Izzhe a genius?  Or Izzhe, just lucky..?  Mebbe a li'l of both.  It's good to be both...and da Stevo (that would be moi), sits atop the gamblin' world this Sunday mornin', baskin' inda glory of being the quintessential soothsayer the sports-betting world has been anxiously waiting...nay...searching endlessly for.  Da Man. The Holy Grail....The Messiah of Good Fortune...

In case you might be wonderin' what this blog is referrin' to...you may want to CLICK HERE! Or, you may not. The mere reminder of the fact that you missed an opportunity to double your net worth...be a hero to all around you and pick-upda tab ferda boys in yer local sports bar every time you frequent da place, or packin' yer bagz fer exotic parts unknown....might be too painful for you to revisit... 

 Now...Da Stevo don't do this fer everybody...Ordinarily, hiz vast wisdom iz doled out sparingly.  One might say that hiz sage advice iz not to be construed az simply, opinion...but, instead, irrefutable fact...and a valuable commodity. Period.

OK_HERES_DA_DEAL:

Ya gotta a li'l credit left on yer credit cards?  RUN...don't walk..to yer ATM...Max it out....WAIT!!...Tellya what I'm gonna do ferya....Gitta Money order...or, hell, write me a check ferra Hundred Dollars ($100) and make it out to..."Da Stevo: Opportunist Inc." and send it my way...Upon deposit inda Stevo's now bulging bank account...This will entitle you to a GUARANTEED pick on any game you choose...GUARANTEED..

"Why would he do this?", one might query...Well...other than da fact that he izza man of great character and genorosity that borders on philanthropic proportions...It's jus' da kinda guy..he izz...24-karat...gold....

...and..of course...he drinks...

 (KeepinmindthatDaStevo isonlyguaranteeingyoua"pick"andisundernoobligation
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H-O-O-K  EM!!!! vs. UPDATE

  I doubt if anybody feels too sorry fer "Da Juice" after his recent conviction.  I know I don't.  I'm not real sure 'bout any real "justice" bein' served here az most pundits claim and I'll hold a rush to judgement on that 'til after the sentencing phase.

I'm no lawyer, but on the surface, this outcome does appear to be nothing less than payback fer OJ's ridiculous "Not Guilty" verdict of 13 years ago.  As inane as that verdict was, his sentencing in this trial might turn out to be inda same ballpark.  I don't think he oughtta receive all that harsh a penalty and I'll try to explain why.

Like it or not, in the eyes of da law, This dude should be look on as clean.  Never did anything wrong.  Matterafack, according to the law, he was just as an upstanding citizen az any of us...clean slate.  What part of "Not Guilty" do we have a misunderstanding with?

In my calculations and logic, that makes Orenthal, a first time offender in anything.  In this particular case, Da Stevo thinks he oughtta be given a pretty light sentence...if not probation.  What he did was stoopid, no doubt.  But in light ofda fact that he was and always has been livin' byda rules...The law might wanna take that into consideration before they lock him away.

I mean...If YOUR law abiding resume' was legally "clean"...wouldn't YOU expect that to be taken into consideration?

Sound outrageous toya?  No more than anybody thinkin' that selectin' an all-white jury, in this case,  iz any vindication of any racial issues that were spawned outta his first trial...It just excacerbates the prejudice and racism that's alive and kickin' right here inda good 'ol USofA...

...annit ain't goin' nowhere fast....

..One more thang...

The mere fact that they sentence him excessively, indicates a prejudice...regardless of the dude's persuasion....maybe...they oughtta call that....

...."juicetice" n.1 the administration of what is just (juiced)..ie., having it's roots stemming from a previous oversight in judgement and juicetifying it by making whatever amendments are necessary to apply to current situation and alleviate guilt on any party responsible for initial f-k-up, in turn, lynchin' the Ba*stard by any means necessary making it all acceptable...I might be onta sumpthin' here....

 What's inna name?  Evidently alot or venues like Hollywood and Entertainment wouldn't take the time to change folks' God-Given monikers from the likes of Marion Michael Morrison to John Wayne or...

...Norma Jean Baker to Marilyn Monroe.  As Andre Agassi use to pitch: "Image is everything" and names carry alotta weight in that department.

Some birth-names jus' don't look right onna marquee so, they gotta be altered a bit to fit the image agents and producers want to project...

Betty Jean Perske wouldn't uv done Lauran Bacall any favors...James Byron would've made James Dean less uvva Giant...Thomas Mapother IV (thnx, Lisa!) would've been Risky Business fer Tom Cruise....

  Not only was George Panayiotou too Greek to most of us, It was for George Michael, az well and he elected to give himself not one, but two first names in order to put more Faith in his career..

...and Shania Twain made Eileen Edwards...well..."Feel Like a Woman"...

....'Course, she somehow managed to marry and divorce a dude named....Mutt...

Ok, widdat outta daway...Let's talk football...Some football players are born with perfect names to ply their trade.  Everybody out there has their fav'rits and I wanna know what they are...I'm gonna giveya my top three and you can give me your top three az well...

