Gambling and fantasy, making the NFL what it is

NFL football is far and away the most popular sport in America right now, but it's less about the players and the game itself then it is the gambling and fantasy aspects that go with it.

Case in point, the injury to New England Patriots QB Tom Brady. With one of its big stars sidelined the NFL barely skips a beat. New stars are born, new fantasy football greats emerge and the Patriots give less points in Las Vegas.

In the NFL stars are not only marketed differently but they just plain don't mean as much. In a sport where players were helmets on the field and the average career is shorter than a presidential race, it really is "the name on the front of the jersey that matters."

This issue of being recognizable can't be ignored. NBA stars like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are not only easier to market but their faces are more familiar due to their non-intrusive apparel. Even baseball players just wear hats. Hidden inside that helmet is not a star but the key to hitting that "over" bet or getting enough points to beat out your old college buddy in your fantasy league that week.

None of this is to say that there are no true NFL fans, who root hard for their team win or lose and don't play fantasy football or bet on the games each week. It's just that they are in the minority.

"Americans like to wager," John McCain said with a sheepish grin and a laugh earlier this week to ESPN cameras. The answer was in response to his failed legislation to ban gambling on college sports. For all the wagering American sports fans do on college sports or professional ones like baseball and basketball, NFL football is king.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, Nevada sportsbooks took in more than $92 million in bets for last year's Super Bowl alone - a figure that doesn't even include all the money wagered online.

With pro football, though, there is more than just betting on the Super Bowl. Every week millions of eager Americans pour over the lines hoping to find that right combination to hit it big. The anticipation and betting action builds all week until Sunday finally arrives.

I can sum it up best with this story. Late last Sunday night I got two expletive-laced text messages from friends that in essence said, "Why didn't the Steelers kick that field goal?" Up four points with 30 seconds to go, the Pittsburgh Steelers had elected to go for it on fourth down in Cleveland territory due to the windy conditions instead of attempting a tough field goal try.

Considering the situation, it was a logical move. For the people who bet money on the Steelers, this was not a sufficient argument. See, according to the sportsbooks Pittsburgh needed to cover a 6.5 point spread - win by seven points - if you chose them. A field goal would have filled this void.

Instead, Pittsburgh won by four. It was a nice, hard-fought road win on a brutal night in Ohio. For those, including two of my friends who had laid money on them to win by seven or more this reasoning meant a lighter wallet.

In other words in an arena where even a half of a point can mean the difference between winning and losing, the way football games are watched even when the outcome is set, means a whole different standard of rules.

In addition to the gambling the other vice is fantasy football. This is where the NFL really distances itself from the college game. Because of the roster turnover in college football, fantasy is not nearly as feasible as it is for the pro game.

Fantasy football started as an archaic exercise for diehards in small underground circles. With the internet it has exploded as a full-fledged phenomenon and everyone is in at least one league.

Most major sports sites like yahoo! offer the game for free, but most people ante up an entry fee that goes to the top couple finishers. Like the gambling and the TV contracts that make football what it is, fantasy football is a business too.

It also hinders business. Chicago-based employment consultant, Challenger, Gray & Christmas concluded in a recent study that fantasy players are costing employers as much as $1.1 billion per week during the NFL season.

In other words in floundering economic times, plenty of time from 9-5 Monday through Friday is spent scouring the waiver wire, reading up on injuries and talking trash to next week's opponent - all from guys who won't get within one hundred yards of the field on Sunday.

While most American sports are played at least a few times a week, football is not. It is that limited exposure, the once-a-week format that makes it so special.

While the NFL rules Sundays across living rooms and local watering holes from coast-to-coast, it is the betting and fantasy football that keeps the nation on edge from Tuesday morning until just before kickoff.

From that last-minute parlay to the decision of who to start at running back, the intrigue of the NFL for most fans goes way beyond the white lines. While ultimately the action on the field dictates the way we react to the extra curricular, the way we watch pro football, shaped by these endeavors, is unlike any other experience.

Top-10 fall baseball story lines

Top-10 Story Lines as MLB heads towards the Postseason

10. Yankee Stadium hosts its final baseball game in September (this Sunday). The Yankees failure to clinch a 14th consecutive berth means no playoffs for the most famous postseason venue in all of sports, 100 world series games in all.

