Investing in the Preakness: If you like horse racing, and I look  for every opportunity to like horse racing, these are dark days.  So enjoy the Preakness.   After our post-basketball writing vacation, we’ll be back here next week covering a myriad of events in the wagering world.   Those topics will include the sorry state of the former Sports of Kings.  

The Preakness, which has a compelling narrative, is a rare bright day in the horse racing world.  Rachel Alexandra is a great story.  Sure, she beat nothing in the Kentucky Oaks, but she was also asked for nothing.  And it isn’t as though these 3-year old colts are a deep group.   So Rachel Alexandra can win.  But at 6-5 or even money?  Not with a filly facing a ton of pace pressure in a full field of colts.   She may win.  But the narrative and the story line will create very short odds on the filly, which suggests a contrarian look elsewhere. 

Enjoy the Preakness. 

Tiger Woods was a solid +130 favorite to win the Masters this week, but more than any other tournament it seems like the big star is the golf course, and in this instance the golf club as well.

With a membership so exclusive that even zillionaires like Wayne “Caddyshack” Huizenga aren’t invited, Augusta National certainly carries an air of mystery. Steve Hummer’s piece on Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne provides some insight to the place.

Apparently Augusta National membership provides an opportunity for powerful tycoons to have their choice of clothing critiqued. Disapproving of a straw hat worn by a member, Payne lets him know about it. The hat wearing member is surely a millionaire titan of industry experienced in having people ask for altitude parameters when he asks them to jump. Yet he reacts to the style reprimand by meekly removes the chapeau. You have to believe that he’d likely be a bit more assertive, but there’s something about Augusta National membership that makes these guys swoon.

Interestingly, it is made clear in the article that the welcome mat was not exactly out for Chris Berman to participate in ESPN’s coverage of the first two rounds of the Masters. That explains the paucity of Steve Miller Band references as well as why you aren’t hearing the first round leader at Augusta National “Velvet” referred to as Justin “Time” Rose “Bowl.”
Enjoy the Masters.

Hold onto your hat (or grab the No-Doz). Here are 25 more observations on everything in the orbit of the sports wagering world.