3) Colt McCoy, QB University of Texas...With a name like that, ya got no choice but to become a gunslinger...Western-Hero's are named that. Cat coulda faced off with Liberty Valance or walked alongside of Coop in "High Noon" or Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster (Doc and Wyatt) in "Gunfight at the OK Corral"...or, if you prefer, Val Kilmer and Kevin Costner in their respective roles...Colt McCoy has to settle ferra aptly named "Red River Shoot-out"  which is right around da corner...Sooner...the better...

2) Joe Montana, Hall of Fame QB SF 49ers...Much like McCoy..this name reeks of an Eastwood-type of cool, silent but deadly presence that when he's on stage...you know you got yer work cut out ferya...God might not be a capable safety-net against this cat...

annnnddd...Da Stevo's number one name ferra football player, especially a Quarterback:

1) Sonny Sixkiller QB Washington Huskies inda early '70's...Dude was onda cover of Sports Illustrated in '71...hadda tryout withda LA Rams, went on to play in CFL and also hadda bit-part in the original "The Longest Yard"...Sonny-frickin' SIX-Killer, fer crissakes!!!...A real-genuine American Indian outta Oklahoma...Too bad he never played ferda Washington Redskins....sorry, couldn't resist...

Hey...I rekkin' it'sa pretty good go to be blessed witha charismatic name...I majun allda Elmer's, Herberts, Mortimers, Wilhelmina's and such wish they coulda been az fortunate...

Then again, ya might wanna ask somebody like D*i*c*k Trickle of NASCAR hiz take on all of this.....

.

..Ok...I give Greenspire a hard time about askin' Trivia questions onda net...We all know that playin' Trivia without the Internet izza far cry from doin' it onda Net...Any accomplished Net surfer can usually find the answer thru research...The only way to play it and make it challenging iz to ask the question differently than you would if you were engaged inna reg'lar game of Trivial Pursuit...Ya hafta approach it differently...

One time...Mike ask a question 'bout when the 4-pt field goal was changed to a 3-point field-goal in football...All I did was copy and paste his exact question in to "Google" and voila!...The answer was first on the board...I figgered that if Mike got the question from the net...then it was only fair that I could get the answer by usin' it...I was jus' playin' by da same rules and same playin' field...

Widdat outta way..I want ya'll to understand that this blog is not in any way designed to belittle one of Fox Sports finest, as Mike is..,Bloggers play games like this allda time...It's meant in fun...It's just hard to play it onda Net...cuzya cheat...

Soooo..........I gotta a Trivia Question that I'm gonna ask you guyz...and I'm gonna try to ask the question in a way that might make it tuff onya...Internet or not...Feel free to use the Net to answer this question...but, I ain't gonna giveya a lot of hints for obvious reasons...the more hints I giveya...the better yer success margin fer findin' the answer thru technology...

Who iz this guy?

"I was a quarterback in High School...You might have seen or read about my school, or schools in my area in the book or the movie "Friday Night Lights" 'bout High School football in West Texas....I got a scholarship and became a receiver for a college and contributed one of the touchdowns in a massacre of another college football team where we scored triple digits against them...."

"My fame did not come in the arena of sports...I elected to perform on another stage..."

Ok..I dunno how well this'll werk...but I figger it's werth a shot to word the question differently and see what happens...giveya a little bit...and leave a bit out...

This is jus' a test....

"...go ferrit...!...Do yer prospectin'...!"

High School football down here in Texas, is King...I had something happen yesterday that brought back a lotta memories of my high school days as a Sports reporter for my high school newspaper...

I gotta call from a friend-for-life, a helluva good guy named Ray Gonzales, who didda pretty fair job of comin' outta da backfield for the Giddings Buffaloes in the mid-late 60's..He had left me a message on my cell-phone that simply said, "Gimme a call, buddy.." and I could tell by the tenor in his voice, that he was more serious than usual.

After delaying returning his call, for fear of hearing some bad news, I finally mustered up the courage to call him...

Stevo: "Whassup, guy?"...and after a pause..

Ray: "I got some bad news forya.." and without pausing, he continued.."The BIG MAN passed away today..."

...Nobody wants to hear this kinda call...

Stevo: " Ya mean Jack?.."

Ray: "...Ain't nobody else we'd call "The Big Man" outta Giddings High School, is there?", he replied rhetorically...and I could hear the sadness in his voice...

A flood of old memories came back to both of us and we both shared a few of 'em together..

A lot of you may or may not remember this guy, but in a little 2A school in Central Texas...This dude was....Legend...9-letters in High School...Scholarship offers from Texas A&M, Rice, TCU, and the school he decided on, Texas Tech, then coached by J.T.King...