9. Next year's free agents. Will Ben Sheets, CC Sabathia, Manny Ramirez or Pat Burrell to name a few have that Carlos Beltran-esque post-season that takes them from the 100 to the 200 million dollar range?

8. Do more fans show up at the Trop when postseason play begins? I'm sure they do, but why now? The Rays have been playing well since May and are a young, exciting team. They are 19-1 when playing in front of more than 30,000 fans this year in St. Pete. Now that bodes well for October.

7. Does the American League take home the trophy home again? Despite blips to the AL's dominance in South Beach, St. Louis and the desert the senior circuit is once again inferior to the AL and won't have home field either thanks to another defeat in the midsummer classic.

6. The wild cards. Wild card teams have wreaked havoc on the playoffs this decade especially in a short best-of-5 divisional series format. Could either Tampa Bay or Boston in the AL and anyone from the New York/Philadelphia/Milwaukee/Houston logjam emerge as the final entry and find its way into late October hardball? I say yes.

5. The Dodgers. With the star power of Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez the team has been hot since August and looks destined for the divisional round. Can they make it out? Does Torre really deserve the credit if they win 84 games and get bounced in the first round? Should be a very interesting offseason no matter how they finish for Ned Coletti, Frank McCourt and the blue crew.

4. The races. Will the Mets collapse again? What will the Mets look like next spring if they do? Can the Rays hold off the Red Sox? Does the NL West winner get more than 85 wins? Can the Twins make it back to the playoffs? Who gets the best record in the AL and secures that home field?

3. The hardware. Who will take home the awards from the regular season? Ryan Howard has hit 45 home runs for the 3rd year in a row and despite his paltry .250 average and 200 strikeouts his impact has been remarkable over the last 6 weeks. If the Indians finish around .500 doesnt Cliff Lee deserve MVP consideration? If A-Rod can win it for the last place Rangers then what about Lee? Cleveland loses 100 games without him.

2. The NL Central. The Brewers fired their manager and the Astros have been in a post-Ike tailspin. The Brew-Crew hasn't been to the playoffs in my lifetime and the Astros were on fire until a hurricane tore up Houston and their home series against the Cubs. There are much more important things than baseball but it looks as though the storm is taking its toll on the team as well.

1. The Cubbies. It's been a century since the North-siders captured baseball's biggest crown by beating Ty Cobb and the Tigers in the 1908 fall classic. The "lovable losers" are in ownership flux but have been one of the game's biggest spenders the last few offseasons and are knocking on the doorstep. The scene in Chicago following a Cubs championship could make a European soccer celebration look tame by comparison.

Going Back

"Get up baby! Get up!"

....

It did get up. Up and out of Busch Stadium and into the record books.

Ten years ago Mark McGwire smashed Roger Maris' home run total of 61 with a low rising liner that could have been shot out of one of those t-shirt guns.

....

It was a hectic summer. In a flash I left my entire childhood behind. Thrown into boxes while I was away at summer camp, when I did return I came home to a house I barely recognized and a life that would never be the same.

It took two weeks to drive to St. Louis. On the way we stopped in Utah and Oklahoma City. Arriving in St. Louis was like running into a wall. Not only was this place a far cry from the crowded bustle of Northern California but the August humidity was nothing short of suffocating.

Big Mac changed all of that. Major League Baseball was still pulling itself out of the shambles of the 1994 strike-shortened season that cost the game and its fans the annual Fall Classic.

Once McGwire and Sammy Sosa started lacing baseballs into bleachers all over the National League the whole sports world stood up and noticed.

As a lifelong baseball aficionado, despite my tender age of 11, this was the perfect storm and St. Louis was the eye. At one point in August with McGwire's assault on the record book a near formality my dad and I carefully mapped out the date in which number 62 would find the Busch Stadium cheap seats.

Going to games in the interim was just surreal. The energy in the ballpark, the buzz that began to rise as soon as McGwire ascended the dugout steps, was unlike any sound I have ever witnessed. The anticipation, the eagerness to explode with the crack of the bat could not possibly be measured.

Then there was the flashbulbs. If Hollywood made a movie about this event there are no manner of special effects that could possibly emulate the feeling that every person in the stadium must be holding four cameras at once and clicking them in mass confusion.

....

We missed the record breaker by a week. Sitting down the left field line on the night of September 15th we watched number 63 clear the fence and cascade into a sea of outstrectched arms that seemed to resemble a rock concert.

