Mark Madsen's latest blog entry is outstanding and worth a full read. It may be even better than his career to-date. With career averages of 2.5 points per game and 2.8 rebounds, Madsen is not sticking around on skill alone - I'd guess he's a good locker room guy. Somehow, he's accumulated almost $5 million in career earnings to-date. If his future entries get a little more personal and a little more whimsical, he may be able to follow in the shadow of one Paul Shirley, a former career scrub, now a must-read writer for espn.com (Insider account required, email me if needed). - farfel

LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN

OK, so we backdoored a 3-3 MLB day yesterday. I was going to go off on the lame way we lost a couple of those but I realized that I should be picking winners that aren’t so close so as to get messed up by dumb moves. While that is true I still am going to complain a little. A bunch of plays today, hopefully they are stronger- Mets/Phillies under 8.5; Brewers -115; Astros -110; Dogers/Astros over 7.5; Tigers -117; Really not too much deviation from yesterday- I am somewhat stubborn. Mets/Phillies under Glavine is solid and the Phillies are hitting .240 with a .730 OPS versus lefties. Glavine wasn’t great last year vs. Philly but has only allowed 2 HRs and sports a 1.92 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 41/14 K/BB. Lidle has been pretty good against Mets hitters. The 4th and 7th best bullpens hopefully will not mess it up again, under 8.5. Milwaukee: The Brewers and Mr. Capuano should beat Chan Ho Park and the Padres who are hitting .213 vs. lefties with a .630 OPS and only 2 HRs. Capuano is hot though he has trouble with Cameron. Park isn’t that bad and they do have the 2nd best bullpen. I like the Brewers' closer though and they should get him the ball and the win. Houston: The Astros and Buckholtz should beat the Dodgers and Tomko. Buckholtz has had 4 straight solid outings and has a .81 WHIP. Tomko has had 3 straight solid outings himself but against weak opponents. Bagwell is 13-37 with 6 HRs against Tomko and the Astros have hit 12 HRs in 189 AB versus him. Both bullpens are weak and we are going over the 7.5 as well as taking the Astros. Detroit: Tigers -117. Taking the Tigers and Verlander who has had 4 straight good starts but not against big opponents. Detroit blew the game yesterday and did have the 3rd best bullpen but I have some faith. Orioles go with Rodrigo Lopez who I like to fade. The Orioles pen is weak and Detroit is still 12-7 on the road. Last night, Frank Rodney comes in for Detroit with a 6-4 lead in the 7th and proceeds to allow two homeruns. Granted they were of the solo variety but I still can’t see why he goes back out there in the 8th. Then he walks the leadoff man- lets see where that goes. With two outs another runner reaches on an error and then Rodney allows a single and the go ahead and ultimately winning run scores. Pathetic. The Mets’ tied in the bottom of the ninth bring in Aaron Heilman. Gets a groundout and a flyout then allows a triple. Then hits Jimmy Rollins- which I didn’t see but I assume was lucky because if Rollins gets out of the way then it’s a wild pitch and game over. Utley is walked and then we get to Bobby Abreu- to me this seems like a spot for your closer. Heilman actually commits a throwing error- are you serious? I think that counts as an unearned run. Hudson Street up 6-3 in the 9th hits the leadoff batter. Wow. He gets a groundout, allows a double, gets a strikeout and then allows another double. Tying run on second with two out...Street gets Glauss to popup with two outs for the save. - nutlow

NO JOHN HAN-COCK

Apparently a Barry Bonds fan caught that monster homerun ball the other day, number 713 of Bonds' career. The 25-year old fan, an Air Force serviceman, was happy to be able to shake Bonds’ hand and get a picture with him but Bonds refused to sign the ball. Are you kidding me?! Whomever catches number 715 and 756, if he should get there, better not give the ball to the Hall of Fame. Let that prick pay the million or $1.5 million and then agree to loan it to the Hall of Fame; oh yeah, and only after he signs the thing. "I'm happy because I got a picture and he shook my hand," he said. There was one signature needed though. Oliveras had to sign a waiver for Bonds' reality show. 6-2 in posted picks yesterday… let’s see if we can keep it going. Baltimore hitters have had some decent success against Nate Robertson but Robertson has three straight solid starts and the O’s hit .206 versus lefties this season. Baltimore has the second worst pen in the majors while Detroit has the third best. Hopefully, Cabrera doesn’t go too deep. Go Detroit. The A’s have been better on the road posting a 9-5 record. Haren goes against the Blue Jays and Josh Towers. Towers is 0-6 with a 10.59 ERA. Towers is 0-6 with a 10.59 ERA? Yes, that is true but three of those starts were against Boston, one against the Yankees and another against the White Sox. The other was his first outing of the season against the Twins. Linesmakers believe the excuses and Oakland is only -105. Towers was much more respectable last year but still had issues with Oakland. Haren has been rocky himself but the A’s pen has been solid. Toronto’s pen has a 5.13 ERA, so make Josh Towers beat you. Jao Seo has been touched up this year. He hasn’t had too much experience against Houston batters with the exception of Preston Wilson who is 7-12 against him. Pettite too has had issues but did throw 7 solid innings of 1 hit and 1 run ball against the Dodgers two weeks ago- which the Astros proceeded to lose 6-2. The Dodgers have been putting up some runs and hit lefties to the tune of .306 this season. Both pens are poor, 21st and 28th in the majors, 13th and 15th in the NL. That 7.5 run over/under line looks small. Its hard to go with the over in LA but the OU is 7-1-1 in the last nine at Chavez-Ravine- of course the five before that were all unders. Taking the Dodgers and the over. Pedro versus Myers and the Phillies eight game winning streak. This is a classic confrontation. Myers was solid versus the Mets last season in four starts but had trouble with Delgado and Clifford Floyd. Streak or no streak you still gotta beat Pedro. Both teams have solid bullpens so when the starters hand off the baton they should still finish under 7.5 runs. I think this will be a pitcher’s duel as billed. In the end, Vote for Pedro. Someone will be along with you shortly to help you with your NBA picks. - nutlow

