cast: me, kyle, geoff, chad
dates: april 23-26

prologue
vegas stories are good, but i've learned that the gambling itself, while fun for me and a few others, doesn't translate to stories to a greater audience. so, i'm leaving the gambling out as much as possible in these stories, though in some places it is essential. so, if you wish there was more actual gambling in these stories, let me know, but i'm going with this approach for now.

act i
landed in vegas without issue. checked in to the rio with some issue, but one of the two rooms is free so we forgave the bullshit. once the entire crew was collected and introductions had been made, we charted a course for low-limits, so as to ease us into the vegas experience. when you're looking for low limits and you're not interested in going downtown, and you hate harrah's (which you really should hate) - you head to the tropicana.

the four of us piled in a cab, only to be created by voice created by years of cigarettes and anger: "going to the whorehouse, boys?" when we politely declined and asked to go to the tropicana, we were belittled for our lack of interest in females, partying, enjoying ourselves, life, etc. this lasted for the entire ride over the to trop. we sat in silence while we were ridiculed by this trucker woman who was just hoping to goad us into going to a strip club so she could get paid. also, as soon as i got into the cab, i cut my knee on the back of the driver's seat, which led to this exchange:

chad: [saying some sort of story about something]
niv: my knee is bleeding
chad: what??
niv: just keep telling your story chad

we survived the trip to the trop, but the driver did leave a lasting impression on us.

act ii
one of the big tasks for this trip was to check out geoff's new baseball betting system. it's nothing too complicated, but it was yielding results when being tracked over the previous 2 weeks, so the 4 of us decided to give it a go with some real money. the system likes games in varying degrees, and it loved two games on friday - the mets over the nationals and the rangers over the orioles. now, the mets had santana going and the nationals are pretty terrible, so as much as the system liked the mets to win, the odds in the various books were pretty unfavorable. not worth betting on its own, unless... you go to the oldest trick in the book, the trick i used countless times to try and hit it big betting sports - before i realized that 92% return is pretty damn good - the parlay. so we parlayed the rangers over orioles and mets over nationals, planned a trip downtown with a return to mandalay bay to catch these games and the cavs-pistons game 3.

downtown was downtown. gamble-heavy. i think the whole crew likes main street station now, so jon's influence spreads more. the main thing to note is that the trip was not a win financially, and we had a weird cabby (recurring theme!) on the way down who kept telling us stories that almost went somewhere, but then abruptly ended. i honestly do not want to try to get into what this means - catch my stand-up act in a few years and you'll know what i mean.

we made it back and got nice seats without any issues. we were all a little bummed from our troubles downtown, and chad and kyle's hopes for the weekend were directly tied to the results of this parlay. the mets game was one we took for granted, and in the 3rd inning of both, the rangers and mets got on the board and we were all feeling good. this lasted all of an inning and a half, as the orioles came back in the bottom of the 4th with a 3 spot and followed up with one more in the 5th to get a 4-1 lead. the mets were crusing, up 3-1 through 6 and santana was looking dominant, but this was an afterthought to the rangers dilemma directly facing us. the rangers bats were silenced remarkably well by koji uehara, but the orioles bullpen did not have as much luck, giving up runs in the 7th and 8th to give us some hope, though a promising rally in the 8th was cut short by one of the worst at-bats i've ever seen, a five pitch breaking ball-fest that left chris davis swinging and missing. 4-3 orioles going into the 9th, with george sherrill, the orioles closer on the mound. the rangers were within striking distance, but still losing and facing a closer on the road.

jarrod saltalamacchia led off the inning with a terrible strikeout, not as badly as chris davis's rally killer in the 8th, but on 3 straight pitches. elvis andrus was up, and everyone know he stinks at hitting, and he promptly obliged by grounding out to 3rd. ian kinsler then came up, and had the count at 2-2 before fouling off a pitch away, taking a pitch up and away, and then (in retrospect, a really impressive bit of plate awareness) fouling off an excellent fastball on the lower inside corner of the strike zone. sherrill's 8th pitch of the at-bat was a slightly worse fastball, and that was enough for kinsler to send into left, bringing michael young, the winning go-ahead run, to the plate.

at this point, we have a little hope, but mostly the dreaded nervousness of an outcome already decided. just waiting for the confirmation.

Pickoff Attempt 1B
Pickoff Attempt 1B
Foul
Pickoff Attempt 1B
Ball

and then michael young took a pitch that gameday shows as being a little bit up, with identical break to sherrill's other fastballs, and sent it to right field. carrying, carrying. markakis is tracking it, and tracking it, and spinning around, and looking up, and there it goes, just over the fence. home run.

and the rangers are now up 5-4 with frankie francisco coming up to shut it down. we are going nuts, francisco takes care of the orioles half (roberts, markakis, huff, heart of the order) in six pitches, and our bet is looking more and more like destiny. we look through fangraphs, we laugh at the huge drop-off, and we revel in our impending victory.

at this point i get up to call jon and tell him what just happened, what luck just befell the texas rangers and us. and i glance up at the mets-nationals game in time to see austin kearns single up the middle off of francisco rodriguez in a 4-1 game. no problem. i'm telling jon what happens, and i have to stop in my tracks and abruptly (rudely, even) hang up. this is because jesus fucking flores just hit a 2 run home run off of k-rod, a hugely, hugely overrated closer who's peripherals do not line up with his 2008 performance, and thus the huge payday he received from the mets. i hang up the phone and rush back to my seat. what was i thinking, fucking up karma like that?

geoff and chad are also acutely aware of k-rod's relative weaknesses (relative to say, joe nathan, but not in an absolute world any kind of actual weakness). we watch him fall behind quickly 3-0 to alberto gonzalez, who at the time did not seem to be one whole letter away from condoning torture. after fighting back to 3-2, k-rod induced a line out to beltran and got his first out. this, it seems, was enough. also, facing a pinch-hitter and weak-hitting leadoff man for the nationals could not have hurt the situation. k-rod racked up a k of alex cintron and got anderson hernandez to fly out. and just like that, we had one a pure 2:1 parlay using geoff's now vaunted betting system. patent pending.

end of part 1