Baseball Betting

Houston hopes to start streak vs. expansion Union

Soccer Betting Lines

05/27/2010 - Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Dynamo host the expansion Philadelphia Union on Saturday night in Major League Soccer action at Robertson Stadium.

The Dynamo (5-4-1) will be gunning for their first winning streak of the season after alternating wins and losses since April 1. The club is coming off a 2-0 win over D.C. United last weekend.

"We needed that win," Houston's Danny Cruz told mlssoccer.com after the win. "It was real important to get those three points and jump hopefully back up the table, depending on other results. I

Cruz, a 20-year-old, scored his first MLS goal in the win, which was also his first MLS start.

"It was important to me, obviously, to come out and hopefully show that I can play with everybody," he said. "It was a team effort, obviously, and the three points are huge."

"I'm proud of him, and it's good to see," Houston veteran defender Eddie Robinson told mlssoccer.com of Cruz. "Danny did what Danny does every day. He works harder than anybody on the field and he picks up things and he learns every single day. It's great to see, and he certainly deserves it. He deserved to be out there. He earned it, and he deserved to score a goal."

The Union (1-5-1) has its hands full on Saturday against what forward Alejandro Moreno describes as one of the class team's in the league.

"[We will face] a lot of fight and a lot of tactical discipline," he told mlssoccer.com. "They are a team that's going to be organized and physical and [will] disrupt the rhythm on the field. It's a group of guys that have been together for a while and that have been successful in this league for a while."

The Union will be trying to earn its first win in its last six league fixtures, although it snapped a four-game losing streak with a draw vs. Dallas on May 15 in its last MLS match.

Philly is relatively healthy after two-week break in action. Defender Toni Stahl is the only name on the injury report, and he is expected to be available.

The Dynamo's only injury is to central midfielder Geoff Cameron, who will not play on Saturday.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.