Is the wild card hurting the division races?

Baseball Betting Lines

09/08/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Before I get started here, let me state that I was a big proponent of the wild card when it was implemented back in 1995, and I am still in favor of it today. In fact, I am on the side of those who wish to expand the playoffs even further in adding another wild card team from each league.

But that, I guess, is a topic for another day.

The wild card has given us competitive races down the stretch in just about all of the 15 years it has been in place. It has kept more teams involved later than they would have been, while making for some compelling baseball heading into the final week, which, let's be honest, is all you can really ask for.

However, if things play out the way I think they will over the final three- plus weeks of the regular season, we could have a problem. The two best races in baseball are shaping up to be the American League East and the National League West, but all four teams could get into the playoffs anyway thanks to the wild card.

The juice has been taken out of the division races, especially in the AL, where it is a foregone conclusion that the loser between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East is going to get in. They are 1-2 for the best record in baseball and will likely trade the top spot a number of times over the next couple of weeks.

How awesome would that race have been 16 years ago, had they both been fighting for one spot?

While it may not be as pronounced in the NL, I still see the wild card going to either San Diego or San Francisco. Of course, the division race between them is also going to come down to the final weekend, but again, who cares, knowing they both could get in anyway?

So where is the intrigue going to be down the stretch?

I know the National League East is tight at the moment, but the Phillies are now healthy and with the three pitchers atop that rotation, that division is over. Don't be surprised when the season ends on October 3rd and the Phils are the National League leader with the biggest divisional lead.

Atlanta, which fell a half-game back in the NL East on Tuesday, leads the Wild Card chase by a game over the San Francisco Giants. I don't like the way the Braves have looked over the last month, though, and I think them relinquishing their division lead on Tuesday was just the beginning. I see a free-fall coming.

The American League Central could come down to the wire - because it does every year - and give us some excitement, but in reality all the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox are battling for is the right to get eliminated by either the Yankees or Rays in the first round.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't think the Rays or Yanks will be coming out of the AL?

Forget an AL West that's been over since the All-Star break, despite the fact that the Rangers are playing as awful as any team in the league at the moment. The Reds' six-game lead on the Cardinals should also hold up in the National League, given who they have to play the rest of the way.

I would love to see the Cards get involved in the wild card mix, because if they get into the playoffs I have a feeling they could be scary. As I write this they sit 5 1/2 back, though only four back in the loss column.

There is one team, though, that can throw a wrench into all of this and that team is the Ghost of Septembers Past - the Colorado Rockies, who are in the midst of another late-season surge and have climbed within 4 1/2 games of both the NL West and the wild card.

That said, Colorado has been so inconsistent this season, I just can't envision them making a run here. Then again, I did not think they would rip off 13 wins in their last 14 games to force a one-game playoff in 2007 and definitely did not think they had another run in them in June of last season when they were 12 games under .500 and 15 1/2 games out of first place.

By the way, you may disregard all this when in a couple of weeks I am writing over the last weekend of the season about the wild free-for-all that is going to be taking place for the NL Wild Card.

I hope that is the case, but I just don't see it playing out like that.

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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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