— Next week is July 4, which means there is a nationally-televised hot dog eating contest on TV that day. As if this wasn’t strange enough, you can bet on the hot dog eating contest. Oy.
Over/under for how many hot dogs Joey Chestnut eats in 10 minutes: 73.5
How sick do people get after eating that much food in 10 minutes? I like hot dogs as much as the next guy, but I’m a slow eater. My over/under for ten minutes would probably be 2.5.
— NBA Summer League tips off in Las Vegas next Friday; great event to go to, not necessarily a great event to bet on. Why?
Summer League is a developmental league, for teams to figure out who they want to invite to training camp. Winning isn’t necessarily the #1 priority. Also, lot of teams from leagues overseas are there to scout players for their teams— they’d like to see everyone play, at least a little.
Dallas Mavericks have 14 guys on their summer roster; Mavericks need to take a look at all of them, both in practices and games.
The players you see in today’s game might not play as much in the team’s next game; if you see a pointspread on a game, and the spread seems out of whack, trust me, it isn’t. The people who post the spreads for these games know more than we do.
— NBA’s salary cap ($134M) for next year is $10.4M higher than last year. Teams have to spend 90% of their cap figure by the first day of the regular season.
— Only three NBA players are in the Top 25 all-time in both scoring and assists:
Lebron James, Oscar Robertson……..and James Harden.
— Houston’s Mauricio Dubon has batted 78 times in June, and hasn’t walked yet; he’s hitting .273 in June, but his on-base %age is actually lower (.269, he hit a sac fly).
Kyle Schwarber is hitting only .229 in June, but he’s walked 16 times, so his on-base %age in June is .345, which is why he is a useful leadoff hitter.
— Player on the Indianapolis Colts got suspended for gambling; apparently one of the bets he made was an over/under on rushing yardage for one of the Colts’ running backs in a game last year. Having inside knowledge on a team’s game plan should help you win bets.
— Movie of the Day: And Justice for All (1979)— Al Pacino plays a lawyer that is forced to defend a guilty judge, while defending other innocent clients, and trying to find punishment for the guilty and provide justice for the innocent.
Great cast: Al Pacino of course…….the two judges are Jack Warden and John Forsythe. Two of Pacino’s lawyer friends are Craig T Nelson and Jeffrey Tambor, whose character is crazy.
Movie is little bizarre and it is dated (I was in college when it came out) but I watched it the other night and it is very good.
— This made me feel a little old:one of my favorite movies, Heaven Can Wait, came out this week in 1978, when I was 18 years old.
— This week, Arizona’s Evan Longoria became the 11th active major league who has hit a home run against every major league team.
— Pirates 5, Padres 4
San Diego led 4-0 in 4th inning, 4-2 in 7th inning.
Since May 1st, Padres are 2-11 in games where winning run scores from 7th inning on.
Padres and their $250,086,874 payroll are 37-44 at the halfway mark.
— Brewers 3, Mets 2— Mets and their $359,204,730 payroll are 36-45 at the halfway mark.
Mets have been outscored 59-22 in the first inning this season.
— Phillies 3, Cubs 1— Taijuan Walker wins his fifth straight start.
— Tigers 8, Rangers 5— Torkelson homered twice, drove in four runs.
— White Sox 9, Angels 7— Chicago scored 20 runs the last two days, after scoring 16 runs in their previous six games.
