With the Yellow Springs Nine apparently coasting toward another post-season collapse, odds makers and all reputable betting facilities have begun to release early lines on when the team’s exit will occur. Solid money today is on the Cartwright Round (9:5), with the Doubleday (3:1), and Landis Memorial Series (33:1) following behind. Despite the fact that the team’s magic number to clinch the division is 10—with three weeks remaining in the season—some grunt is still being bet on a Geoghegan Round exit (85:1 odds).
“Most league followers don’t seem too serious about the team getting knocked out in the first round,” said Freddy “the pouch” Gardenia, a runner for the Foxie Line Bookie Parlor. “But it’s pretty clear they don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.”
The team is a perennial post season presence, but as one pundit said on a recent league broadcast “they haven’t won anything of note.”
Book makers have yet to release Early Exit lines for any other teams, noting that such markets really only exist for the Nine.
Championship Odds Bumped Back, Too
It’s perhaps of note that while the Nine currently carry the best record in baseball, odds for the club to win the Landis itself have been set at 15:1 rather than the more traditional 3:1 or 5:2 that most top end teams would tend to have.
“We don’t believe in superstition,” Gardenia said, “but we’re not stupid.”
