Maddux Sports Blog

We are still several months away from the start of the NFL season, and there is a whole lot of quality sporting action between now and then. For a huge number of sports bettors, though, the NFL is the only thing that really matters. If the players aren’t currently dancing with other stars then they are in the weight room and on the practice field getting ready for next season. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t be doing the same. Don’t worry - you don’t have to break a sweat to get ready. Here are five things you can do to get ready to be at your best and most profitable when the season starts for real, though:

Catch up on player movement - It’s easy to keep track of the high profile players and their new addresses. Football is the ultimate team sport, though, so it’s more than just the stars that impact how a team will perform. Now is a great time to study the depth chart of teams and how they have changed since last we saw them. The rosters aren’t cast in stone yet, obviously, but studying now can give you a good sense of which teams have truly improved and which still have work to do. The media will spend lots of time between now and then talking about the same thing, but they will focus on the stars and rarely delve into what really matters. You’ll have an edge on the public if you work hard to form your own opinion.

Do your reading - There are hundreds of websites devoted to handicapping, dozens of forums filled with good information, and a small library of worthwhile football books as well. The more you read and learn, the better you will be as a handicapper. You won’t agree with everything you read, and you might not even change what you do, but you’ll learn to avoid mistakes or do things differently. Instead of rading a John Grisham on the beach, read something that will make you some money down the line.

Improve your record-keeping - Most bettors don’t keep very good records. They probably know if they win or lose, but they can’t necessarily tell you how they do it. Spending the time setting up a better, more comprehensive record-keeping system is perhaps the biggest single thing you can do to help you make more money. If you closely track your bets you can find the leaks - the bets that you consistently make that aren’t profitable. You probably have bad habits that you aren’t even aware of - maybe you play the over more than you should, or you think that the Bears are better than they are. You can only fix the problems when you first identify them. Spend some time making friends with Excel this summer.

Plunge into the stats - You probably spend a lot of time looking at stats during the season, but there are also a lot of stats that you probably ignore. You should spend the time now getting familiar with some stats that you don’t use in your handicapping now. Look at individual boxscores, find a stat that sticks out as being particularly good or bad, and see how the game turned out. Then look at other games to see if the same stat had the same impact. If you do start to see a trend then you can look deeper. If not then move on to the next one. You might just find another way to find and edge in a game or two over the season.

Get to know the rookies - New players are on their way, and many of them will be making a serious impact. The media has been talking about them since long before the draft. They certainly don’t plunge very deep into reality when they do it, though. If you want to really form valuable opinions about the new players you need to ignore all that you have heard and form your own ideas. Read articles from the local papers in the towns the player’s schools were located in. Look for scouting reports from real draft analysis sites that do their own research. Go to Youtube and find highlights packages to see the players first hand. Maybe you’ll spot something that you really like about a player, or something you really don’t. There is no such thing as too much knowledge.

Sportsbook.com has become the first book to release NFL season totals for next year. I’m not generally a fan of these bets, and especially not in the NFL when the possible range is so small because of the number of games they play. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to learn from the bets, though. By looking at the numbers and the juice required we can get a good sense of how oddsmakers are feeling about some teams. If any are a surprise then we have lots of time to figure out if they seem right or wrong. Here are the strongest opinions based on the first numbers posted:

Buffalo over 7.5 (-180) - The Bills are the heaviest favorite on the board. Books are obviously pretty confident that they will improve on their seven wins of last season. It’s not hard to justify that opinion - their quarterback has more much needed experience, their injury woes will hopefully be a thing of the past, the offense reloaded in the draft, and they seem to be moving in the right direction. Their division schedule will be tougher than last year, though, because the Pats are still the Pats and the Jets and Dolphins have improved. The rest of the schedule could be tough, too, including San Diego, Cleveland, and Jacksonville. I like the Bills, but certainly not enough to make this bet.

Oakland over 6 (-170) - The second biggest price on the board isn’t very attractive to me, either. To pay off here the Raiders need to find three more wins. Their running game should be improved (though it was pretty much the lone bright spot last year), but they will be relying on a brand new quarterback who isn’t surrounded with overwhelming tools. It could happen, but I don’t love the chances, and I think that this price is just an attempt to sucker in the suckers that call themselves Raiders fans.