FOLLOWING AN 8-3 DAY

-We faded the Duke yesterday and now it's time to fade the Marquis. He has had three consecutive poor outings including starts against the Cubs and Nationals. I think there is decent value with the Rockies at around +130 as the Rockies on the road has been the most profitable home/road split of any team in the majors. Also, with two of the three top bullpens in the majors, under 9 is the play. -Halladay is 11-1 in night games over the last two years and the Angels aren't scoring too much. The Cubs had a monster offensive output yesterday of three runs but that wasn't enough. Maddux goes today and is generally their best chance at a victory; still I'd take the Padres at -120. San Diego has won eight in a row and the Cubs have lost six in a row... hey, if I lose then what can I say, I still think the trend is your friend. -Seattle hits .211 versus lefties. Play on Tampa Bay and Casey Fossum. -Minnesota hits .223 vs lefties. Texas is going at around -150 though, a light play. -Houston hits .325 vs lefties and has the highest OPS vs lefties in the majors. Oswalt should bring this one in. He is 1-11 against the moneyline in road games in May since 1997 but that is just a bit too random to sway my pick. Houston and San Francisco have two of the three worst bullpens in the majors so I'd take over the 7.5. - nutlow

How I BONED Bodog

In late March, I saw NBA MVP odds were posted on Bodog with Kobe as a 2-1 underdog. I jumped on it for the max, even asking the Lion Tamer to use his account to buy more at that price. Thankfully, LT never got back to me. I also bought LeBron at 10-1 as a safeguard. Weeks later, it became clear that Nash was the likely winner. An Oregonian poll of 25% of NBA writers pointed toward Nash as the repeat recipient. Thankfully, Nash odds moved in my favor for whatever reason (I guess others had not read the Oregonian story). He was 5-9 when I took Kobe (yes, that's correct) and moved to 3-1 when I got in for the max - so I was breaking even with Kobe, making 2x my coin if Nash won. Nash won and the bet paid out today. It feels so good to crack Bodog, to win based on information, to make this calculated risk and to have it pay off. I'm freerolling with my meals this month and more. Thank you Bodog. You've taken a lot from me in the past, I got back at you today. Kisses Calvin.    - farfel

FADE THE DUKE, BACK EL DUQUE

Washington hits lefties at .271 and the Pirates have struggled to get any offense, themselves hitting poorly against lefties. O’Conner has allowed 1 ER in 12 Innings. Pittsburgh is as bad on the road as the Nationals are at home but somebody has to win. Trends also say to play on home dogs when the total is 7.5. Orlando Hernadez can get hit pretty hard but has done well on the road this season and has had good success against Reds Hitters. Like the Pirates, the Reds have struggled recently scoring runs. Other notes from around the American Leauge: -Yankees are 10-0 during the day. -Toronto is 2-9 during the day- take the Angels and Lackey. Detroit vs Minnesota… both teams struggle versus lefties and everybody struggles against Johan Santana… This is an under play. Also, Detroit’s bullpen has an ERA of 3.12 while the Twins have a very respectable 4.15. -Cleveland hits .290 versus lefties, Seattle .210. -The White Sox could score all of the 8.5 over/under on their own. From around the National Leauge: Angel Guzman could only go 5.2 and 5 innings versus the Pirates and Marlins. He gets another shot at a weak hitting team in the Padres. Righties are hitting .385 against Guzman. Woody Williams hasn’t gotten yet- that is the good news. Some Cubs have had decent success against him over the years including Michael Barrett (6-10) who seemingly has a good history against every opposing pitcher. Also Juan Pierre and Nievi Perez but those guys don’t do the real damage so even if they get on base there isn’t anybody to drive them in. The Cubs over the last seven games have scored 5 runs… total. Losing 16-2, 9-0, winning 2-1 and then losing 8-0, 5-1 and 6-0 and 1-0. That’s impressive! Cubs are tied 1-1 currently in the 8th and have tied the over/under that I would have placed on their run total tonight. Three games ago the only Cub run was scored on an RBI BB with Greg Maddux at the plate. So what are the odds that they can put more than three runs on the board tomorrow? Jon Lieber has been getting hit hard. He has had huge success against Barry Bonds over his career as barry is 6-35 or something. That would scare me. You don’t want to back any pitcher who thinks he can pitch to Barry Bonds, especially with Alou not there behind him. On the other end Bobby Abreu is 7-18 vs. Matt Morris. Lima was 1-11 on the road last year with an equally impressive ERA. He is making his first start of the year. Smoltz had a good outing last week versus the Mets. So gotta go with the Braves and the over. Randy Marsh is behind the plate and is 5-0 over/under this year. Last year he was 20-14-1 and in 2004 he was 17-9-1. Sportsbooks are still putting up gaudy over/under numbers for games at Coors field. Early lines are posted at 11 for the Astros at Colorado. Colorado won tonight 5-0 and have had six consecutive home games under the 11 total runs. - nutlow