07/02/2009 - Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Joey Votto's single to left in the bottom of the 10th scored Chris Dickerson and gave the Reds a 3-2 win over Arizona in the finale of a three-game set from Great American Ball Park.
Votto totaled four hits in all while Dickerson was 2-for-4 with an RBI single of his own as Cincinnati took the final two games of this series and won for the fifth time in seven games.
Aaron Harang pitched well, yielding just four hits and two runs over seven full frames. The right-hander, who remains without a win over his last seven starts, walked three and struck out eight. Francisco Cordero (1-2) received the win for pitching a scoreless top half of the 10th.
Mark Reynolds hit a solo home run and Chad Tracy had an RBI single for the Diamondbacks, who have lost seven of eight. Doug Davis scattered seven hits and a run with four walks and five strikeouts over seven effective innings for Arizona. The lefty is riding a five-start winless stretch.
Clay Zavada (1-2) took the bump to start the bottom portion of the 10th and gave up a leadoff single to Dickerson. Ramon Hernandez walked and Jay Bruce loaded the bases with a bunt single before Laynce Nix and Jerry Hairston were retired. Votto, though, came through with a base hit to left to end the game.
The D'Backs had loaded the bases on three walks by Cordero in the top halfof the 10th but Justin Upton flied out to right to end the threat.
Arizona struck for the game's first run in the second inning. Gerardo Parra drew a one-out walk, stole second and moved to third when Miguel Montero grounded to second. Tracy came through with an RBI base knock to left and the D'Backs led 1-0.
The Reds tied it up in the fourth but wasted a chance to take the lead. Jonny Gomes opened with a double and Ryan Hanigan's bunt single left runners at the corners. Dickerson scored Gomes with a base hit back through the middle and Paul Janish followed with a walk to load the bases with nobody out. Harang, though, popped out, Willy Taveras grounded out and Hairston Jr. did the same to end the threat.
Cincy juiced the bags again in the fifth with two outs but Janish went down swinging which allowed the visitors a 2-1 lead when Reynolds' hit his 22nd of the year with one away in the sixth.
Davis retired the Reds in order over the next two frames but the bullpen ran into trouble in the eighth. Jon Rauch gave up a pair of singles to Hanigan and a pinch-hitting Hernandez that left runners on the corners with one out. Scott Schoeneweis was brought on and got Bruce to foul out. Chad Qualls then entered and fanned a pinch-hitting Nix to escape the inning.
However, Qualls blew his fourth save of the year in the ninth as Hairston Jr. and Votto opened with base hits. Both runners advanced on Brandon Phillips' fielder's choice and Drew Sutton tied the game at two with a run-scoring pinch-hit grounder to second.
Game Notes
Cincinnati swept a three-game series from the Diamondbacks in Phoenix from May 11-13 and has won seven of its last eight matchups with Arizona...Hanigan was 3-for-3 with a walk for Cincy, which had 14 hits but stranded 16 runners...Arizona left seven men on base.
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World and
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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