Indianapolis under 11 (-165) - Books are down on the Colts. They would have to drop by three wins here. The arguments can be made - the receiving corps has questions (including whether Marvin Harrison will end up in an orange jumpsuit), and Tony Dungy doesn’t seem to be committed to his job for the long term. I don’t know whether I believe in this one or not, but I would be more than a little thrilled if it were true.

Dallas over 10.5 (-160) - I wonder if America’s team has ever been anything other than a heavy favorite to go over. The public can’t seem to be objective about this team, and the books take advantage of it. The number doesn’t seem that unreasonable, but the price sure does.

Atlanta over 4.5 (-160) - The Falcons need to find one more win than last year to pay off here. They have a new quarterback who has to make a gigantic leap up from the ACC, a coach who has never been at the helm of a team before, a GM who has to rebuild the team almost from scratch in his first year as a GM, and players have defected from several key positions. I have no doubts that this team is on the right path and will figure things out eventually, but I don’t think that their improvement this year is nearly the lock that this price would suggest.

1. There are only six guys in the majors with the last name Cabrera, but it seems like there are about 212. Every time I turn around another one is in the news. The latest did it in an impressive way - Cleveland second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera turned just the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history in the second game of a doubleheader against Toronto. He dove to catch a line drive, touched second for out number two, and the tagged Marco Scutaro, the guy who should own a hundred pizza places based on his name alone, to enter history. Troy Tulowitzki had one last season, and the previous unassisted play was in 2000.

2. That wasn’t the only crazy thing to happen in that game. I don’t know Cliff Lee, but I can only imagine that he is one angry dude right now. The ridiculously hot ace threw nine scoreless innings in that game to lower his already almost non-existent 0.81 ERA. The problem is that his team didn’t score any runs, either. The bullpen poured gas on the mound and lit it on fire in the tenth, allowing three runs. Lee should have had a brilliant complete game shutout. Instead, he threw 117 pitches and has nothing to show for it. On the plus side, his ERA is down to 0.67. That’s obscene. To be fair, we should note that Shaun Marcum is having a very solid year, and he was brilliant as well. He allowed just two hits in eight scoreless innings.

3. Detroit cruised to a third easy win against Dallas. This is as one-sided as a conference final can possibly be. A friend sent me an e-mail late in the game that said it well - “Dallas looks like a good junior team playing an NHL team”.

4. A-Rod is not going to be healthy and back in action in time for the Yanks’ series against the Mets this weekend. That’s the story, anyway. More likely, he knows how nasty fans in New York can be, and he has trips in the friendlier and more apathetic climes of Baltimore and Seattle after that. No one ever said A-Rod wouldn’t duck a tough spot.

5. The Lakers series just got tougher to figure out. Now we have to play psychologist, figuring out how much Kobe’s back injury is for real, and how much of it is just showmanship in an attempt to get an edge over Utah. There’s no question that he isn’t 100 percent. It just seems a bit odd that he showed up in front of the media wearing some funky electric stimulation device on his back. Teams and players are notoriously tight-lipped about injuries in the playoffs, and they never seem to tell the truth when they do rarely speak. Based on that, it’s pretty easy to concoct a conspiracy theory that would suggest that he isn’t in nearly as bad shape as his actions would suggest. The problem is that he’s the only player still active outside of LeBron James that singlehandedly can determine the outcome of his series based on his health.

6. We’ll have the Preakness field set in two days, but it is still pretty fluid. Recapturetheglory has pulled out of the race. Now Harlem Rocker, the undefeated horse trained by Todd Pletcher that Big Brown’s connections admitted was the only one that they were concerned about in the field, has decided to find an easier spot. That means that this is going to be a ridiculously easy field for Big Brown if he is anywhere near his best. The one thing that could make it a bit more interesting is the rumor that Gayego could give the race a try. He had a lousy Derby, but there is a lot to like about the Arkansas Derby winner. If nothing else, his presence would inflate Big Brown’s price from the microscopic to the merely ridiculously low.

7. The Celtics have now played five road games in these playoffs. They have yet to win or cover a single one. Despite what they accomplished this season, I find it hard to view them as a truly elite team with that on their record. If they can’t beat Atlanta or Cleveland how are they going to get past L.A., San Antonio or Charlotte.

