Early Bird Game: Cubbies -174 With Marquis Listed On the Road Over the Pirates With Duke Listed Wins 2-0 as Our Wednesday Play of the Day

Take the Chicago Cubs -174 with Jason Marquis on the mound visiting the Pittsburgh Pirates with Zach Duke listed as our Wednesday play of the day, 9:35 AM Pacific. Cubs are 11-1 in Marquis' last 12 starts after allowing 5 runs or more in their previous game. Pirates are 0-5 in Duke's last 5 home starts. I hate laying more than -140 on any game, but I love the Cubbies in this pitching matchup. Good luck! Results: Cubs win 2-0. We cash in at lunchtime here in the Biggest Little City in the World. We also gave out the Giants with Tim Lincecum pitching to give us a 2-0 day. Our complete picks are available at myhandicapper.com well before game time. Our sports monitor does not allow us to use run lines, but personally we bet the Giants on the run line, which is usually not a good idea. But Tim Lincecum is not a usual pitcher. Lincecum is the best pitcher in baseball today.

Matchup Trends

What the ATS Experts think - they are all over the Cubbies

Handicapping Notes: The Good: Bobby Clarke went 3-0 yesterday with no heavy favorites selected, if you have to buy a service, buy his for $400 for the rest of the year. The Bad: Stu Feiner for continuing to promise his clients the moon and grinding out $59.95 a day from the poor saps. The Ugly: The Bookie Basher has left the Silver State to complete twenty hours of remedial handicapping and money management instruction from a Professor Clarke back east. He needs it as he goes down 50 dimes yesterday. He is down 744 dimes since midnight Sunday, August 17. Ouch!

Who Are We: This site is free. We don't have ads. We don't want your money. The focus is on the general handicapping community, if you have a link email it to us, we will post it. If you have a comment, post it below where it says comments. Comments are welcome and unmoderated. The democrats are having their convention this week. Robert Kennedy once said, "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" There is too much hype and deception in the sports handicapping business. We see it on a daily basis. We hope to use this site to point out the worst examples and to praise the few ethical handicappers out there. We have called paid handicappers on the phone and posed as a desperate bettor down on our luck, looking for someone to bail us out. You learn a lot that way about their ethics. Do they call you back unannounced 30 minutes later and give you the hard sell, over touting their handicapping skill set? Behavior like that is a red flag in our eyes. Thanks to the genial John Werner at ParlayHelp.com for posting our banner on his site for a few days.

Are you ready for some football? Phil Steele gives out a comp play about every day in football season. One that has been consistently at 65% over the years is Phil's Early Bird Play which he gives out on his comp line every Monday. This week its South Carolina -12 over NC State. This game goes tomorrow, Thursday at 5:00 PM Pacific. As a general rule, you want to bet this game on Monday to avoid a bad line later in the week. We are just getting up to speed on football, in the future we will post his Early Bird Play as soon as its released.

Hot handicapper video, Bobby Clarke: