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09/18/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - This past Sunday's game between the San Francisco 49ers and St. Louis Rams was a classic example of give and take. As in the 49ers offense giveth and the 49ers defense taketh away.
San Francisco managed just 186 yards of offense and fumbled the ball away twice. Luckily, the defense managed to force and recover three fumbles of its own to help the 49ers pull out a 17-16 win.
Two of those St. Louis turnovers were forced on the Rams' first two possessions of the second half. The first came when San Francisco's Bryant Young sacked Marc Bulger, forcing the ball loose just shy of midfield.
On their next drive, the Rams seemed about to pad their 13-7 lead, as Bulger hit Torry Holt across the middle of the field. Holt dashed across San Francisco's 10-yard line before Nate Clements stripped him from behind. The ball rolled out of bounds in the end zone, giving the Niners the ball. San Francisco scored a touchdown on the resulting drive to go in front.
"They (the Rams) made a good catch, throw and catch," said Clements. "It's something I've been working on in practice, always run to the ball because you never know. I kept running and never gave up on the play and I saw the ball and punched it out."
However, a turnover of their own nearly cost the 49ers later on, as quarterback Alex Smith was sacked and fumbled early in the fourth quarter. That led to a Rams' field goal and a two-point Niners' deficit.
Late in the game, though, the Rams' Dante Hall, usually so dangerous when returning kicks, muffed a punt that San Francisco's Marcus Hudson recovered at the Rams' 26. Joe Nedney then booted a go-ahead 40-yard field goal with 3:28 left.
The San Francisco defense took over from there by forcing a four-and-out, including a stop on 4th-and-7, before standing tall on what turned out to be the Rams' final possession of the game. Young again got to Bulger, setting up a 3rd-and-17 for St. Louis in the waning moments. After a 14-yard pass play, the 49ers held their breath as the Rams' Jeff Wilkins left a 56-yard field goal try short.
The victory bolstered the confidence of the 49ers revamped defense.
"We knew we were going to win the game, we had that mentality," said Clements, one of the new additions. "The last two-minute drive, that's the situation we love and we knew we were going to pull the game out. It wasn't a sense of urgency where everybody was panicking, we just knew we were going to win if we just go out there and play our defense."
San Francisco is 2-0 for the first time since 1998 and used a lot of pressure on the quarterback to get there. The team posted six sacks against the Rams, led by Young's two.
"It's always important, any game you play in, to apply pressure," Young said. "Even if you don't get the sack, making (Bulger) throw when he's not wanting to throw, that was big. We were able to get some pressure off the edges through our four man (rushes) and through our zone pressures as well."
HEAVY HEART
Normally, 49ers running back Frank Gore runs with a punishing shoulder to compliment breakaway speed. On Sunday, though, the Pro Bowl back ran with a heavy heart.
Gore turned in a game-deciding performance in the win over the Rams this past weekend, just days after his mother Liz passed away after battling a lengthy illness.
"When I got up this morning, it was tough getting up," Gore said. "Every time that it is game time, all I know is that stadium. Me and my mom would talk on the way to the stadium. This morning, I just kept looking at my phone. She didn't call. It's tough, you know. I shed a few tears and it was tough to get up, but I decided to play and I had to do my best. "
Despite the personal loss, Gore rushed for 81 yards and a pair of scores, pointing towards the sky in tribute after each touchdown.
Gore said he knew his mother was watching over him, especially on his big fourth-down play in the third quarter that resulted in a score. Facing a 4th- and-1 with under three minutes left in the stanza, Gore took a handoff and busted through the line for what ended as a 43-yard touchdown run that gave San Francisco a 14-13 edge.
"They (the Rams) had nine in the box. We had eight," Gore said of the run. "Everybody on our side of the ball got a hat on them and I got through. They had a hand on my leg and I kept pumping and got down to the secondary. I made a move on the safety and that was it. When I crossed the goal line, she had to be with me on that one."
Gore showed immense commitment to his team by playing so soon after the passing of his mother, an attribute that wasn't lost on Smith, who said he knew how close the running back was to his mom.
"He is so dedicated to this team and how much loves being a part of this team and helping this team win," Smith said. "He had the two touchdowns and the big run on fourth down. I know he was excited and I was happy for him."
YOUNG AGAIN
The 49ers are 2-0 for the first time since 1998, which was also the last full season in which Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young played with the club. Young suffered yet another concussion the following year and retired at the end of the 1999 season.
San Francisco finished the 1998 season 12-4 and bested the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Wild Card game before falling to the Falcons the following week. The Niners have made the postseason just twice since, including their last visit in 2002.
WHO IS HOT
Patrick Willis and Manny Lawson are forming an explosive linebacker duo. Willis, San Francisco's first-round pick in this past draft, is adapting quickly to the NFL and has 19 tackles (14 solo) through two games from the inside spot.
Lawson, a first-round pick in 2006, has added pressure from the outside, posting 12 total tackles and a sack so far.
WHO IS NOT
Smith is not off to the start he would have hoped. He has thrown for only 252 yards -- 126 in each of the first two games -- and has yet to find the end zone, although he hasn't been intercepted yet either.
Smith's current QB rating is 69.1.
"I know we can be a lot better. I know it," Smith said after the win over the Rams. "I think everyone in there knows it. That is the scary thing, 2-0 and we have a long way to go for improvement. We have a lot of games in front of us and we need to keep improving."
NEXT UP: ONE FOR THE THUMB
A battle between a pair of five-time Super Bowl champs is on the horizon for the 49ers, who travel to Pittsburgh to take on the 2-0 Steelers on Sunday.
San Francisco, which last won a NFL title in 1994, is 10-8 all-time against the Steelers, having won four of the last five matchups. The 49ers recorded a 30-14 win at home in their most recent meeting with Pittsburgh, which occurred in 2003.
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Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
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