This season isn’t over yet, so it is way too early to be thinking seriously about next year’s NBA season. The hiring of Mike D’Antoni by the Knicks is so interesting in so many ways, though, that it is worth looking ahead for a bit.

The first place to start is the money. The Knicks clearly make way too much of it. They will be paying D’Antoni $6 million a year for four years. That’s on top of almost $50 million in dead money that they have paid or will pay Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas to not coach. Imagine what a competent, reasonably managed team could do with all of that cash.

There are some reasons to like this hire. The guy has averaged 58 wins a year for four years, so he can obviously coach. His style is great to watch, and offensive players who fit in love it, so the team shouldn’t struggle to bring in players when they have space for them. Combined with Donnie Walsh, D’Antoni finally represents a much-needed new era of good management.

That paints a pretty picture, but reality is far more bleak. D’Antoni’s success was largely fueled by the fact that Steve Nash is a hall-of-fame lock. Now he has to work with Nate Robertson and Jamal Crawford. That’s like trading a Porsche for a Pinto. This could all change if they get lucky and land Derrick Rose of Jerryd Bayless in the draft, but for now there just isn’t a floor general with the skill and basketball IQ to make D’Antoni’s system work. D’Antoni is fiercely proud of his system - he wouldn’t change even a bit in Phoenix even though that meant his departure - so it seems unlikely that he would adapt to his team. That means it could be a long year.

Zach Randolf and Eddy Curry ensure that the Knicks have no payroll flexibility, and that they won’t have the speed and creativity to make D’Antoni’s system work. Walsh will have to work miracles to get rid of them. There won’t be any real salary cap space clearing up any time soon, so D’Antoni will have to find patience he hasn’t had to show.

The Knicks haven’t known the meaning of the word defense since Jeff Van Gundy left the team. They’ve also only made the playoffs once since he left in 2002, and that was without a winning record. With that in mind it doesn’t necessarily make sense to look to D’Antoni as the solution to the woes.

Back to the money for a second. The fact that D’Antoni went to New York instead of Chicago even though the Bulls have a much more talented roster full of players that are much more suited to his style is a clear sign that the coach made a money-driven decision. That’s fine, but it is tough to believe that his motivation and inspiration will be all that it could be if (wen) the road is rough because he was looking to get away from Steve Kerr and bit into the shiniest apple.

I think that D’Antoni is a wildly talented coach, and I am not willing to count out his chances of winning in New York entirely. I just sure won’t be in a real hurry to bet on him next year until he gives me a reason to. That being said, the Knocks are instantly about 112 times better with him at the helm instead of the Thomas train wreck.

It’s Saturday night and you should be out doing something more interesting than reading what I have to say, but I will hit three quick topics that caught my eye today:

1. A somewhat dull Triple Crown trail just got a whole lot more interesting. It looked like we were living in a one freak world - Big Brown. A second one emerged today. Casino Drive had only run once in his life before today, and it was in Japan. He won by a mile, though. More significantly, he has captured the attention of racing fans because he has shipped over here specifically for the Belmont, and because he is (at least) a half brother to Jazil and Rags to Riches (the last two Belmont winners). To tune up for that race which is a month off, the horse ran in the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont against a reasonably decent crowd. It was a massacre. I could describe it further, but you had better see this one for yourself:

Click here to see the video

One last interesting note. Kent Desormeaux rides Big Brown. He also rode Casino Drive in this race. This will perhaps be the first time in history that a top jockey wins a race that impressively and steps off the horse for its next race.

2. The streak came to an end. Detroit beat Orlando by a point in Florida to become the first road team in the second round to win and only the second one to cover. Cleveland started a new streak in the second game, and they did it with an exclamation point - they covered the two point spread by 22 points.

3. I know you can’t bet on high school girl’s track and field (not legally anyway, and if you are doing it illegally then you might have a problem), but this story is too amazing not to mention. Rochelle High School won the girl’s 1A Texas state team championship. So what? Bonnie Richardson was the only girl to qualify for the meet from the school. She won two events, was second in two others, and added a third in another. That earned her more points that the second place school. The best part? She’s only a junior. I know who I am betting on next year. I doubt there will be much value in her, though.

