Friday, January 28, 2011

Barry Bonds Trial Set to Begin March 21st

The infamous trial of former MLB player Barry Bonds is set to start March 21st.  He has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.  A San Francisco U.S. District Court judge has recently ruled that several former and current MLB players will be allowed to testify at this trial and be questioned in regards to their relationships with Greg Anderson, Bond's former trainer.  Innocent until proven guilty but I think the evidence against him and the dramatic size increase in his head and biceps says it all.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Scorecasting

I was just reading the latest issue of Sports Illustrated (January 17, 2011) and came across an article called, "What's Really Behind Home Field Advantage?"  An interesting article that debunks myths such as home crowds and rigors of travel.  Much of the argument behind home teams winning more often lies with umpire bias especially with large professional crowds in attendance per the article.  I personally think this bias is the fix but definitely worth exploring.  The article is written by authors Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim who also wrote the book Scorecasting.  The authors use statistics to back their claims and as they say the numbers speak for themselves.  Once I have time to read "The Fix is In", I will most likely pick this up next.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Playboy Explores the National Fix League (NFL)


Matthew Kredell of Playboy recently explored the world of gambling and the NFL or what some of us like to call the National Fix League. He explores both sides of the table, those who want NFL gambling legalized and those who don't (the NFL). The NFL claims they don't want their games legalized for betting because they maintain integrity and fear this would lead to corruption. They also claim in their history not one game has been fixed. Those are both complete laughers to me. They also mention something I have read quite a few times that they have contacts at the Vegas sports books so they can be notified of irregular betting patterns or possible corruption. I laugh at this too. I think these contacts feed them the information on where the money is so they can manipulate the outcomes of these games. NFL and casino owners have so much power and money they don't want to share it. Do you think these bigwigs would let that kind of money be left to chance? NFL teams and casinos should not have any communication what so ever if they want integrity. If NFL gambling were legalized they can't control all the winnings they rake in every year. Talk about greed! If it was legalized state deficits could be reduced, jobs would be created and the teams themselves could make more money than ever. Although this article is not too detailed it does bring up some good points. Check out this article and worse case scenario you have some Playboy bunnies to check out so you really can't go wrong.