2012 April at BetLM

Black Caviar: 19 Wins in a Row, Britain Bound

BRISBANE, Aus­tralia — Peter Moody was stand­ing around some of Australia’s best thor­ough­breds at his soggy sta­bles in Mel­bourne, but had time to take a tele­phone call inquir­ing about one of them. As usual, it was about Black Caviar. The 5-year-old mare owned by a con­sor­tium of fam­i­lies and friends, some Melbourne-area veg­etable grow­ers, has won 19 races in 19 starts. She’ll get a chance to make it 20 in a row after Moody nom­i­nated Black Caviar to run April 28 at Mor­phettville in South Aus­tralia state. Then she’ll take her sprint show over­seas to Britain’s... 

Rosberg, Schumacher to Demo Silver Arrows at DTM Opener

Mer­cedes’ Nico Ros­berg and Michael Schu­macher will join their DTM coun­ter­parts at the Ger­man tour­ing car series’ sea­son opener this week­end. Ros­berg will demon­strate a 1955 Mercedes-Benz W196 on Sat­ur­day at Hock­en­heim, whilst Schu­macher will drive the team’s 2011 car on Sunday. The choice of car for Ros­berg is par­tic­u­larly poignant as he recently claimed the marque’s first win as a works team since Juan Manuel Fangio’s suc­cess in the 1955 Ital­ian Grand Prix at the wheel of a W196. Rosberg’s vic­tory in China came pre­cisely 20,671 days after... 

Nadal, Ferrer Meet Again in Barcelona

Updated Apr 28, 2012 12:53 PM ET BARCELONA, Spain Six-time cham­pion Rafael Nadal defeated Fer­nando Ver­dasco 6–0, 6–4 Sat­ur­day to ease into the Barcelona Open final, where he will face fel­low Spaniard David Fer­rer for a fourth time. Nadal dom­i­nated from the start, win­ning 21 of 27 points to break Verdasco’s first three ser­vice games and set him on his way to his 33rd straight win at the competition. In the other semi­fi­nal, Fer­rer held off Milos Raonic’s pow­er­ful serve for a 7–6 (2), 7–6 (5) vic­tory to give him a shot at his fourth title of the year. “Rafa... 

What Are the Tour and Tournament Cut Rules?

Most pro­fes­sional golf tour­na­ments have a cut; that is, the field is reduced fol­low­ing (most typ­i­cally) two rounds of play, with the lower half (or so) of the field going home and only the bet­ter scor­ers con­tin­u­ing until the tournament’s end. The spe­cific reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing tour­na­ment cuts varies depend­ing on the tour, and there is some vari­a­tion among the major cham­pi­onships’ cut rules, too. Check out the fol­low­ing FAQ entries for the cut rules of each listed tour or tournament: Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated... 

Matt Leinart Plans to Sign With Oakland Raiders

Matt Leinart looks to be on the move again. Win­ners, losers from Day 2 After spend­ing one sea­son with the Hous­ton Tex­ans, the for­mer first-round draft pick is likely to sign with the Oak­land Raiders upon vis­it­ing the team next week, ESPN reported Saturday. Leinart would then become the backup to Car­son Palmer, whom he replaced at the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Ter­relle Pryor would move down to third string. Leinart has a his­tory with cur­rent Raiders offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Greg Knapp, who most recently served as the Tex­ans’ quar­ter­backs coach. Leinart... 

Kemp’s Walk-Off HR Spoils Harper Debut

Updated Apr 29, 2012 2:26 AM ET LOS ANGELES Per­haps one day, Bryce Harper will be hit­ting home runs at Matt Kemp’s cur­rent pace — although very few can. For now, the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als’ top prospect can take sat­is­fac­tion out the fact he hit a rope over Kemp’s head in cen­ter field for a dou­ble in the third at-bat of his major league debut. Harper also drove in the go-ahead run in the ninth inning with a sac­ri­fice fly and Wil­son Ramos added an insur­ance run for the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als with an RBI sin­gle. But closer Henry Rodriguez gave both runs... 

Sutter Puts Team Canada Through Paces

ZURICH — It’s not easy putting a Team Canada on ice for the first pre-tournament game en route to the world championships. You have play­ers who have been off the ice for two weeks and play­ers who have been off the ice for two days. And there are all sorts of inter­est­ing chal­lenges involv­ing travel — like here on Saturday. Head coach Brent Sut­ter was putting his charges through the first full prac­tice prior to today’s game against Switzer­land in Fri­bourg — 130-kilometres away — when into the rink, car­ry­ing their Chicago Black­hawks equip­ment bags, strolled... 

Johnson Gets Wild During Qualifying at Kansas

KANSAS CITY (NASCAR/) — Jim­mie John­son had a wild ride qual­i­fy­ing for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speed­way. The five-time cham­pion got so lost in Turns 1 and 2 that he nearly put his car into the wall. He wound up straight­en­ing out along the back stretch but it cost him plenty of momen­tum, and he wound up qual­i­fy­ing 15th for the STP 400. “Yeah, my com­mit­ment level was a lit­tle higher than my grip level in 1 and 2 that first time through,” said John­son, a two-time win­ner at Kansas. “I just want to get a pole bad, and I know we have the race car that’s... 

Browns’ Mike Holmgren Believes in Brandon Weeden

Cleve­land Browns coach Pat Shur­mur believes out­stand­ing quar­ter­back play “brings syn­ergy to the whole team.” The Browns’ selec­tion of Bran­don Wee­den with their sec­ond first-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft seemed to be irrefutable proof they no longer believe Colt McCoy could pro­vide that synergy. So what’s next? Shur­mur was coy on the sub­ject, and team pres­i­dent Mike Holm­gren was sim­i­larly vague dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Saturday. “I like him a lot,” Holm­gren said of McCoy, accord­ing to The Plain Dealer. “He’s tough, but (we) still... 

Alfie Undecided on Future, Will Talk to Family

The Sen­a­tors gath­ered for one final time Sat­ur­day but all eyes remain on cap­tain Daniel Alfredsson. Will he or won’t he return? Alfreds­son, 39, who told reporters he’ll play out the final year of his con­tract at $ 1 mil­lion if he does come back, said he’s going to take some time before mak­ing a deci­sion on his future. “I’d like to take a step back. I haven’t talked to my wife to say I’m going to do this or that,” said Alfreds­son, who added he may play for Team Swe­den at the world cham­pi­onships next month. “I’ve just left it to make that deci­sion...