I’ve touched on it before, but I am endlessly fascinated by the home court advantage we are seeing in the NBA playoffs so far this year. San Antonio and Boston both won last night. That means that the home squad is a perfect 10-for-10 in the second round. It’s not quite as one-sided overall, but it is still impressive - home teams were 30-14 in the first round, meaning they are 40-14 overall. More significantly to sports bettors, Cleveland in their first game against Boston is the only road team in the first round to cover a spread.

Two of the series have already switched venues for their third game. Orlando won game three over Detroit by 25 points after losing the first two by a combined margin of 26 points. New Orleans beat San Antonio by 19 and 18 at home, and then fell short by 11 in San Antonio.So far in those series you only have to look at the logo on the court to figure out which team is going to be the better one.

You can take this trend beyond interesting and into the realm of highly profitable by tweaking it just a bit. It makes sense that the higher seeded team should have a fairly significant advantage at home in the first two rounds of the playoffs because, at least theoretically, there should be a fairly significant talent gap between the higher seeds and the lower ones when there are still four or eight teams left in a division. It’s no surprise that that is true this year, but the extent to which it is true is shocking. In the first round the higher seeded teams were 16-7 ATS, and they have improved to 7-1 ATS in the second round. That’s a combined 23-8 ATS so far. It’s not too hard make money when you are covering 74 percent of your games.

Before we get too excited about those numbers, though, we should take a look back to last year to see just how much a fluke this year is. That’s where it gets ugly. The higher seeded teams were just 8-12 ATS in the first round last year. In other words, the money was from the visitors last season. Whoever said sports betting was easy or logical? All you can really dois sit back and enjoy the craziness this year while it lasts, because it isn’t going to last forever. Unfortunately.

• After two games in Boston LeBron James is 8-of-42 shooting. Ouch. Boston is good and all, but that’s no excuse for a guy that good to be that bad
• Zab Judah hurt his arm and had to pull out of a fight against Sugar Shane Mosley scheduled for the end of the month. Boxing is in a sad state when the biggest story of the week is that we don’t get to see a fight between a couple of mostly washed up guys that nobody really needed to see anyway
• Here’s a news flash - Brandon Webb is pretty good. He made his eighth start of the year today and earned his league leading eighth win. He did it by tossing a gem - two earned runs and four strikeouts without a walk in a complete game. He’d picked on some lousy teams in his first six starts, but he’s beat the Mets and the Phillies in the last two, so the impressive factor just ratcheted up a bit.
• Dallas can start booking tee times for about 10 days from now. The Stars have only played one game against the Red Wings, but it looked like the men against the boys. The world would have to tilt on its axis for Detroit to beat Dallas.
• Sergio Garcia is leading the first round of the Players Championship by two strokes, but a stat jumped out when I saw it - the Spaniard is sitting 158th on the tour in putts per round. It’s not a wonder that he isn’t living up to his potential of late. That’s ugly.
• Chauncey Billups says he isn’t sure if he is going to play in game four after he strained his right hamstring in game three. I’m sure he ultimately will play unless he is confined to a stretcher or something, but that’s not very good news for the Pistons. Obviously.
• It’s funny how baseball works. If you had asked me six weeks ago I would have told you that Cleveland was dangerous because there rotation was so good, but if I had a guy who was going to be carrying a heavy load who I was worried about it was Cliff Lee. Now, Lee is 6-0 and giving up less than a run a game, Fausto Carmona is solid at 3-1 with a 2.95 ERA, and the rest of the rotation is 3-12. You couldn’t have seen that coming anymore than you could have seen that Detroit’s staff would be 6-16, or that Justin Verlander would be stinking it out at 1-6 with a 6.43 ERA. I was rock solid on Verlander as my Cy Young pick, and I was feeling painfully unoriginal doing it.

