FYI: here's the preview I did for Friday's Daily Racing Form:
By DAVE TULEY
The defending champion in the Stardust Invitational is usually asked to come back the following year to compete in the opening matchup of the head-to-head, single-elimination tournament.
It's a happy coincidence this year that national sports radio talk-show host "Papa" Joe Chevalier, who won last year's event as well as the 1999 title, will be celebrating his 55th birthday on Friday.
"Oh, I'm definitely better with age," Chevalier said when asked how he views his birthday. "You know the saying about youth being wasted on the young? That's absolutely true. By the time you figure things out, you can't do them anymore, or not as often."
Chevalier won't have to perform any physical feats, but he will be asked to pick seven football games off the Stardust betting boards (college or NFL, sides or totals) in his matchup with Dave Malinsky. As will be the case with the rest of the 16-handicapper field (the eight first-round matchups will last through Halloween, with the winners advancing), both will give out their selections live in the racebook between 9 and 10 p.m. Friday. The shows will be broadcast live on KDWN AM-720.
Both are very comfortable with being on the radio. While working the better part of 10 years for Las Vegas-based SportsForm (the previous name of weekly newspaper GamingToday), Chevalier started doing guest spots on some radio shows in town.
"I did a two-week fill-in for a regular host in 1991 or 1992, I'm a little fuzzy," said Chevalier, perhaps hinting that the memory is the first to go. "The phone lines lit up. One week into the fill-in, they offered me my own show."
After some changes in ownership, he found himself based in Chicago, but he still makes several trips to Las Vegas each year. In fact, he has been doing his Sporting News Radio Network show (airing Mondays through Friday, 3-7 p.m. Pacific) the past four weeks from the booth at the Mandalay Bay sports book and was in discussions to extend his stay another week.
Even though Malinsky is a relatively young 42, he's not lacking in experience. A professional handicapper, Malinsky is a former host of the "Stardust Line" radio show, and a former contributor to vegasinsider.com. He is currently the handicapper director of majorstats.com, edits the "Winning Points" newsletter, and has been associated with some offshore books.
In fact, he is so well respected in the industry that the offshore Olympic sports book (thegreek.com) has Malinsky -135 (risk $1.35 to win $1) over Chevalier +105 (bet $1 to win $1.05) to win their matchup. Olympic also has Malinsky as the tournament co-favorite at 5-1 along with two-time champ Ken White. Chevalier is a 16-1 longshot at Olympic, though BoDog (bodog.com) has him at a more respectable 8-1.
Bob Scucci, race and sports book director at the Stardust, said there will be no such odds at the host property.
"We're only licensed to book sporting events," he said, "No elections. No awards ceremonies. While they're picking sporting events, they're not in and of themselves a sporting event."
Malinsky is in a rare position to be able to oust Chevalier. But Chevalier isn't conceding anything.
"He's a professional handicapper and I'm just a big-mouth radio host, so I guess I'd make him the favorite, too," Chevalier said. "Dave has a great reputation, but a lot of reputations have hit the road after they face Papa."
http://www.drf.com/news/article/49664.html
