As baseball season opens, money on Cubs to repeat
By Todd Dewey, Las Vegas Review-Journal
While many Cubs fans left Las Vegas after Sunday’s 22-4 rout of the Reds at Cashman Field with a futures ticket on Chicago to win the 2017 World Series, Kyle Hendricks left with a case of food poisoning.
The Cubs pitcher said he made a late-night stop at a taco restaurant here Saturday and called it a “bad decision.”
Hendricks made all the right moves in 2016, when he led the majors in ERA (2.13) and helped Chicago to its first World Series title in 108 years. With its core group of young stars returning, the Cubs are the 7-2 favorite to repeat as champs. The season opens Sunday with a tripleheader.
“They’ve got so many bats, with (Anthony) Rizzo, (Kris) Bryant, (Kyle) Schwarber and (Jason) Heyward, who had such a terrible season he can’t do anything but go up,” Red Rock sports book director Jason McCormick said. “It’s going to come down to their pitching staff. The whole package is there.”
After years of fans futilely betting on the Cubs to win the World Series, McCormick — a Chicago native and die-hard Cubs fan — said many of the winning futures tickets from 2016 still haven’t been cashed and probably never will be.