• It doesn’t really mean much on the grand scheme of things from a betting perspective, but one of my favorite things in baseball happened tonight - Minnesota’s Carlos Gomez hit for the cycle. He did it in what was an epic 13-1 beatdown of the White Sox by Minnesota. The usually solid Mark Buehrle got the start for Chicago, but it didn’t go well. After five decent innings the wheels fell off in the sixth when he allowed five earned runs. That was much better than Ehren Wassermann was in relief - he allowed five earned runs and only recorded one out. This is more of the same for the White Sox recently - they have on win in their last eight. Buehrle and his boys were favored tonight, though you wouldn’t guess it by the final score.
• I like it any time the Yankees lose, but I especially liked it tonight because it was the first loss for ace Chien-Ming Wang. He allowed three runs in seven innings against Cleveland, but that was too many. Cliff Lee started for the Indians, and he was magical - seven strikeouts with no runs or walks in seven innings. Lee has been one of the truly great stories of the season so far. He’s mostly a journeyman type, though he was 18-5 in 2005. This year he is 6-0 in his six starts, and his ERA is a ridiculous 0.81. His strikeout to walk ratio is alright, too - 39/2. He’s far from the biggest name in the league, but if the Cy Young was awarded today he would be a shoo-in. The best part tonight was that he was up against Wang and the Yankees, so Lee went off as +131 underdog despite being essentially unhittable all year. That’s a nice bargain.
• There have been eight games in the second round of the NBA playoffs so far. The home team has won all eight. A monkey could make money on that. If only it were always so easy.

White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd just can’t buy a break. The guy has come very close to a no-hitter twice in a month, and both times he has come up short. Tonight he had an out in the ninth against the Twins  before Joe Mauer found a massive gap in left center field for a double. Against the Tigers on April 12 he had an out in the eighth before giving up his first hit to Edgar Renteria. Those two games are closer to a no-hitter than most guys will come in their lives. Floyd is handling his near-misses with a sense of humor, but that’s the kind of thing you’ll see when you close your eyes for the rest of your life iunless you finally do get one.

Though Floyd missed the magical no-hitter, I started thinking about no-no’s as I was watching Floyd’s progress. More specifically, I was wondering what the right thing to do with the White Sox tomorrow would be if they did get a no-hitter today, and what I should do in Floyd’s next start if he got it done. That made me want to look back at recent no-hitters to see how the teams and pitchers bounced back. Is there a trend? Here’s a look at the last 10 no-hitters. (Keep in mind that this is a painfully small sample so it is pretty much meaningless, but it’s late and it’s raining and I’m bored so bear with me):

September 1, 2007 - Clay Buchholz, Boston - Boston won 3-2 the next day against Baltimore. In a truly bizarre move, Buchholz was rewarded for his amazing performance by being moved to the bullpen.

June 12, 2007 - Justin Verlander, Detroit - Detroit lost to Milwaukee as favorites the next day. Verlander had a stellar outing next time out - four hits, one run and 11 strikeouts in seven innings.

April 18, 2007 - Mark Buehrle, White Sox - Chicago beat Texas the next day as favorites. Buehrle was solid in winning his next outing - three earned runs in seven innings.

September 6, 2006 - Anibal Sanchez, Florida - Florida was blown out by Philadelphia the day after this game. Sanchez through seven solid innings (three earned runs in seven innings) in his next start.

May 18, 2004 - Randy Johnson, Arizona - The D-Backs won on the road as favorites in their next game. Johnson allowed two earned runs in seven innings in his next game.

June 11, 2003 - Six pitchers, Houston - The Astros lost to the Yankees the next day, but they were heavy underdogs. No pitcher lasted three innings, so that’s not relevant.

April 27, 2003 - Kevin Millwood, Philadelphia - The Phillies won against the Dodgers the next day as mild underdogs. Millwood was okay in his next start - three earned runs in six innings - but he ended up without a decision.

April 27, 2002 - Kevin Lowe, Boston - The Red Sox lost to Baltimore in their next game as very heavy favorites (-190). Derek Lowe had what seems to be the typical game post-no-hitter - three earned runs in seven innings. He didn’t get a decision, but the Sox did win.

September 3, 2001 - Bud Smith, St. Louis - The Cards won the next day as favorites. Smith didn’t appear again for two weeks, but he was very good - a shutout over seven innings.

May 12, 2001 - A.J. Burnett, Florida - Florida won easily the next day at even money. In his next start (which was just the third of his career) allowed just one run in six and a third to earn a win.