(JT King...Texas Tech Head Football Coach)

....If memory serves me correctly, Jackie was about 6' 2' and weighed about 220 and was an absolute bad-as_s thunderin' outta the backfield...When he played...all eyes from both sides of the field were on him...Hell, I remember standin' on the sidelines in high school, witha clipboard in hand, fog and dust surrounding him as he stood-up after a 15-yard burst with 6 players on the opposing team, straggeled on the ground jus' strugglin' to get to their feet and the word magnificent kept goin' thru my mind...The dude wuzza warrior..bigger than life...That picture has stayed in my mind for over 40 years..

In Texas, that was what you were supposed to be on Friday night's....

For us, down in that small town of a li'l over 2000, he was a man among boys and I was never more proud of him than when Tech played my team, Texas on nationwide TV on ABC in 1967...he rushed for 103 yards as Tech upset the mighty Horn's 19-13...He was so instrumental in the Raider victory, that none other than Darrell Royal was asked after the game:

(Royal and James Street during the Arkansas-Texas "Big Shoot-out of '69..)

Reporter:  "Darrell?....Did you know 'bout Jackie Stewart, when you were recruiting?  He's from yer backyard down there in Giddings...." he advised him...

Royal: "To be honest withya...No....." and after a pause..."...But I dang sure do NOW..." 

Jackie was also honored by bein' named to the first team in sumpthin' caled "All-Super-Cen-Tex.." which honored Central-Texas football stars...When asked about it...He humbly replied..

"When they tol' me 'bout it..I thought it wuzza gas -station...but  I thanked 'em either way.."

Jackie Stewart was drafted by the Baltimore Colts in 1969, 9th pick in the fourth round and after a couple of years with knee problems, traded his football helmet in for another King in Texas...the oilfields...

But down in these parts, to people like me and my buddy, Ray...He was and will always be..."The Big Man..." and a helluva good guy...

Ya done us proud, Jackie...R.I.P...

 (UPDATE BELOW)    Ya know?..The last thang on earth a casino needs to do fer me, iz extend me a line of credit.  Hell, Master Card and Visa are playin' with fire fer givin' me da cards they have...anyway, I'm jus' speakin fer myself but, to me..gamblin' izza rush...

     Backindaday...da Stevo, useta do it everyday.  'Course, I wuz single then and made pretty fair dollars, so, the only person I wuz hurtin' wuz jus' myself if I lost any large amount.  Nuthin' likeda Chuckster, of course, but it's all kinda relative...I useta bet football, basketball and baseball.  And I did it every day there wuzza game of some kind on.  The thang 'bout bettin' onna game wuz that no matter what teams were playin'..It would turn a ####-hum match-up into an EVENT ...anda Stevo wuz into events.  It made every Sunday better'n Super Bowl Sunday.

     Over a period that lasted 'bout 10 years, bettin' on all dis stuff, I'm gonna say that I broke about even...Most bookies will tellya that ifya did that good you prob'ly beat the system, and I got no reason to doubt 'em..Sure...you can have a week whereya hit 90% of yer bets and thank yerra genius...but it won't take long before sumpthin' bringsya back down to earth....

     ...Witness this story: 

     After bettin' ferrawhile...I ran across a sports accountant  that took baseball bets.  For the uninitated, here's how that works.  Usually in baseball the betting line is based on the pitching match-ups:  Say you had a game where Steve Carlton wuz goin' up against some jerk-off who wuz lucky enuff to be some teams spot fifth starter...You might hafta lay-down 500 bux justa win a buck-25 ($125).  But, say, Carlton wuz goin' up against Fernando Valenzuela....well, then, you might git an even bet..betta cupla hunnert and win/lose a cupla hunnert...lotta factors go into it but pitchin' iz always the most dominant barometer...

      Genius?!?!

     Ok...widdat outtadaway...My very first week bettin' baseball..I finished da week 30-2..that ainna misprint..even my bookie thought I wuzza genius and mebbe one of Gawdz Children, which gave us another thang in common.  Hell, I almost considered bein' a born-again Christian 'til I realized that gamblin' and that pursuit might be a conflict of interest.  And besides, I wuzn't givin' no church any juice money...

     Cuttin' toda chase here....It took me 'bout two weeks after that to regain some lost humility and rejoin da ranks of jus' bein' another mullet thinkin' he's gotda gift ....Durin' that stretch, one of my losses had me speedin' downda freeway to get to a pay phone (NOTE:fer you youngsters out there, ask yer daddy 'bout that term) to git my bet down on Dodger vs. Cubs at 'bout 5-1 oddz goin' with Fernando V...

.....Cubs bombed 'im...8-3 if I 'member right...  

  ....or Homeless?!?!?

 I ain't sayin' Chuck's right or wrong...but I am sayin':

     I Unnerstand.... But.... you ain't gonna beat 'em...I'm tellinya...you can make book onnit... 

UPDATE: Former Detroit Lion QB and Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware has said on his Talk-Radio Show...down here in H-Town that he spoke with a close-personal friend of Charles Barkley last night (Tues) and the friend told him that Chuck is no where near close to any financial trouble...as "He is fine...trust me.."...like it was notta big-deal at all...