If you're a Royals fan, you probably hurt a little bit after your team lost to the Indians last week when a ball hit a bird* in center field.
* Link to the video can be found here. PETA's response can be found here.
If you're not a Royals fan, you probably laughed a little and moved on with your day.
If you're Aaron Smith, you cussed, repeatedly, and are now offering -- right here, through Ball Star -- a $1,000 reward to anyone who can prove a worse "beat" story than his.
"And if they can't," Smith jokes, "maybe they can send me a dollar because I could use the help."
Smith had a ridiculous $21,750 bet on the Royals through two different casinos. He stood to win nearly $38,000, which he said he planned to use to pay off his house or, perhaps, "just have a hell of a time at a casino with some cocktail waitresses."
Now, time for a weak disclaimer: I don't know Aaron. Wasn't there in Vegas when, he says, his stepson's business partner placed these bets. But I did ask that he fax us his betting slips as proof, which he did. The image above is his ticket from the larger of the two slips he faxed.
So, to review, Smith says felt good about his chances because Zack Greinke was pitching for the Royals against Jeremy Sowers and the disappointing Indians. The Royals lost Greinke's two previous starts, and Smith figured there was no way it would become three.
"Free money," he thought, which is sort of the famous-last-words for gamblers.
Everything looked fine as Grienke took a 3-1 lead into the eighth, but that's when it all went nightmare for Smith.
Mark DeRosa singled, Victor Martinez walked, and then John Bale came in from the bullpen. He gave up a run-scoring groundout, then Joakim Soria hung a slider that Jhonny Peralta banged off the left field wall for a score-tying double.
Then, as you've heard before, Kyle Farnsworth gave up the game-winning run on a sharp single by Shin-Soo Choo that bounced off a bird in center field.
"I'm thinking about everything I'm gonna do with this money," Smith says, "then next thing, I watch with a puckered (rear) as Greinke gives it up, then the sieve Kyle Farnsworth comes in, gives two baserunners, and then the (fudging) birds."
In case you're wondering, Smith says he runs a casino event company that does corporate functions and parties. He makes a couple big bets like this every year. It's the first time that birds have ever been involved.
"I've thrown rocks at three birds since that night," he says. "I haven't hit one, but I won't stop until I do."
The birds might just have something against Smith.
He says that the day after losing the bet, a bird dropped some DNA into his open convertible.
So, let us know if you've got a worse betting story than this.
There's $1,000 in it if you do.
Especially given the way that the Vegas establishment shrugged its shoulders at the whole thing, the way that it was buried by the media, and that even today, nobody seems interested in bringing the perpetrators of this fraud to justice.
I don't remember how much my bet was exactly, but while I'm sure it was orders of magnitude smaller than Mr. Smith's, it was a lot to me at the time. Hiring a vehicle in Namibia