So, what have we learned? Nothing conclusive, but a couple of interesting things. First, there seems not to be a consistent way for a team to respond - the teams were 6-4 in the following games, but were probably only barely profitable because of the lines. On the other hand, it seems like a pitcher is a pretty solid bet coming off a no-hitter. All eight starters that were given a chance to start again in their next start were decent. None lost, and all managed to maintain some of their momentum from the previous game. Definitely worth a bet.

There is a very interesting pitching match-up in Arizona tonight. Two hot teams - the Phillies and the Diamondbacks clash with two pitchers at opposite ends of their careers. Jamie Moyer is older than the dirt he’ll be standing on on the mound, while Max Scherzer is a young phenom making his second MLB appearance and first start. Scherzer is 23. When he was born Moyer was a Cubs prospect in the New York - Penn League.

Scherzer comes into the league with a lot of hype. He’s a power pitcher with a fastball in the high 90’s. He was drafted by the Cardinals in 2003, but he opted to play college ball at Missouri instead, and was chosen again in the first round by Arizona in 2006. He rocketed up through the minor leagues before being called up last week as a reliever. His stint in the bullpen lasted exactly one appearance. He came in in the third inning against Houston last Tuesday after starter Edgar Gonzalez had given up six runs and eight hits. All Scherzer did was throw four and a third perfect innings while striking out seven. Those 13 outs he recorded were the most ever by a reliever in his first career appearance. Needless to say, it took D-Backs management about 12 seconds to decide to move him into the rotation in Gonzalez’ place.

The 45 year old Moyer has spent a good bit of time this year looking like a 45 year old. He is 1-2, he hasn’t won since the second game of the season, has allowed seven or more hits every game since then, and hasn’t made it out of the sixth all year. The Phillies are a solid 12-8 since April 13, but Moyer has been the starter in three of those eight losses.

It might sound like a recipe for disaster in Arizona - rushing a youngster into action so quickly. The list of pitchers who have been ruined through impatience is long. There is good reason to believe that that won’t be the case here, though. Most significantly, the team only needs him to be a fifth starter because they have a pretty darned good rotation ahead of him - Webb, Haren, Johnson, Owings. On top of that, Doug Davis could be back from cancer surgery as soon as a month from now, so Scherzer would likely find himself back in the pen or even back in AAA. If he is, as he appears to be, the real deal then he will have lots of time to show it.

All that aside, his appearance tonight creates an interesting betting situation. Scherzer and Arizona are favored at -156. The 148 price Moyer faces is the biggest he has seen all year, so this is a lot of pressure on a new pitcher making his starting debut. As good as he looked first time out, he was entering a game that was already over so there was no pressure. Now he is under the microscope. He could very well have a great night, but I would find it very hard to argue that there is any value on the Diamondbacks at this price. I think I’ll just be an interested observer tonight.

UPDATE: Age prevailed over beauty. Moyer had a pretty good night. Scherzer didn’t. Philadelphia won by seven runs.

• Crazy, crazy, crazy game between Dallas and San Jose tonight. San Jose needed a win in game six to survive. It was tied at one after regulation, and still tied after three overtime periods. The fourth overtime was a farce. The players were so tired that they could hardly move, and I’m sure both teams just wanted the suffering to end one way or another. Brenden Morrow finally scored the winner for Dallas halfway through the seventh period. The goal came on the powerplay, and it was a bit of a shame to see it end like that. Unfortunately for San Jose, though, the penalty was pretty blatant. Dallas has a few days to recuperate from this one - they don’t play Detroit until Thursday.
• The good news is that Tampa Bay got Scott Kazmir back today for the first time this year. The bad news is that they need him to be really good and he wasn’t. He lasted just four innings and allowed three earned runs in that time. There were some signs of hope from amongst the gloom, though - he struck out five and only walked three.
• CSKA Moscow beat Maccabi Tel Aviv Sunday to win the Euroleague championship. I love checking out the European games to see which players have ended up over there. There were some real gems in this one. Trajan Langdon, the Alaska-born former Duke star, was the MVP of the game and is one of the true stars of the league. One of his teammates is J.R. Holden. He played with Bucknell before heading to Russia, and he took Russian citizenship so that he doesn’t have to use up a foreign spot on the roster. THe losers were led by captain and point guard Derrick Sharp. He played at South Florida, but he is 36 so that was a while ago.
• Pittsburgh has one loss in two rounds, and there is no reason not to expect them to cruise through the battle of Pennsylvania relatively unscathed. They are young and have a lot to prove yet, but at this point they have to be solidly viewed as the favorites from among the four teams remaining. I’d take the youth and speed of Pittsburgh over the age and experience of Detroit.
• It won’t show up in their records because neither guy got a decision, but Johan Santana and Dan Haren had a heck of a duel today. Santana allowed one run in six innings, with 8 K’s and 4 walks. Haren responded with two runs in six innings with just one walk against seven K’s. Chad Qualls blew it for Arizona in the end with an uncharacteristically bad showing - three runs in the ninth.

