Friday Best Bets, Thursday Recaps
Thursday was one of our favorite days of the year in the Tuley’s Takes home office as it was Opening Day in Major League Baseball with every team having its lid-lifter on the same day for the first time since 1968.
I started the day by heading down to the Circa sportsbook as they had Greg Maddux throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Maddux is my favorite baseball player of all time – and regular readers will immediately recognize that my son is named after the Hall of Famer (and my other kids, Jordyn and Peyton, are also named after other Chicago sports legends). As a young sportswriter at The Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois, in 1991-92, I covered about 3-4 Cubs games at Wrigley Field but don’t ever remember interviewing Maddux before he left for the Braves. When my son was born, his birth announcement was a baseball card with all his stats: 7 pounds, 8 ounces, 20 inches, “likes to warm up in the (play) pen and can really bring the gas.” In 2009, I was also doing the ViewFromVegas Podcast and my producer also worked at FOX 5 here in Vegas and had the elder Maddux sign a baseball for my son. After Maddux threw out the first pitch – a perfect strike as expected – I was able to meet him, give him my son’s card and have him verify his signature on the ball (note: they held a raffle for Maddux’s celebrity poker tournament that Circa is hosting on April 28-30 and I won an autographed ball, but I told them to give it to someone else since I already have one). Anyway, it was a great time as Circa also had the book decorated with traditional bunting and had hot dogs and apple pie. As we’ll also recap below, favorites went 8-6 as we graded the Blue Jays-Cardinals game as closing pick-’em. Everyone was wanting to see how the new rules, especially the pitch clock, would affect scoring and the early verdict was that Overs led 8-7 with a couple of slugfests. However, also note that a whopping 5 teams (Giants, Brewers, Tigers, Royals and Indians) were shut out! As for my own bets, I sat out Opening Day but won my top play of the day on North Texas +2 in the NIT Championship Game over UAB. We also cashed in with our top NHL play on the Sharks +140 (closed +160) in a 4-3 overtime win vs. the Golden Knights, though we did lose our NHL 1P Over parlay. (Note: I also mentioned in yesterday's column that the Bucks -3 was an “anti-swagger” play against the Celtics, but was glad that our “dog-or-pass philosophy” saved us again as the Celtics rolled 140-99.) Let’s recap the rest of Thursday’s betting action and look for more Best Bets as we roll into the weekend. I have plays in the NBA, NHL and XFL on Friday, plus my early play for the Final Four on Saturday.Thursday Recaps
MLB: Favorites went 8-6 on Opening Day with Blue Jays-Cardinals a consensus closing pick-'em at Las Vegas sportsbooks. The upsets were by the A's (+190 in 2-1 win vs. the Angels and Shohei Ohtani, who earned a no-decision with 6 shutout innings), Rockies (+190 at Padres), White Sox (+125 at Astros), Pirates (+120 at Reds), Cubs (+115 vs. Brewers) and Orioles (+110 at Red Sox). Road teams led 8-7. Overs led 8-7.
NIT: North Texas beat Alabama-Birmingham 68-61 to win the NIT title at the Orleans Arena here in Las Vegas. The Mean Green did it after closing as a 2.5-point underdog and +125 on the money line vs. its Conference USA rival. The game pushed on the consensus closing total of 129 points; some won on Over 128.5 or lower, while some won on Under 129.5.