Friday, June 13, 2008

NBA Final Game 5 and Interleague MLB Advice

Happy Friday the 13th to one and all. My approach to warding off the bad luck gremlins today is to stay indoors until midnight. It’s 90 degrees (Fahrenheit, over 30 Celsius) in Toronto today and we don’t have AC, so I’m naked as a jaybird. Toy boy Archibald, who’s staying home to keep me company, calls me his BJ bird because I’m an English lass -- a bird in English lad lingo -- and the only thing I’m wearing is a Toronto Blue Jays cap.

The Green Lady G is sticking with Boston +6.5 over LA in game 5.


Strange game 4 -- I thought I was certain to lose even with +7.5 and the Celtics came back to win outright. LA scored more points in the 1st 1/4 than in the entire 2nd 1/2. You won't see that every day, especially not in the championship series.

My results so far against the spread:

All my picks 45 wins 37 losses 2 ties (55%)
My overdog picks 42-32-2
My underdog picks 3-5
Spread a factor: 2-9-2

A plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy leads the way at 48-34-2 (58%) followed closely by all-overdogs at 47-35-2 (57%).

If you’ve entered a friendly non-profit office pool picking major league baseball (MLB) winners over the course of the season, there’s no better strategy than backing all American League (AL) teams in inter-league contests. In weekend 1 of 2008 interleague play last month, AL teams won 22 of 41 games or 54% despite the fact that National League (NL) teams hosted 8 of 14 series. If your pool points are based on odds posted for those fools who bet on baseball, you would have been +2.2 after 41 games. Let’s stick with the all-AL approach for the rest of the season and see where we end up.

Toy boy Archibald finally tasted defeat with his Euro Cup 2008 soccer football picks. Croatia has qualified from Group B for the ¼ finals and only one of his picks – Germany or Poland – has a chance to qualify and there’s even a slim chance that both will be heading for home after the final group matches.

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