I could write a lot about that race, but I won’t. Instead, just two thoughts:

1. Wow. Big Brown . Not more more to say. Unbelievable. I will either make a lot of money on this horse or lose it over the next five weeks, because there is no way I am betting on anyone else. Incredible.
2. Any doubts that horse racing is a tough sport? The story of Eight Belles goes down in history as one of the all-time happy-sad classics. Nothing more to say at this point.

The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow, and I am of the firm and unwavering opinion that it is the greatest sporting event in the world. There is no event that is any harder to win, and no sport that involves more challenge, heartbreak, or excitement than the sport of kings. Don’t get me wrong - there are a lot of truly spectacular sporting events. I’d just trade them all for what will go down in Louisville tomorrow if I had to (thankfully, I don’t).

All that being said, I have a big problem this year - I don’t have a horse. Most years, by this point I have been firmly and avidly entrenched on a horse for weeks or months. Last year I was on Curlin since March. In 2006 I was on the Barbaro bandwagon before he entered the starting gate in the Florida Derby. 2005 was a bit of a disaster when Noble Causeway was 14th, but there was no way I was staying away from what was likely to be (and ultimately was) Gary Stevens’ last Derby mount. This year all I have is confusion and questions.

At heart I am a romantic. That’s why I prefer college sports to the pros, and that’s why I love horse racing so much. It is a sport that is tailor-made for dreamers. For that reason I am drawn to Big Brown. The horse is clearly a freak, and he has never been even remotely challenged. There is the potential that this horse is truly special and that we are about to see something amazing. Unfortunately, there is just so much going against him that I can’t buy into him at 3/1. He’s only had three career starts, and no horse has won in the modern era with less than five career races. He’s only won twice this year. He has just one stakes start. He missed several months of training with some pretty serious foot issues. He’s coming from way out in the far outside gate - number 20. That’s a lot to overcome. I sincerely hope he does, but I can’t bet that he will at that price.

With him off the board, the problem is that no horse jumps up to fill the top spot. I have liked Pyro a lot since his huge performance in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but he had a disastrous outing last time out in the Bluegrass Stakes and ended up 10th. I can discount that somewhat because it was on a synthetic track, but I still feel uneasy when a horse looks that bad the last time we saw him. Again, he doesn’t present any value at this price. Colonel John is getting all sorts of support, and his Santa Anita Derby win was very visually impressive. Lots of problems again, though - he has never run on dirt, I am not entirely convinced that he beat a very impressive group in the Santa Anita, and it has been a decade since a California horse has come out ahead. To sound like a broken record - no value here.

That rules out the favorites, so I guess I should look for a longer shot. Easier said than done. I have a soft spot for fillies that take the step up, but Eight Belles has never faced the boys before. Tale of Ekati and everyone else coming from the Wood Memorial gets ruled out because the last furlong of that race was so slow that I could have won it on foot. Court Vision seems content to be not quite good enough. I’d like Z Fortune for a lot of reasons, but trainer Steve Asmussen has lowered expectations at every opportunity this week. Visionaire looks best when he isn’t facing top horses. Smooth Air has to bounce back from a fever last week. Monba has better synthetic form, and he comes off a win in the Bluegrass - a race that was such a mess that several Derby entrants are throwing it out completely. The same goes for Cowboy Cal, except he got beat by Monba. Denis of Cork is coming off a truly bizarre prep schedule, and he didn’t fire at all in the Illinois Derby. Gayego has a habit of getting into duels with lesser horses down the stretch, and he doesn’t always win them. I like something about almost all of those horses, but apparently not enough.

