Sports ticker floating in Yankee Stadium visitor's clubhouse
BY ERIC BARROW
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Friday, May 23rd 2008, 12:57 AM
Betting odds for major league games and other sporting events scroll along wall in Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.
Betting odds for major league games and other sporting events scroll along wall in Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.
At last, a clubhouse fit for Pete Rose.
While Major League Baseball says it's doing all it can to keep tabs on packages coming in and out of stadium clubhouses, always on the lookout for performance enhancers, there apparently is less interest in the betting odds being posted every afternoon on a scrolling ticker inside Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.
Hanging on a back wall, beyond the lockers and just above a tiny dining table where players chow down on a snack before the game, is a sports ticker with gambling lines, one after the other, on everything from the NBA's Eastern Conference finals, Sunday's Indy 500 and - perhaps most surprisingly - MLB games.
So, with the Orioles and Yanks set to take the field in a matter of hours, the digital ticker scrolling just above the players' heads reads, "Baltimore (-155) at New York (T9)."
It's not too late to get a bet in.
Later in the scroll comes a proposition bet pitting Derek Jeter against O's second baseman Brian Roberts. The ticker asks which of the two players would have the "Most Bases" in that night's game. Roberts walks by without noticing. "Who bets on that?" says Roberts.
You can also get the over/under line on wins for each team in the NFL. Who needs the sports book at Caesars Palace when you have the visitors' clubhouse at the Stadium?
Every major league team is required to post MLB's policies against betting on baseball and, according to clubhouse manager Lou Cucuzza, they are in his office. But in plain view is the ticker that the Yankees say has been there for 12 years.
The odds are part of a service provided by Tickercom, a digital media company that delivers the late-breaking news its customers crave, according to its Web site. Tickercom sends a generic feed of sports headlines and scores, but customers can receive news without the odds.
"(They) can get whatever they want," says a representative from Tickercom. "They can just have sports news and not have the odds. It depends on what the customer requested."
The standard feed, says the rep, comes with the odds.
Having MLB betting odds freely displayed in a clubhouse seems like a sharp contrast to baseball's aggressive anti-gambling stance of years past. Remember, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned Hall of Famer Willie Mays from baseball for six years in 1979 because he worked as a greeter at an Atlantic City casino.
"I would look into it," says former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent. "I would want to know what (the Yankees') argument is for it. But I would want to know more about what it's showing. If it's 90% gambling odds, I would take it out.
BY ERIC BARROW
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Friday, May 23rd 2008, 12:57 AM
Betting odds for major league games and other sporting events scroll along wall in Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.
Betting odds for major league games and other sporting events scroll along wall in Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.
At last, a clubhouse fit for Pete Rose.
While Major League Baseball says it's doing all it can to keep tabs on packages coming in and out of stadium clubhouses, always on the lookout for performance enhancers, there apparently is less interest in the betting odds being posted every afternoon on a scrolling ticker inside Yankee Stadium's visitors' clubhouse.
Hanging on a back wall, beyond the lockers and just above a tiny dining table where players chow down on a snack before the game, is a sports ticker with gambling lines, one after the other, on everything from the NBA's Eastern Conference finals, Sunday's Indy 500 and - perhaps most surprisingly - MLB games.
So, with the Orioles and Yanks set to take the field in a matter of hours, the digital ticker scrolling just above the players' heads reads, "Baltimore (-155) at New York (T9)."
It's not too late to get a bet in.
Later in the scroll comes a proposition bet pitting Derek Jeter against O's second baseman Brian Roberts. The ticker asks which of the two players would have the "Most Bases" in that night's game. Roberts walks by without noticing. "Who bets on that?" says Roberts.
You can also get the over/under line on wins for each team in the NFL. Who needs the sports book at Caesars Palace when you have the visitors' clubhouse at the Stadium?
Every major league team is required to post MLB's policies against betting on baseball and, according to clubhouse manager Lou Cucuzza, they are in his office. But in plain view is the ticker that the Yankees say has been there for 12 years.
The odds are part of a service provided by Tickercom, a digital media company that delivers the late-breaking news its customers crave, according to its Web site. Tickercom sends a generic feed of sports headlines and scores, but customers can receive news without the odds.
"(They) can get whatever they want," says a representative from Tickercom. "They can just have sports news and not have the odds. It depends on what the customer requested."
The standard feed, says the rep, comes with the odds.
Having MLB betting odds freely displayed in a clubhouse seems like a sharp contrast to baseball's aggressive anti-gambling stance of years past. Remember, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned Hall of Famer Willie Mays from baseball for six years in 1979 because he worked as a greeter at an Atlantic City casino.
"I would look into it," says former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent. "I would want to know what (the Yankees') argument is for it. But I would want to know more about what it's showing. If it's 90% gambling odds, I would take it out.
