The Week in Baseball Betting By the Numbers
by Robert Ferringo - 5/24/2011

Bring back steroids. Immediately. That is my professional opinion about Major League Baseball these days. This sport is nearly unrecognizable from the ‘roid-ragin’, HGH-hyped, homer-enhanced, scoring free-for-all that we witnessed from the mid-90s until the Salem Steroid Trails of 2005-2006. Now it more closely resembles a game of tee ball, where everyone goes bonkers when someone just hits it out of the infield.

2011 Preakness Stakes Post Position Analysis
by Robert Ferringo - 5/19/2011

The Preakness, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown, will be run around 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21 at Pimlico Race Track in Baltimore. On Wednesday the track officials drew the Preakness Stakes post positions for the 14-horse field and the results have helped to clarify what is already a murky lineup of mounts.

Horses That are Real Preakness Stakes Contenders
by Robert Ferringo - 5/18/2011

The Preakness is not only the shortest of the three Triple Crown horses races, but also it routinely posts one of the smallest fields. With a maximum of 14 mounts this mile-and-a-quarter race is perhaps the most wide-open, lightning fast, no-holds-barred of any of the three Triple Crown runs.

2011 Preakness Stakes Contenders
by Robert Ferringo - 5/11/2011

Call it Fate. Call it good fortune. Call it what you will, but for whatever reason it looks like Animal Kingdom’s bid for the Triple Crown continues to get easier by the day. The Kentucky Derby-winning colt benefitted from a sketchy field at Churchill Downs and may once again be stacked up against the “B Team” in the next leg of the Triple Crown horse races, the Preakness Stakes.

2011 Kentucky Derby Post Position Analysis
by Robert Ferringo - 5/5/2011

Post positioning in the first of the Triple Crown horse races may seem like a random factor of little consequence. It’s a race, right? The fastest horse should win regardless of where they start. However, historical trends and the styles and gameplans of the horses all conspire to produce a unique race at Churchill Downs year in and year out.

NFL Draft Grades: First Round
by Robert Ferringo - 4/29/2011

The first round of the 2011 NFL Draft is in the books. Since it takes at least three years to properly grade an NFL Draft it is tough (see: impossible) to make snap judgments and accurate NFL draft grades on how teams handled their first round selections. However, since we live in a now-isn’t-fast-enough society and since I’m a Populist (sometimes) I will give the masses what they want.

2011 Oakland A’s Predictions and MLB Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/24/2011

For over a decade the Oakland A’s have been a quintessential small ball team. They have utilized excellent pitching, solid defense and timely hitting to compete despite a slim payroll and the lack of any top-end hitting talent. And the results have been generally superb, as they have finished .500 or better in 10 of 13 seasons while averaging 87.2 wins a season.

March Madness Bracket Predictions: Southwest Region
by Robert Ferringo - 3/16/2011

Perhaps no other region in the NCAA Tournament has as many talented-yet-obviously-flawed teams vying for its slot in the Final Four. There are no less than seven teams that I could see coming out of this region and not be completely surprised. But then again, I won’t be stunned if five of those seven teams aren’t even playing next weekend. And as a result I get the sense that this is going to be the most chaotic region in the entire bracket and the place where next Monday morning people are pointing to and saying, “Who saw that coming?”

March Madness Predictions and Bracket Help: West Region
by Robert Ferringo - 3/15/2011

The West Region of the NCAA Tournament should be known as The Defending Champs and the Dangerous Dozen. Duke, the defending National Champion, has the inside track to another Final Four berth. But in order to make their way to Houston they will have to navigate a region that includes five other teams that were ranked in the Top 10 this year and at least a half-dozen others – Michigan, Memphis, Oakland, Missouri, Temple, Penn State – that are capable of stringing together two or three wins and busting brackets across the country.

NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions: Southeast Region
by Robert Ferringo - 3/15/2011

If this were the World Cup then the Southeast Region would be considered the Group of Death. The 2010 runner-up is the No. 8 seed (Butler). The best scorer in the country is with the No. 3 seed (BYU). Two programs with a combined nine Final Four appearances in the last 12 years are playing one another (Michigan State vs. UCLA) as the No. 7 and No. 10 seeds.