So, what am I going to do? The only logical thing to do in this situation, I guess - head to the track tomorrow, drink some beer, and buy tickets on a bunch of horses so that I can at least say I had a piece of the winner (though if I am being honest, a win by Big Brown would make me happier than anything). It doesn’t really matter because whichever horse wins the Derby will instantly become my favorite horse as he pursues the Triple Crown - I can jump on a bandwagon as fast as anyone.

The Dallas Mavericks are out of the playoffs, and apparently it is all Avery Johnson’s fault. Mark Cuban is the kind of guy who needs someone to blame, and his head coach got to be the one. Johnson was fired this week just a day after the Mavs were bounced from the playoffs in the first round for the second straight year. Losing to Golden State last year was pretty bad, but there is no shame losing to New Orleans - they likely won’t be the last team to do that this year. Did Johnson deserve to get fired? Of course not. Just take a look at what he accomplished.

• He took over the team with 18 games left in the 2004-2005 season. He went 16-2.
• In his first full season he won 60 games and led his team to the Finals for the first time in franchise history. He was coach of the year.
• The next season he won 67 games.
• This year he won 51 games despite a number of injuries and an ill-conceived trade which backfired.
• He was the fastest coach ever to reach 100 wins and 150 wins.

Cuban got rid of Johnson, but there is one fact that becomes glaringly obvious when you look at it closely - he won’t be able to hire a better coach. At best he will make a lateral move. Sure, Johnson underperformed in the playoffs the last couple of years, but was that his fault, or was it due to the talent he had and the near-total lack of a killer instinct possessed by the key players? I would argue that Johnson deserves extra credit, and probably a medal, for getting as much as he did out of the team.

From a betting perspective there are two things I feel pretty confident about - there will be value on whatever team is smart enough to hire Johnson, and none in the Mavs next year unless the changes don’t stop here, or unless John Wooden, or at least Phil Jackson, takes over.

Random notes from Wednesday afternoon:

• You had better get used to the BCS the way it is now because it isn’t going to change any time soon. After much discussion today the BCS officials have chosen to change nothing until at least 2014. There was a proposal on the table to go to a four team playoff in 2010, but that was rejected. According to the officials the BCS is in an ‘unprecedented state of health’. That’s clear evidence that the BCS officials don’t actually watch the BCS games.
• Ugly, ugly game by the Mets today. They lost 13-1. To the Pirates, of all teams. To make matters even worse, nine of the 13 runs Pittsburgh scored were unearned. There’s sloppy and then there is the game New York played today. Five pitcher appeared for the Mets, but just two were responsible for the unearned scores. Oliver Perez started, but he didn’t make it out of the second inning. He allowed seven runs, but only two were earned. He walked five. Jorge Sosa was the third pitcher in, and he made Perez look sharp by comparison. He allowed four hits and five runs (one earned) in one inning. The rest of the team did their part in this mess by contributing three errors.
• We have another drug cheat in baseball. Giants’ catcher Eliezer Alfonzo is out for 50 games after testing positive for performance enhancers. He has been in the minors this year, but he started 113 games over the last two years and had put up respectable numbers. He probably would have found his way back to San Francisco soonif he hadn’t got caught because the drugs were obviously working - he was hitting .306 with 14 RBIs in 16 games.
• The Kentucky Derby is only three days away. The post position draw occurred today, and it featured an odd moment. Big Brown, the Derby favorite, is trained by Richard Dutrow, Jr. He is one of the most obnoxiously arrogant men on the planet. He has been so boastful about his horse that if you listened to him you would wonder why they are even bothering to run the race before giving his horse the roses. No one wants the outside post - number 20 - in the race because the horse has to travel so far to get to the rail. No one except for Dutrow that is. Other posts were available when Dutrow picked his post, but he took the 20. He says it is because he doesn’t want a horse outside of him, but more likely it’s just another way for him to show off. The horse has been unbelievable, but it has to overcome a lot to win here - he has raced only three times, including just two this year. No horse in more than 70 years has won the Derby without having run at least five times before.