SimonOnSports

Best online sports betting bonuses and promotions at Sportsbetting.com. Join now the most secure online sportsbook ! In 2009 the tennis world was shocked by Robin Soderling's defeat of Rafael Nadal. The defeat came out of nowhere for Nadal and helped Roger Federer complete the career grandslam. The defeat also means that for only the 2nd time of his career*, Rafael Nadal is not defending his title at Roland Garros. As a result the gambling lines for Nadal moved into the realm of contemplation. At the start of the tourney you could find lines as good as 1:2. While this line isn't the most appealing in the world, putting up more money than you would win in return is never the most desirable decision, but in reality its easy money. Nadal has already won the French Open 4 times in his career. He has yet to lose this season on clay, having won three tournaments during the clay season. In those three tournaments Nadal dropped a total of two sets. Through two rounds at

Early this week Steve Phillips opened his mouth and forced me to create a post surrounding his ludicrous statements . As a result of writing this post I looked through my archives to find the picture to the right, in the process of finding the picture I stumbled across this post surrounding Steve Phillips Red Sox offseason thoughts in 2007 which included a trade as baffling as the Oswalt for Strasburg trade. So just for fun, let's debate which thought by Steve Phillips was worse. Trade 1, 2007 Offseason: Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester & Clay Buchholz for Johan Santana During the 2007 offseason the Red Sox were kings of the world having swept the Colorado Rockies 4-0 in the World Series, but Johan Santana was the best pitcher in baseball and the Twins quite obviously were looking to deal him. The Red Sox were amongst the whispered favorites so Steve Phillips master ESPN commentator was asked what he would do if he was Theo Epstein. This is when Steve Phillips lost his mind

One perk to being a blogger is that occasionally people send you free stuff in hopes that you will write about it in your blog (aka relatively free advertisement). Last week I got some of Gatorade's new G products in the mail so I decided to give them a go this weekend and well not so good. The first products was G Prime, have it before you perform, it tasted like Gatorade Syrup, orange Gatorade Syrup. Not very delicious but atleast tolerable. They then gave me a G2 and a regular gatorade, those tasted like Gatorade so fine. The last product was G Recover, have it post workout because its packed with protein, it was god awful. It was thick and tasted like cough medicine, pretty safe to say I wouldn't recommend anyone buying G Recover

I think we already know Steve Phillips' has extremely poor judgement but the words which came out of his mouth yesterday were so befuddling that I can't even contemplate how he ever was in a baseball front office nevermind General Manager of an MLB team. Steve Phillips yesterday said that if he was the GM of the Astros and the Nats called about Roy Oswalt he would ask for Stephen Strasberg and potentially more. Quite obviously if Ed Wade started off trade conversations with Mike Rizzo with this line of demands he would be laughed at and hung up on quickly. While this would be a dumb way to start up negotiations with a GM, it isn't completely and utterly ridiculous. What was completely and utterly ridiculous was this: ...if I think that I want Roy Oswalt to help me win this year, you know what? I'm one of the guys, I make that deal... Now this could be in any context and make sense. Like... Would he give up Josh Willingham and Destin Hood for Roy Oswalt? Or sli

As one can easily see on the chart above, sometimes the Pink line is the only line that matters. Mike Brown is coming off back to back 60+ win seasons and back to back #1 seeds in the East, yet the pink playoff line has been on the decrease since the Cavs unlikely trip to the Finals a few years back. As a result, he found himself on the chopping block this week with his only saving grace being a public vote of confidence from Lebron James. The vote of confidence did not come, Mike Brown is now fired, and the Cavs will hire whichever coach they think is most likely to keep Lebron in Cleveland. Let the Lebron games begin...

For whatever reason I have a small thing for people that are so out there that they often refer to themselves in the third person. It takes either incredible arrogance or simply being that out there. Jose Lima was that out there and while he wasn't a very good pitcher for the majority of his career, you certainly weren't ever bored watching him. So when Lima Time passes at just 37 years old it is a sad day and we all can hope that Lima Time is dominating today in heaven (or purgatory or hell wherever he wound up).

Oh look, delicious Pork Chop on a stick. Let me have that Kim Jones. Yummmmmy. H/T Couchwarmers

This post is brought to you by sportsbook SPORTSBETTING.com. Get the best online sports betting bonuses at this online sportsbook . After getting dismantled by the Rays in their two game series in the Bronx, falling 5 games back, it feels as if the Yankees team is in complete disarray. But then you look at the Standings realize that the Yankees aren't in any dismal position, they still actually have the 3rd best record in Major League Baseball. So this in turn moves your attention and focus back towards the Rays and the realization that this team is eye openingly good. The Rays are 30-11. They are 17-4 on the road. 17-4. That is truly unthinkable in baseball*. Their pitching staff is currently far and away the best in baseball. All 5 men of their rotation are 28 or younger, are over .500 for the season, and have an ERA under 3.40. Their lineup is full of speed and power and of course more youth. Only two of their everyday starters are older than 28 (Pena and Bartlett) s

Today in fun charts we look at David Wrights seasonal progression of Hits and Strikeouts. Good ole David is currently leading Major League Baseball in Strikeouts so why not take a look at the rapid pace with which it grows and how it's easily eclipsed his hit total. David has had more strikeouts than hits ever since mid April. Since mid-April he has gone from a 0 balance to a grand total of 18 more strikeouts than hits. When you strike out in over 38% of your at bats it makes it a little bit difficult to hit anywhere near .300 and as a result Wright is currently having far an away his worst season for batting average (his previous worse was .293 in his rookie year, he's currently hitting .265). But if he's on your fantasy team there is a consolation prize, Wright already has 8 homers and 8 steals which puts him on pace for a 30/30 season.