1. I never would have bet on the Texans last week had I known that their offensive coordinator was more interested in the Texas A&M job than he was in attacking the Cleveland Browns defense.
2. And where has a head coach imported from the NFL worked in college football? Pitt? Syracuse? Notre Dame? Nebraska? There’s a big difference in coaching college kids and NFL men, and if you haven’t experienced campus in the last five years things have changed in an awful lot of ways.
3. Mike Price’s potential return to Washington State makes an awful lot of sense.
4. Tyrone Nix’s return to Southern Miss makes an awful lot of sense.
5. But Nix should be careful. 14 straight winning seasons got Jeff Bower shoved out the door. Bower, who reportedly turned down opportunities over the years for big-time ACC and SEC jobs to be loyal to Southern Miss, deserved much, much better.
6. Slick Rick Neuheisel is being pushed for the Georgia Tech job by Brian Billick. Tech is sure to jump at the chance to hire a guy who left a trail of probation and lawsuits everywhere he’s been, right? Someone tell Billick that Tech’s looking for fiery, not sleazy.
7. The Mark Mangino success story is remarkable. The Kansas coach worked the most mundane jobs imaginable while trying to break into coaching. He was 1-9 in his lone year as a high school coach in Pennsylvania. When those folks ran him out of town Mangino, at age 35, moved his wife and three kids to take a grad assistant job at Kansas State paying less than $1,000 a month. Who would be crazy enough to do that?
8. But the best nugget may be the fact that the hefty (I’m being kind with the language here) Mangino used to whip up on Bobby Stoops in racquetball, though that has “fool the reporter” written all over it.
9. Only three teams in college football have outgained every opponent, and they all play on Saturday. But that yardage dominance hasn’t translated into pointspread success for BYU, Hawaii, and West Virginia. BYU is 5-5 to the number with a1-AA opponent leading to an unlined game. Hawaii played a pair of lower division teams, and are 4-5 spreadwise in the rest. West Virginia is 6-4-1 to the spread when you call Marshall a push and Cincy a loss. 15-14-1 against the spread for three teams that are a combined 31-2 straight up show once again that the pointspread can be a great equalizer.
10. Of course it isn’t always a great equalizer. The Patriots (9-2 ATS) visit the Ravens (1-10 to the number) Saturday.
11. New England continues to break new barriers in the pointspread world. They’re the largest ever non-replacement road favorite this week.
12. Can you imagine the volume of play that flew in on the under, quarters under, first half under, and team totals under when the condition of the field in Pittsburgh became apparent on ESPN during the delay right before game time? My personal favorite was an alternate total of under 30.5 at +240.
13. What time do you think the FieldTurf salesman was at Heinz Field on Tuesday morning?
14. Mike Tomlin showed a lot of stubbornness Monday night. He was determined to pound the ball heading into the game and didn’t let the fact that his offensive linemen couldn’t get any traction or the fact that Big Ben was on his way to an 18 for 21 night get in the way of his plan. Though completing passes at will, the Steelers ran 29 times despite the lack of success on the ground.
15. Roethlisberger should be bigger than this. Speaking of his former coordinator, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt, Roethlisberger says, “so many coordinators in this league have such big egos. They don’t want to listen to their players.” C’mon Ben, you won a Super Bowl with the guy. Why so petty?
16. After the Celtics beat up on the Heat on Friday night, Miami’s professional football and basketball teams dropped to a combined 4-22. Their counterparts in Massachusetts improved to a combined 24-2.
17. The depth of the freshman class in college basketball is stunning. And it goes beyond the previously famous Mayos, Gordons, Beasleys, Loves, and Roses. Coaches on good teams and bad at the major, mid-major, and low-major levels are all raving about their own kids and their opponents as well. There are simply dozens of freshmen who are stepping into college basketball with amazing readiness.
18. Another sign of the growing maturity of college hoops players is the fact that it has been a few years since the first game back from an Alaska or Hawaii tournament was an automatic bet-against. Rather than taking a week to recover from, these jaunts are proving to be just another road trip for the modern college hoopsters.
19. As sleazy as so many of the overbearing AAU programs are, you have to admit that they’re preparing these kids for the rigors of big-time college basketball.
20. UMass 107 Syracuse 100 in regulation? The last time Syracuse scored 100 points in a game and lost was in 1968, when Niagara’s Calvin Murphy hung 68 points on them.
21. We won our only game in hoops on Friday night and are hitting better than 60% on the season. This is after at 90-52 (63%+) college basketball record for my Strategic Sports Publishing selection service last season. Call me at 1-770-649-1078 for details. I’m also pinch hitting for Dave Fobare on the hotline, a free broadcast at 1-770-618-8700. Dave will return when his health does.
22. Steve Crist, formerly the racing writer for the New York Times, is not pleased with his former employer for editorializing that betting the horses is akin to squandering one’s life.
23. Personality shown by an ESPN personality is rarely tolerated, so the reaction from Bristol had to be pretty stiff on this one. On a recent Friday night telecast, Sean McDonough and Chris Spielman mentioned that their sideline reporter Rob Stone was taking over ESPN’s bowling telecasts. They proceeded to trash the sport and everything about it. You have to think that the folks at the Worldwide Leader weren’t thrilled. Sharp catch by Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times-Union. Apparently bowling fans are up in arms over Stone, who admits to very little bowling knowledge. Stone takes over for the always-solid Dave Ryan, who is now doing a lot more college football sideline work and basketball play-by-play.
24. Want to bone up on your international bureaucracy, particularly the background on why the WTO has some sway over US internet gambling policy? Well here you go.
25. Thanks for reading this far. Good luck this weekend. And be careful.