position, and of course King James needs to speak out about it once again. With a looming clash of colossally bad teams, the Wizards (0-25 on the road) and the Cavaliers (26-game losing streak), James took to Twitter to proclaim that the “Toilet Bowl” should be nationally televised.
M – Mark Cuban. As the most outspoken owner in the NBA, Mark Cuban often gets booed in every arena outside of Dallas. But at a recent Knicks game, a group of Mets fans were not about to boo Cuban, but instead they were asking for help when they broke out with a “buy the Mets” chant.
N – Nevada Casinos. When is winning $724,000 not a big deal? When it is the total wins among Nevada sportsbooks on Super Bowl Sunday. After a near record haul of $6.9 million for the sportsbook last year in the Super Bowl, Nevada casinos only kept $724,000 of the $87.5 million wagered on Super Bowl XLV.
O– Ross Ohlendorf. You are about to read everything that is wrong with the game of baseball. Pirate’s pitcher Ross Ohlendorf won one game last season. In the process he earned $439,000. He felt that his 1-11 record earned him a raise. His team agreed! The Pirates offered him $1.4 million! Ohlendorf wanted more! He felt that his 2010 season that featured more trips to the disabled list (2) than wins (1) deserved a raise to $2,025,000! The Pirates and Ohlendorf went to salary arbitration and, guess what? A judge decided that Ohlendorf deserved the raise! The Pirates cannot even win in court.
P – Paul Pierce. Stars will never participate in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, but for some reason they come out in full force for the three-point shootout. This year defending champion Paul Pierce will defend his title in the contest against teammate Ray Allen, NBA scoring leader Kevin Durant and James Jones of the Miami Heat. Okay, so maybe Jones is not the biggest star from the Heat, but the other three are legitimate.
Q – Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavs have lost 26 games in a row and starting with their loss to Detroit on Wednesday, they had a stretch of eight consecutive games at Quicken Loans Arena. This gives the team a good chance to finally win a game, but it also means their fans have to witness the longest losing streak in NBA history in person.
R – Repeat Lingerie Bowl Champs. The best Super Bowl halftime show did not feature Fergie, Usher, Slash or the rest of the Black Eyed Peas, but instead featured scantily clad females playing football in a Lingerie Bowl showdown between the L.A. Temptation and the Philadelphia Passion. In the game on Sunday at Las Vegas, the Temptation won its second consecutive Lingerie Bowl trophy. Who said Los Angeles does not have a football team? The real winners were the fans because they did not have to watch the Super Bowl halftime show and there was at least one Lingerie Bowl wardrobe malfunction.
S – Sean Avery. As an enforcer of sorts in the NHL, Sean Avery has stood up for teammates in the past and now the New York Rangers agitator says he is ready to stand up for any NHL player who wants to come out of the closet. Avery said, “I’ll stand beside him in the dressing room while he tells his teammates he is gay. Maybe if Sean Avery is there, they have less of a problem with it.” It is a nice gesture for Avery, now if he would just stop talking about himself in the third person. Avery can probably sympathize with whatever flack a gay player may catch on the road; Avery is allegedly straight and he still gets heckled everywhere he goes.
T – Tareq and Michaele Salahi. What is the only way you can top crashing a White House party? Do what Tareq and Michaele Salahi did last week when they not only crashed Super Bowl XLV, but also found a way into Dallas Cowboys’ vice president Jerry Jones Jr. Owners Club Suite. The famous couple who once crashed a White House dinner found a way into Cowboys Stadium and they even tweeted about their accomplishment which unfortunately resulted in them being escorted out.
U – UCLA Baseball. Not sure who thought this was a good idea, but Charlie Sheen, fresh out of rehab for like the 27th time, talked to the UCLA baseball team and Head Coach John Savage about drug use. Just from being in the same room as Sheen the entire team may fail their NCAA drug test.
V – Vick, Michael. You can add Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle and his wife Jamie to the list of people who were wishing harm on Eagles quarterback Michael Vick this season. For some reason Buehrle and his wife, owners of three dogs and participants in the multiple animal rescue leagues, decided to go on record for their hatred of Vick during an interview saying they watched his games hoping he would get injured.
W – William Perry. A recent profile of former Chicago Bears defensive lineman, William “The Refrigerator” Perry reveals his legendary drinking habits while going to school in Clemson. His teammates recalled the Fridge, 300 pounds at the time, routinely drinking two cases of beer in one sitting, and sometimes even three on a hot day. The only thing more impressive than inhaling 72 beers in one sitting is having an NFL career afterwards and surviving to tell about it 30 years later.
X – Xtina Aguilera. Super Bowl XLV was a heck of a game, but the lasting memories from the game are the 400 displaced fans from the somehow unready seats and Christina Aguilera forgetting the words to the “Star Spangled Banner”. The Aguilera gaffe was of particular interest to gamblers because of how close she came to the ‘over/under’ of 1 minute and 54 seconds during her error-filled anthem. Some sportsbooks actually paid out both the ‘over’ and ‘under’ because of Aguilera’s missteps, but, technically, it should have been ‘no action’ because she did not technically sing the song, she sang some kind of remix of it. You can almost guarantee a new Super Bowl prop next season, “Will (insert name here) correctly sing all the words to the National Anthem?”
Y – Yankee eating popcorn. The Super Bowl coverage was marred by the announcing of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, but we knew that ahead of time. What likely nobody saw coming, especially Alex Rodriguez, was a close-up of ARod and Cameron Diaz completely disinterested in the Super Bowl as Diaz was feeding popcorn to Rodriguez. If it wasn’t so terrible you would swear it was rehearsed.
Z – Zippo Lighters. Zippo Manufacturing, the guys who bring us those metal-jacketed lighters, is based in Bedford, Pa. just 125 miles north of the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. After the Packers won the Super Bowl the company manufactured commemorative lighters featuring the Packers and the Super Bowl XLV logo. If the system is anything like what they do with the Super Bowl t-shirts, then that means the Steelers Zippo lights are likely in the hands of impoverished kids in Africa right now.
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