The Name of the Year Tournament has reached the Elite 8 and I still have a chance to nail the entire Final Four with my predictions from March . Unfortunately both Starzanne Stripes and God's Power Offor are currently being upset. Starzanne Stripes is a lost cause, getting pummeled by Steele Sidebottom but God's Power Offor is locked in a heated battle which is currently being decided by the Bible Belt and the Mormons. The biggest swing states in the vote are Mississippi, Georgia and Utah. So go vote for God and make sure Georgia doesn't get their way.

So for those of you that don't know me, I am a mixed bag of Boston / New York fandom. Blame my father for growing up in the one neighborhood in Worcester Mass that was dominated by Yankee fans (aka the Italian section). As a result I am both a Yankee fan and a Bruin fan, so Friday nights debacle was eerily similar to 2004. For the fun of it let's just compare which was a worse collapse using six different criteria: Opponent/Opponent's Ramifications, Effect On the Franchise, League History, Games 1-3, Games 4-6, Game 7. Opponent / Opponent's Ramifications The Bruins loss to the Flyers was against a local rival but obviously does not compare to the Yankees loss to the Red Sox. The Yankees were coming off the heart wrenching Game 7 win over the Sox in 2003 and pretty much had owned baseball for a decade. Both the Flyers and Red Sox were in long Championship droughts but even if the Flyers win this year it won't hold a candle to the Red Sox snapping the 86 year d

This post is brought to you by SPORTSBETTING.com. Get best online sports betting bonuses at this sportsbook . And now we can all officially speculate about something that we all have been speculating about for nearly 3 years now, where will Lebron James be signing a contract in the summer of 2010. As of right now your early favorites are still the Cavaliers. They are closely followed by the Knicks who are followed more distantly by the Bulls, Nets, Clipshow and Heat. The odds will obviously change throughout the offseason as more news comes out but let's just give some thoughts to each of the 6 squads. Cavs - The Cavs are the favorites for the obvious reason, he is currently a member of the Cavs, he is an Ohio lifer, and his legacy will never be as strong winning championships as it would be if he won them in Cleveland. Even though the team he would go to would be a completely rebuilt ship (outside of Chicago) it will always feel like he bailed for a better scenario and co

This post is brought to you by SPORTSBETTING.com. Get best online sports betting bonuses at this sportsbook . If you were to play Vegas for a moment, I think one of the most intriguing Over/Unders you could put together for the remainder of the 2010 season would be how many wins 2009 Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke will wind up with. Greinke went the entire month of April without a victory despite numbers that frankly were top of the line starter stuff. Greinke's statline through 6 games reads 39.2 IP, 2.27 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 33 Ks. So why does he yet to have a recorded a win this season? Well he plays on the Royals to start. The team has yet to score more than 4 runs in any of his 6 outings. Then you throw on the fact that he's working with the Royals bullpen, who gives up ample runs once he leaves the game, and you have an 0-3 pitcher with tremendous numbers. So lets rebring up my original question, if you were to set the line on Greinke victories this season wher

When I was driving into work this morning I heard on the radio that New York Jet fans were polled and said that they expected the Jets to go 15-1 and this season. Now I know that Jet fans can be cocky assholes sometimes, despite never really ever having anything to brag about, but I also know that the average Jet fan is overall pretty pessimistic so this result didn't make much sense to me. And then you take a look at how " 15-1 " was actually reached and you realize that it is a completely bogus report . The survey didn't actually ask fans what they thought the Jets record would be. They didn't take an average of how many wins each Jet fan thought they would win on the season. Rather the surveyed Jet fans on all 16 games to see whether or not Jet fans on average thought they would lose any one particular game. And when you have a team that likely all Jet fans will win 10-12 games then chances are you aren't going to get many "consensus" los

Many people do walks for charity, I'm thinking maybe I'll donate 25 bucks to whatever I can deem as Nick Johnson's favorite charity for each mile he "Walks" this season. Currently through 1+ months of the season Nick Johnson has walked 22 times and at a rate of 90 feet per walk he's reached the equivalent of 0.375 miles. Nicky J needs no bat!

And just for fun lets look at where Robinson Cano will end up if he managed to keep up the pace he currently is on... Cano would finish with 243 hits, 60 HRs, 155 Runs, 141 RBI, and 13 steals. Quite obviously he needs to pick up his speed game because he's slacking.