2011 April at LinesMaker

Murray Walker Q&A

Are the new rules a good thing? What are my views on the His­pania deba­cle at the start of the sea­son? Do the new tyres leave too much rub­ber on the track? Which new dri­ver has made the best impres­sion so far? What’s going wrong at Ferrari? Watch my answers below. In order to see this con­tent you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Web­wise for full instruc­tions. If you’re read­ing via RSS, you’ll need to visit the blog to access this content. IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE THE UK, CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO  

Charice from ‘Glee’ To Sing at Pacquiao Bout

MANILA, Philip­pines —Charice Pem­pengco of the hit TV show “Glee” says she has been cho­sen to sing the Philip­pine national anthem ahead of Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Shane Mosley in Las Vegas next month. The Philippine-born singer, who is known best by the sin­gle name, Charice, says she’s thrilled that Pac­quiao chose her to sing at the open­ing cer­e­mony for the May 7 bout at the MGM Grand Garden. The teenager tweeted Tues­day that she feels “really blessed” for the opportunity. Pac­quiao tra­di­tion­ally hand-picks the singer of the national anthem at his bouts.  

GSP Uses Bully Pulpit for Noble Cause

Georges St. Pierre is the wel­ter­weight cham­pion of the UFC. He boasts a 21–2 record and hasn’t lost in more than four years. He’s a styl­ish dresser, is known inter­na­tion­ally by his ini­tials “GSP” and Sat­ur­day will bat­tle Jake Shields in the main event of UFC 129 where he’ll be sup­ported by 55,000-plus ador­ing fans in his native Canada. Life wasn’t always this good. “I had a rough child­hood, big prob­lems,” GSP told Yahoo! Sports, and unlike so many ath­letes, it wasn’t because he was poor or from a dan­ger­ous neigh­bor­hood or from a bro­ken home. One... 

Los Angeles Defeats NBA Betting Favorite New Orleans

The Los Ange­les Lak­ers rolled past the New Orleans Hor­nets, 106–90, on Tues­day in the quar­ter­fi­nals series of West­ern Con­fer­ence, cour­tesy of Kobe Bryant who poured in 19 points. Attract­ing nearly 80% of the NBA bet­ting action, the New Orleans, with NBA lines at +9.5, were the favorites against Los Ange­les among Lines­Maker bet­tors, if not the odd­mak­ers. How­ever, they failed to delight the major­ity of bet­tors as they lost to the points-favorite Lakers. Lead­ing a Los Ange­les offense that high­lighted scores in dou­ble fig­ures by six play­ers, Bryant... 

BBC Sport Earns Bafta Nominations

High­lights – Wales v England BBC Sport has received three nom­i­na­tions in the sport cat­e­gory for a 2011 Phillips British Acad­emy Tele­vi­sion Award. One nom­i­na­tion is for cov­er­age of the open­ing Fri­day night game of the 2011 Six Nations between Wales and England. BBC Sport’s For­mula 1 team have been nom­i­nated for their pro­duc­tion of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. And the cov­er­age of the 2010 Wim­ble­don cham­pi­onships has also been short­listed for the cer­e­mony on 22 May. Clas­sic F1 – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2010 The other nom­i­nee... 

Zbikowski Disputes Positive Drug Test After Bout

THACKERVILLE, Okla. —An adviser to Tom Zbikowski says the Bal­ti­more Ravens safety is dis­put­ing a pos­i­tive drug test admin­is­tered after a week­end box­ing match in Oklahoma. Zbikowski fought Sat­ur­day at the Win­Star World Casino in Thack­erville, knock­ing out Blake Warner of Okla­homa City in the first round and improv­ing his record to 4–0. Six­teen fight­ers under­went drug tests and five of them came back pos­i­tive. A tribal spokes­woman says the Chick­a­saw Nation Gam­ing Com­mis­sion sus­pended those fight­ers for 45 days. Zbikowski’s man­ager,... 

Toronto Supershow Stirs Japanese Memories

Sat­ur­day night’s UFC 129 at Toronto’s sold-out Rogers Cen­tre takes the spec­ta­cle of live-event mixed mar­tial arts in North Amer­ica to a new level. But while this will be the largest fight card seen around these parts, halfway around the globe, there was once an event that was very much comparable. On August 28, 2002, Japan­ese MMA peaked with a show out­doors at Tokyo National Sta­dium, called “Shock­wave.” It was a his­tor­i­cal night for a num­ber of rea­sons. It spawned one of the biggest and most unlikely Amer­i­can celebri­ties ever in Japan. It’s a night... 

Chicago Downs MLB Betting Favorite New York

Phil Hum­ber com­pleted no-hit 6 1/3 innings to ignite the Chicago White Sox’s 2–0 win over the New York Yan­kees on Monday. Attract­ing nearly 75% of the MLB bet­ting action, the New York Yan­kees were the clear favorites against Chicago among Lines­Maker bet­tors. With the MLB lines at –187, New York dis­ap­pointed the major­ity of bet­tors by los­ing to the White Sox (+175). Hum­ber (2–2) did not allow any Yan­kees hit, except Alex Rodriguez’s ground sin­gle in the sev­enth with one out. Mak­ing his sixth big league start, Hum­ber gave just one hit, walked two and... 

Williams Share Price Continues to Drop

Williams share price con­tin­ues to drop Williams’ foray into the stock mar­ket has not been kind on the Grove-based team with their share price falling by 27 percent. Last month, Williams floated 2.4million shares in their F1 team on Frankfurt’s junior exchange with the aim of secur­ing funds for their long-term future. How­ever, the team’s fail­ure to shine on the race-track has been echoed in their fail­ure to shine on the stock market. Accord­ing to the Guardian, shares “fell 3.4% when they opened for trad­ing the day after the race and over the past month they have lost... 

NHL Betting: Tampa Bay Overpowers Pittsburgh

The Tampa Bay Light­ning posted a 4–2 vic­tory over the Pitts­burgh Pen­guins on Mon­day, cour­tesy of Steve Downie who net­ted the go-head goal and two assists. Attract­ing nearly 60% of the NHL bet­ting action, the Tampa Bay Light­ning were the clear favorites against Pitts­burgh among Lines­Maker bet­tors. With –123 NHL odds, Tampa Bay delighted the major­ity of bet­tors by defeat­ing the Pen­guins (+114). Downie scored the goal in the third period to break a 2–2 tie forged by Jor­dan Staal’s goal for Pitts­burgh, even as Tampa Bay forced a Game 7 in the first round...