2009 March Madness NCAA Tournament is Near

It's the first Presidents Day for Barack Obama as the new leader of the United States, which reminds us of several things. Mainly, holy crap, we're halfway through February already.

What this means for us at Stock Lemon is that it will soon be March, where we will turn into the main squeeze on 2009 March Madness NCAA Basketball Tournament Bets.

After that, Obama's White Sox and the other 29 teams in the MLB will begin regular season play, and they are already reporting to Spring Training.

So, on this Presidents Day, ask not what Stock Lemon can do for you, but ask what you can do for Stock Lemon. Such as continuing to read our analysis and picks as we head into Spring.

If the NFL Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

While we didn't have a wager on the game between the Chargers and Steelers, in a way, everyone lost.

Especially the NFL. Well, them, and the people who bet on the Steelers.

With the Steelers ahead of the Chargers 11-10, San Diego had time for one last desperation play. It went just about how you'd expect a dump-off-and-lateral-from-inside-the-20 play to go, with Philip Rivers throwing a short pass to Ladainian Tomlinson, Tomlinson flipping it back to Chris Chambers, and Chambers lateralling it to nobody in particular.

Chambers' heave was knocked down and scooped up by Troy Polamalu, who ran it in for a touchdown, giving the Steelers a 17-10 lead. Unfortunately, due to an illegal forward lateral by Tomlinson, the touchdown was wiped off of the scoreboard. Still, the Steelers won, so no harm done, right?

Wrong.

The Steelers may have won, but anyone who took the Steelers at anywhere from -3 1/2 to -5 didn't share the victory. Okay, so Steelers bettors caught a bad break, happens all the time, right?

Sure, but does it usually happen when 66% of the action is on the Steelers as opposed to 34% for the Chargers, with bookies looking at a huge profit if the Chargers win? Does it also usually happen when the Steelers are penalized 13 times for 115 yards as opposed to two times for five yards for San Diego? And does it usually happen on a call so clearly wrong? Take a look at a couple of screenshots of Tomlinson's pitch back to Chambers. Notice the arm going behind Tomlinson, followed by the ball.

As you can see, Tomlinson tosses the ball backwards to Chambers, and pretty obviously at that. Could this have anything to do with the fact that, as RJ Bell of Pregame.com points out, Vegas was on the receiving end of a $64 million swing as a result of this lateral? From the looks of it, the referees did everything in their power to make sure the Steelers didn't cover. The zebras even admitted to making the wrong call at the end of the game.

So, was this just a huge mix up, or are we just scratching the surface of an NFL betting scandal bigger than the Chicago Black Sox of the MLB (White Sox players rigging the World Series in 1919 for the youngsters out there) or Tim Donaghy in the NBA?

We might not even want to know the answer to that.

White Sox Live to Play Another Day

With the White Sox 8-2 victory over the Tigers, Chicago advances to host a one-game playoff with the Twins tomorrow--all made possible thanks to an Alexei Ramirez Grand Slam to break a 2-2 tie.

More importantly, the Sox win gives our Free MLB Picks a 15-9 record since the Summer, which is 63%. Though we didn't have too many plays over that span, we sure made them count.

Remember to make us your home for the 2008 MLB Playoffs, as we'll continue to pick winners all October long.

The White Sox Have Huge Value Today

We haven't had a Free MLB Pick since finishing up our Summer system at 14-9 (61%), but this one is impossible to pass up.

White Sox ML -216 over Tigers

It's a lot of juice to lay but in this unique circumstance you absolutely have to take the Sox. The White Sox have everything to play for tomorrow, while the Tigers probably won't even want to be there.

With a win, the Sox would force a one game playoff--in Chicago--with the division leading Twins to decide who goes on to face the Rays in the playoffs. With a loss, their 2008 season is over. Meanwhile, the Tigers season ends tomorrow either way.

Lay the juice on Ozzie Guillen's troops, they'll get the job done tomorrow and keep their hopes of winning another World Series ring alive.

New Free MLB Pick System

After a dismal 2-3 start with our Free MLB Picks to start the year, we decided to overhaul the system that we were using to something more similar to what we used last year.

This lengthy process is the reason there haven't been any MLB Picks recently, but we believe we finally have the system where we want it, and have one play tonight.

Chicago White Sox ML (-137) over the New York Yankees

We're laying a lot of chalk and betting over one unit so that we would win a unit in return. We don't like betting this amount of chalk, and were waiting as long as we could for this line to drop, but it looks like we're stuck with it. The first pitch is in a little over a half an hour, so we apologize for that late post, but we were really hoping to get rid of some of this juice.

We have no plays for the three NBA games tonight, so hopefully our new Free MLB Pick system is enough to hold you over until tomorrow's games. Let's make the MLB stand for Money in Lemmy's Bank.

Good luck!

Indians Win!

The Indians beat up on the White Sox 7-2 tonight, showing an offensive effort that would make Harry Doyle (aka Bob Uecker) proud. The win gives us another Free MLB Pick win, and for +135 juice that's even better than Lemmy's homemade lemonade.

We'll have some more picks tomorrow, so we'll see you then!

Another MLB Pick

It's early in the season so it might take a while to get the MLB system to the 67% range that we're used to, but we have a decent play tonight.

Cleveland Indians RL -1 1/2 (+135) over the Chicago White Sox

The Indians shouldn't have to call on Charlie Sheen's character in Major League, Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn, to pull this one out tonight.

Good luck!