Complete guide to SportsBetting

SPORTS AND SPORTS BETTING:
YOU CAN'T MAKE UP THIS STUFF

What is it about sports and sports betting that turn ordinary athletes, journalists, administrators and pundits into such quotable sources of information, wisdom, fun and absurdity?

A brief sampling from the first three months of the year:

"750 million."

--Terry Elman, acting executive director of the Council of Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, offering an estimate on how much money will be wagered in office pools on the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

"1.7 billion."

--John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based placement firm, estimating how much money the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will cost employers in lost productivity

"Get your vasectomy at Oregon Urology Institute the day before the Tournament starts. It's snip city."

--A promotion that urges men to get the medical procedure before the opening tip-off of the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The idea is that men should spend two to four days recovering from a vasectomy and by timing their surgery, they can do it in front of a TV screen watching the opening rounds of March Madness.

"It's no wonder Isenhour lost his PGA Tour card and is now playing on the Nationwide Tour. Maybe he should concentrate more on making birdies instead of killing them."

--Mike Bianchi, The Orlando Sentinel, after golfer Tripp Isenhour intentionally hit golf balls into a tree, killing a noisy hawk during the television taping of a golf instructional video

"This is classic 16th century punishment where you get your fingers cut off for stealing a penny."

--Geoff Smith, president of Roush Fenway Racing, after NASCAR handed down a 100-point penalty to driver Carl Edwards for having the cover off his car's oil tank in the UAW-Dodge 400 in Las Vegas, March 2, an aerodynamic advantage

"That's the worst tire I've been on in my life in any professional form of racing. Look at when they exited Formula One and the IRL and CART and World of Outlaws, USAC, you name it, because they can't compete, they can't keep up, they don't have the technology and they don't have the people smart enough to build a tire. This was pathetic today."
--The always combustible Tony Stewart, after finishing second in the Kobalt Tools 500 in Hampton, Ga., March 9, voicing his "discontent" with Goodyear

"If he does it another 400,000 times, we'll have it all back."

--Graham Sharpe, spokesperson for the William Hill Agency, one of the world's top bookmakers, after an unidentified gambler, who turned a $1 bet into $1.97 million after correctly predicting the winners of eight straight races at various horse tracks, lost a $5 bet

"If Ralph Nader, who captured 2.7 percent of the popular vote in the 2000 election, is now referred to as a presidential candidate, why aren't the Tampa Bay Rays, who accounted for 2.7 percent of the victories in Major League Baseball last season, being hailed as World Series candidates?"

--Dwight Perry, Seattle Times

"That's one."

--New Mariners ace Erik Bedard, telling journalists following a spring training game in Peoria, Arizona that he would answer only four questions, responding to a reporter's query, "Why four?"

"His press corps is bigger than mine. And we both have trouble answering questions in English."

--President George W. Bush, during the World Series champion Boston Red Sox's visit to the White House, on Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka

"Did he like to bet on football games? Yeah, a lot of people do."

--Denise McGee, widow Green Bay Packers receiver Max McGee

"I'll be damned."

This article was written by Luken Karel for
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