I will never forget the flight of that ball from my perch in left as it bounced into the crowd and after much jubilation a collective sigh was felt the whole metro-area over. The drought was done.

McGwire had been pressing. He had gone a week without homering and Sosa showed no signs of letting up. The magic snowballed from there with McGwire pounding 70 total moonshots and Sosa a remarkable 66.

Baseball was back. It seems almost sacrilegious now to consider all the allegations around that era. We were duped. But that can never change how it made you feel.

Every homer that year seemed to be hit further than the next. Like two guys repeatedly trading baskets, neither Sosa or McGwire wanted to be outdone by the other and even McGwire who had been standoffish at best for much of his career embraced the spotlight, celebrated with Sosa and genuinely seemed to be enjoying himself.

....

Baseball needed saving. We knew that and so did Selig. We will never know how much ignorance and naivety played a role compared to simply turning a blind eye but America needs baseball and we got it back with all the passion, glory and enjoyment the game has brought for more than a century.

I have never thought baseball could top the summer of 1941. On the brink of the greatest world conflict mankind has ever known Joltin' Joe Dimaggio hit in 56 straight games and Ted Williams became the last man to hit over .400 when he finished this season with a .406 clip.

1961 brought us the Mantle/Maris assault on Ruth's record. Hallowed and historic, the drama ended with a new home run king and the asterisk that accompanied the new benchmark of 61. Roger Maris overcame remarkable odds to beat out his Yankee teammate and the ghost of the Bambino.

Yet those two tremendous summers were far ahead of my time. As a bystander to that history only in a book I had a front row seat to the events of 1998.

Tainted as they may seem to some now, with the innocence of an 11-year old they were as magical then as they are still, ingrained in my memory for a lifetime.

Somewhere between those white lines and the smell of spring grass everything just makes sense and that summer brought that spirit back for generations to come.

The case for CC

School has started as September has descended upon us.

This can only mean one thing.

The baseball races are heating up.

Teams are battling for a playoff spot, with most of the usual suspects still in contention.
(At least if you swapped the Rays with the Yankees.)

It's also a great time to start thinking about the individual awards.

Of course these things are usually won or lost in the last month as a great September can spell doom or catapult a relative unknown into the thick of the race but its still fun to consider the contenders with four weeks to go.

The MVP is the award that hinges most on a playoff appearance. Player of the year is never too difficult to figure out but the most valuable player is a whole different animal.

With that in mind lets focus on the Cy Young. In the American League the debate is just about closed. Pitching in the minors at this time last season Cleveland's Cliff Lee is going to run away with this award barring a disastrous September. A 20-2 record and a league leading 2.32 era will do that for you.

His 20 wins represent a staggering 30 percent of Cleveland's total of 67 and he is having one of the most dominant seasons of recent memory that evoke recollections of Clemens, Carlton, Gibson and Koufax.

Roy Halladay and Francisco Rodriguez deserve some consideration after Lee but even 12 complete games or 65 saves for those two respectively will not be enough to unseat the tremendous turnaround of Lee.

The National League race is full of intrigue. Much like the American League there are three main candidates. The first is Arizona's Brandon Webb.

Webb could have been the first big leaguer to reach the 20-win plateau in 2008 but scuffled mightily in his last two outings. His 19 wins are still three more than anyone else and armed with his trademark sinker already has the hardware to prove his mettle on a mantle somewhere.

The Giants Tim Lincecum has been spectacular in his first full major league campaign. His 2.60 era is the lowest on the senior circuit and his 216 strikeouts are the most of anyone in baseball. He has been about the only bright spot for a dismal San Francisco team but his win total, 15, is not yet Cy Young worthy territory.

The most unique candidate for any baseball award this season is the case for recently acquired Brewers big man CC Sabathia. In 11 starts since being traded from Cleveland mid-season CC has been practically unhittable.

The Brewers, in the middle of a pennant race have won 10 of those games as Sabathia has compiled a perfect 9-0 mark. His downright stingy 1.43 era is only dwarfed by his 6 complete games, which are two more than any other NL starter has amassed over the whole season.

If CC continues to dominate, like 13-0 or 12-1 with 8 complete games and a 1.50 era, coupled with a playoff berth for the once moribund Milwaukee franchise he will have to be seriously considered for the NL Cy Young as the catalyst for their success.