How many times can the same story be written? The same disappointment be expressed?

This is the second time for Manny Ramirez, who as a young man loved baseball so much that he ran the hills of his Washington Heights neighborhood near Yankee Stadium with one end of a rope tied around his waist and the other tied to a tire. Dragging the tire made him stronger and faster.

Our friends at Platinum Guild International always hook us up with the celebrity bling inside scoop from jewelry expert, Michael O’Connor.

Photo: Royal Wedding jewelry predictions from Michael O’Connor and Platinum Guild International

O’Connor is placing bets on what type of wedding jewelry Kate and Prince William will wear down the aisle. Here’s what Michael’s predicting:

As a double feature on Wednesday, online gambling website bmaker.ag, has released odds on both the Twin Babies of YouTube and the next character to be cut from Mad Men.

Baltimore Beat Down.com

March 31, 2011

Wanna Bet The NFL Lockout Ends Soon?

by Bruce Raffel

While it is still uncertain how long the current NFL lockout will continue, some anxious fans are concerned that the labor dispute will cut into next season. With that in mind, we want to know: Will the NFL lockout end before September 1st?

It’s March and that means with the February blahs officially in the rearview, it’s time for poker players and sports fanatics to bounce their way to greatness in a March Mega Madness event like no other this Sunday!

Bookmaker is running a poker tournament of its own called March Mega Madness, a special $50,000 Guaranteed poker tournament on March 13, 2011 at 9pm ET.

Forget edge-of-your-seat hardwood action. The real thrills takes place on the virtual felt. Bookmaker’s $50 Guaranteed March Mega Madness No Limit Texas Hold’em tournament costs $75+5 to get into and it will offer poker players one re-buy and one add-on, which could potentially take the prize pool into six-figure territory.

To help you land a spot in the tournament, DoylesRoom is bringing you a nightly poker tournament at 11:00pm ET. Each nightly satellite guarantees 10 seats in March 13’s March Mega Madness poker tournament. The buy-in for the 11:00pm satellite costs just $10+1.

If 11:00pm interferes with your schedule, dunk your way into a Sit and Go Satellite. They start as low as $2+0.20.

Transfer money from your sports account to your poker account super easily. No hassle and if you don’t have the poker client installed, the download is free and takes 2 minutes. Join the winning players in our March Mega Madness promotion that is a profitable way to reward your loyalty.

All eyes are on the US Government as we wait to hear if the U.S. Congress will reach an agreement on the federal spending cut bill for the rest of the fiscal year 2011.

by Steven Sande

Just before every Apple event, we get the word from Tony Harvey and the oddsmakers at bmaker.ag. This time, they’ve set the odds on what to expect from the iPad 2. While these guys aren’t tech pundits — they’re high stakes online sports bookies — we thought you’d like to see what they came up with in terms of odds on various features for the upcoming iPad.

By Nicole Martinelli (12:10 pm, Mar. 01, 2011)

The Apple universe is all a twitter on the day before the Cupertino company tells media what “2011 will be the year of.”

We are one month away from the beginning of the baseball season and the experts are starting to weigh in on who will be this season’s contenders and who will be the pretenders.

If hockey was the national game south of the 49th parallel, you can bet U.S. Congress would be all over the concussion problem in hockey, the way it made political hay by shooting fish in a barrel with steroids.

But alas, our politicians take the lead of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. With the exception of NDP MPs Glenn Thibeault (Sudbury) and Thomas Mulcair (Outremont), who have asked for a royal commission on serious sports injuries, they would rather be dewy-eyed, romantic boosters.