March Madness Bracket Predictions: East Region
by Robert Ferringo - 3/15/2011

The East (Newark) Region of the NCAA Tournament features four of the top 10 most heavily favored teams to win the national title. Top seeded Ohio State presently has the third-best odds to win the title (+465) while Kentucky (+1615), North Carolina (+2050) and Syracuse (+2550) are all among the Top 10 teams deemed most likely to win it all.

Big 12 Tournament Predictions and College Basketball Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/9/2011

Outside of the Big Ten there is perhaps no conference with as many teams still fighting for NCAA Tournament berths than the Big 12. While there is little intrigue about who the favorite and dominating force is in this league, there are still several clubs – Baylor, Colorado, Nebraska and even Oklahoma State – that are clinging to hope that a rush this week can earn them a ticket into The Big Dance.

SEC Tournament Predictions and College Basketball Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 3/9/2011

Watching SEC basketball is a lot like watching a WWE Royal Rumble. (Which makes sense, since hillbilly southerners are the primary purveyors of both.) In both the SEC and the Royal Rumble there is biting, clawing, chaos, out-of-control athletes, no real organization, and in the end the winner is usually either one of the obvious choices (Hulk Hogan in the RR, Kentucky in the SEC) or one shrouded in controversy and coming out of nowhere (Mississippi State in 2009 and Georgia in 2008; Vince McMahon in 1999).

2011 Pac-10 Tournament Predictions and College Basketball Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/8/2011

The Pac-10 Tournament begins Wednesday, March 9 in Los Angeles. While the league may still be in flux compared to its fellow BCS compadres (hey, at least it’s not the SEC), the usual suspects are still headed to the City of Angels as heavy favorites. Arizona, Washington and UCLA are the top-tier teams with USC entering the weekend as a solid sleeper.

2011 Big East Tournament Predictions and College Basketball Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/7/2011

Win In The Garden or win in The Tournament. That seems to be the prevailing attitude toward the Big East Tournament from the bobblehead media. The idea is that this Mega-Conference has a tournament that is so grueling, and so exhausting that whoever wins couldn’t possibly have the reserves to make a deep NCAA Tournament run.

2011 Mountain West Conference Tournament Predictions and Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/7/2011

Finally, the Mountain West is getting some love. For the past five years I have been screaming that this league is the most underrated in all of college basketball. The top tier of this conference is capable of playing at a very high level and there is plenty of talent both at the individual and team levels.

Western Athletic Conference Tournament Predictions and WAC Betting Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/7/2011

The Western Athletic Conference is Utah State and then everybody else. Few teams in America have dominated their league this season like the Aggies of Utah State. And, now that I mentioned it, this team has had a stranglehold on the WAC for most of the last half-decade. They went 15-1 in league play this year and the team is hunting for its fifth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last seven years. This Utah State team is deep, talented, experienced and hell bent on Mormon domination.

Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Predictions and Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 3/2/2011

In my opinion the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament is a little bit like a starting gun for March Madness. That league championship really signifies the beginning of the insanity that is about to envelop the sports betting world and offers the first glimpse into the unique situations and challenges that lie ahead.

Bracketology: NCAA Tournament Projections and Bubble Watch
by Robert Ferringo - 3/1/2011

We are less than two weeks away from Selection Sunday and we are on the verge of The Madness taking full control of the national sports betting scene. But while two weeks really seems like a short amount of time, I can say for certain that there is still a lot of basketball to be played and there is a lot yet to be decided with regards to the NCAA Tournament field and NCAA Tournament projections.

Bracketology: NCAA Tournament Projections and Bubble Watch
by Robert Ferringo - 2/16/2011

All I know is this: 68 is a whole lotta teams. For those of you that have been kicking it with the Tea Party/mountain folk in the hills of Tennessee over the last few months, I am here to remind you that the NCAA Tournament has actually expanded this year. The Big Dance will now feature 68 teams, with four at-large squads taking on four automatic qualifiers in a play-in game on the Tuesday before the actual 64-team tournament begins on Thursday.