Settling down

The start of the baseball season coincided with giving up smoking. The result was I lost a bit of control, gambling wildly as a crux to overcome my nicotine withdrawal, and the advent of baseball games gave me ample scope to do so.
This has settled down now and I'm getting into a good pattern with my baseball bets. One factor which I'll put a lot more store in this season, for the sake of my nerves as much as anything else, is the quality of the closer. One of my most crushing losses last year was a blown save by Eddie Guardado, and I'm just glad I didn't have to watch the Dodgers throw a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth last night.
In this and in other big bets I've had bad injury hits: Gagne and Brazoban have needed surgery, leading to the closing situation above; Shane Bond won't appear for Gloucestershire this year; and Rooney looks doubtful for the World Cup so I might as well throw away my substantial slips on an England win and Rooney as sports personality. But then again, one disappointment must always leave a betting opportunity, and with England so much less likely to do well without Rooney, the sports personality opens up again for Flintoff, the beneficiary of the injury to Vaughan in that he has chance to captain and remain high-profile, and I managed to get on before the price reacted.