As for the NBA, what is there to say? The Raptors are going to try to win with an all-Euro team, Marvin Williams is getting ready to disappoint after having a big summer league, and my Celtics signed Kevin Pittsnogle adding to a front court that is already thinner than a 13 year old anorexic girl with bulimia and low self esteem. Also, the US World Championship team is set and surprisingly Luke Ridnour did not make it, and by surprisingly I mean the exact opposite. Ridnour had as much chance of making that team as Shawn Kemp did of staying sober or as Britney Spears did of marrying a white trash back-up dancer (uhh, maybe scratch that last one).

Anyway, with the NBA in hiatus and thus no games on which to bet, I will spend each week until the season starts answering your questions, so send them in and remember, if you include pictures of your naked girlfriend making out with a hot chick, you will have a higher chance of a prompt response, and if you send me naked pictures of your girlfriend making out with a fat chick, you will get a prompter response, and if you send me naked pictures of your girlfriend making out with a midget, I will fly to your house and personally answer you question (really, I will). Below are questions that have been in my outbox for awhile, so enjoy.

Hello! I'm a Spanish translator of English and I need to know what "against the spread" means, I'm working on an American film about the sport -footbal- wages (Two for the Money) and I don't know anything about this sport. Besides, the information about it in my own language is very rare... When you say a footbal team is, for example, 9 and 1, what does it mean? the statement is Dallas is 9 and 1...their last hit against the spread coming off a division home game. Now, New York comes into this contest... they are 1 and 7 ATS after playing Philadelphia.[...]

Also, if they're playing indoors on turf... (at least I know what is that) they're 0 and 9 against the spread their last lines.

I hope you can help me... Thank you in advance!

Best wishes,

Alicia

Buenos Nachos Alicia,

I am happy to help with your conundrum. The "spread," also called the "line" or "point spread" is used to make sporting events more fun by allowing gamblers to wager on either team, and not just the favorite. For instance, let's take this year's Super Bowl (tazón de fuente estupendo). The Steelers are playing the Seahawks (and I believe "Seahawks" loosely translates in Spanish to "pequeños penes" but my Spanish is not muy bueno). The Steelers are supposed to be a much superior team. Therefore, everyone would simply want to bet on the Steelers if there were no line. If this happened, there would be no one to bet with since no one would be betting on the Seahawks (pequeños penes).

In order to correct this, gamblers developed a "spread." The spread for the Super Bowl is Steelers -4. This means that the Steelers are favored to win by 4 points. So if you want to bet on the game, you can either bet the Steelers and give the other team 4 points or the Seahawks (pequeños penes) and get 4 points. What that means is that if you bet the on the Steelers, and they win 13-10, you would actually lose since the line is 4 points (thus making the gambling score Steelers 9 and the Seahawks (pequeños penes) 10), however if they win 15-10, you would also win because they would win by more than 4 points (the opposite of this is true if you bet on the Seahawks (pequeños penes)).

So a team's record "against the spread" would measure their record against the gambling line. To borrow from the previous example, if the Steelers won 13-10 and they were favored by 4, their actual record would be 1-0 but against the spread they would 0-1. The record against the spread would allow you to see if handicappers (not the guys in wheelchairs who take all of the good parking spaces, but the guys who work for casinos and establish lines), overvalue or undervalue certain teams.

I hope you find this helpful and also hope you can help me answer a question since my Spanish is muy malo, como el poop de un perro enfermo después de oír una canción Ricky de Martin. What is the correct definition/translation of the term "Dirty Sanchez?"

Gordita Burritos,

AC Titticock IIIi Esquire

Se divierte el handicapper a las estrellas, amante lesbiano

(as a side note, the editor of wagercom.com edited out many of the funny parts of the previous e-mail response because making fun of Mexicans is apparently “offensive.” If you’d like the real response, shoot me an e-mail and I will pass it on, it is worth it).

Hi.

If a batter hits a homerun with no runners on base, is he credited with an RBI for his own score?

Thank you kindly.

- AK

Brilliant question, right up there with do birds fly (not dead ones), who is buried in Grant’s Tomb (apparently no one, but the Grant’s are entombed there which sounds like a technicality, but what can you do?), and is Taylor Rain hot or dirty (the answer is both).

Anyway, to get to your question, the batter gets an rbi for a home run he hits with no one on base. He gets 2 rbi if one runner is on base, 3 rbi if two runners are on base, and I know you are wondering about this one, but 4 rbi if the bases are loaded and he hits a home run.

Additionally, a home run with the bases loaded is called a grand slam, though you wouldn’t know it based on this online definition of “grand slam” unless you scroll down to definition #12.

Toodles,

AC Titticock IIIi Esquire

Have the Cincinnati Reds ever been swept at home or on the road in 2005?

A Health

Dear Mrs. Health,

I apologize for the delay in answering your question. As you may know, the internet offers a wonderful thing called free porn and due to that, I have very little time to get to reader questions since I am always looking for the next great picture or movie (and if you have time, you can never go wrong with www.thumbnailpost.com). Anyway, that is neither here nor there.

You wanted to know if the 2005 Cincinnati Reds had ever been swept, which would be a good question had the Reds not gone 73-89. The better question would be, is there a team that did not sweep the 2005 Reds? Due to rolling out a rotation that featured Eric Milton and some guy named Luke Hudson, the Reds were swept in 9 different series. They lost: series on the road to Houston, Milwaukee, the Mets, Colorado, Boston, St Louis (2 game series), and Houston, while losing 2 series at home to St Louis.

So to answer your question, yes, the Reds were swept both at home and on the road in 2005 and on the road more frequently than Barry Bonds injects HGH.

God Bless,

AC Titticock IIIi Esquire

PS Visit AC's NBA Basketball Picks Page new content coming in November.

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