09/04/2008 - St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Heavy rain washed out all first-round play Thursday at the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club.
The original plan was for the start of play to be pushed back two hours, but once it appeared clear that the rain would not let up, the decision was made to postpone all play on Thursday.
The first round will begin on Friday with tee times staying the same.
The plan is to play 18 holes on Friday with 36 scheduled for Saturday. The players will be re-paired after Friday's first round, but not before the third round.
Since this is the third playoff event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs race, the field was trimmed to 69. (Tiger Woods is not playing.) That will make it easier for the tournament to make up time.
Early weather reports offer the possibility of sun on Friday, but the course will take close to five inches of water on Thursday.
Vijay Singh has won the first two playoff events and is in command with a 12,225-point lead over Sergio Garcia.
<< Stoke City plans to spend more this winter
Stoke-on-Trent, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Stoke City manager Tony Pulis will
receive further financial backing in the next transfer window, according to
ambitious club chairman Peter Coates.
The Potters have already invested around $3
<< Curlin's next start at Belmont Park
Lexington, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Leading thoroughbred Curlin will make his
next start in the $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup on Saturday, September 27 at
Belmont Park. Majority owner Jess Jackson made the announcement Thursday
morning
<< Browns LB Peek done for season after knee surgery
Berea, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Cleveland Browns outside linebacker Antwan Peek
will miss the entire 2008 season after undergoing surgery on Thursday to
repair a torn patella tendon in his knee.
Peek, entering his sixth season in th
<< City boss Hughes sounds cautious note
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Manager Mark Hughes has sounded a note
of caution amid reports that the new owners of Manchester City are set to offer
eye-watering fees to land the world's best players in the January transfer
wind
Reds P Fogg leaves with groin strain >>
Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Right-handed pitcher Josh Fogg left
Thursday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates with a strained right groin
suffered while running the base paths.
Fogg sustained the injury while running ho
19-year-old McIlroy leads in Switzerland >>
Crans Montana, Switzerland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy,
the 19-year-old former amateur star, fired an eight-under 63 on Thursday to
take the lead after the first round of the European Masters.
McIlroy birdied eight
Cobourne, Lloyd and Duval named CFL Players of the Month >>
Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Montreal teammates Avon Cobourne and Damon
Duval, and Saskatchewan linebacker Maurice Lloyd were honored as CFL Players
of the Month for August.
Cobourne earned offensive honors for the Alouettes by r
Black, Paes capture U.S. Open mixed doubles title >>
Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A fifth-seeded tandem of Zimbabwe's
Cara Black and Indian Leander Paes captured the mixed doubles title at the
2008 U.S. Open.
Black-Paes bested an unseeded pairing of American Liezel Huber and
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
MySportsbook.com: New College Football Clock Rules Examined
Coaches and bettors alike are desperate to make sense of the new time-keeping rules on the NCAA gridiron. One of the big stories to come out of the Ohio State-Texas clash last weekend was Texas coach Mack Brown's criticism of the NCAA's new clock rules that are intended to shorten the duration of college football games, therefore affecting college football betting.
"They scored with six minutes left and the game was over before we had a chance to do anything," Brown told ESPN.com. "I really hope whoever made these changes will go back and look them over."
Sure, it might be sour grapes; the Buckeyes thoroughly trounced the defending national champion Longhorns 24-7. However, Brown isn't alone in giving the changes their due thought. Bettors are also wondering about them, albeit for a completely different reason. Most experts agree that the changes will result in games being shortened by anywhere from 10 to 20 plays. The obvious consequence is lower scores, with more time rolling off the clock during changes of possession. (The Ohio State-Texas game flew well under the total of 52.)
According to research at the online sportsbook MySportsbook.com, more than 18 plays a game disappeared last weekend into thin air. That's a 10-percent reduction. In 2005, a typical game had 168.58 plays. For 2007 already, it's down to 150.26.
As a result, teams combined to gain an average of about 100 fewer yards a game last weekend versus the 2005 openers. Scoring was also down by about 4.5 points (attention Las Vegas sports lines).
Of course, oddsmakers were able to adjust to the changes before the season started. Proof of that came as the over went a balanced 8-9 at My Sportsbook on Saturday.
Other angles to consider:A shorter game should theoretically result in shorter lines. Whereas Team A might have been a 14-point favorite in a 168-play game (last year), if there are 10 percent less snaps in 2007, the line should also be reduced by 10 percent (to 13 or 12.5). Of course, this is an over-simplification of the matter, but something to keep in mind.
Less possessions means a better chance the game will be decided by three or seven points. For example, what might have been a 20-10 final score in 2005 may end at
17-10 in 2007. Granted, a 24-17 game last year might end at 21-17 these days, but the former - a three- or seven-point advantage being preserved as opposed to created - is the most likely scenario.
*UPDATE* - Sept. 25, 2007
New Clock Rules Boon for online bookmakers
By adjusting the time-keeping rules to shorten the duration of college football games, the NCAA hoped to make its product more enjoyable for the fans. While the NCAA's success in this regard is still up for debate, bookmakers couldn't be happier with the results.
"We are seeing a massive jump in college football betting," noted the MySportsbook.com management team. "With all the early Saturday games (12 a.m. ET) ending before the second wave begins (3:30 p.m. ET) - something that didn't always happen before the changes - bettors are now able to re-invest their winnings from the morning session in the afternoon games."
While not all bettors will choose to roll over their winnings, it doesn't take much for an impact to be seen on the bottom line. "Not all of the millions of dollars in morning payouts get re-bet. In fact, it's probably only 10 to 20 percent," noted the sportsbook management team. "Still, the increased football betting lines window will create a ton of growth for us over the course of the season."
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