Maddux Sports Blog

I’ll say this right up front - I think that Big Brown is going to win the Preakness handily and I am going to bet accordingly. Just to be contrary, though, here are seven reasons why you could choose not to bet on him if you were so inclined. As an aside, I can’t help but be haunted by the 2000 Preakness when I think of this race. Fusaichi Pegasus was a freak who was under-raced but had won the Derby impressively after a ton of hype. He was 3/10 in the Preakness against a field of largely uninspiring horses. Kent Desormeaux had that mount as well. Before the race was run everyone and their dog was looking ahead to the Belmont. He got caught at the wire by Red Bullet, a 6/1 shot who had tanked it in the Wood Memorial last time out. That was a bad year for Triple Crown watchers, and certainly not one I am anxious to relive:

1. Inexperience - The argument that turned people off of him in the Derby is still relevant here. He has only run four times, and he has never had to face adversity in any of those races. A lot can happen in a race full of youngsters, and we don’t know how he will handle it if it does.

2. The field - I don’t think that the field provides much of a challenge for him, but that lack of quality could be a problem. Several of these horses don’t belong here, so they could get themselves in trouble if the pace gets out of hand. As they fade they could create an obstacle for the favorite, and even a horse that good might not be able to get around it.

3. His health - After running in his first race he suffered two different foot injuries that kept him out of training for months. He seems to be healthy now, but he has never run back in just two weeks before, so we don’t know if he can hold up to the strain.

4. The price - There are 13 horses in this field. It doesn’t make any sense at all that one of them should be at 1/2. He’s far better than the rest, but that price is so low (and will likely go lower once the public gets a hold of it) that it can’t possibly accurately reflect the risk involved in putting your money on him.

5. Travel - The horse only arrived at Pimlico on Wednesday night. He’s the last horse in the field to show up. That means he won’t be particularly familiar with his surroundings, and he won’t have worked hard over the somewhat quirky Pimlico surface. Yet another thing we don’t know - how he will handle it all.

6. Conspiracy theory - This is admittedly a stretch, but so are most conspiracy theories. Kent Desormeaux rides Big Brown. He also rode Casino Drive, the super horse from Japan who is awaiting Big Brown in the Belmont, in his only North American appearance. If Desormeaux had a good feeling that this horse wasn’t good enough to beat that horse then he might not push as hard as he could here because a loss here would almost certainly keep Big Brown out of the Belmont. It would at least theoretically be easier to handle to lose here than in New York when you have the Triple Crown in your grasp. As an added bonus for Desormeaux, he could then have the mount on Casino Drive and would likely win the race anyway.

7. For sport - What’s the fun in backing a heavy favorite and being right? It would make for a way better story if a 30/1 shot pulls off the miracle and you can show off your winning ticket.

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.