A bettor’s ultimate dream is a sure thing – the horse that can’t lose, the team that’s a lock, the fighter that will knock his opponent out in the first three rounds. That’s a nice dream, but unfortunately it’s a pipe dream. Some MLB pitchers, however, are close to being a sure thing.

These guys put their teams on their backs and practically refuse to lose. Regardless of how their teams are doing, some pitchers just make their team better every fifth day. Here’s a look at five pitchers who have been money in the bank all season and are still worth a safe, if not overly lucrative, investment:

Roy Halladay, Blue Jays – Halladay doesn’t get the hype of many other pitchers in the league, but he has a Cy Young on his shelf and he is quietly working his way towards another one this year. The 29-year-old righty is 16-3, but his numbers are even better for bettors. The team is 21-5 when he starts, which is better than 80 percent. A $100 bettor would be up almost $1,200 just by betting on Halladay straight up all season.

Unlike some other pitchers out there, he hasn’t faded down the stretch. The team is 10-2 in his last 12 starts. That’s especially impressive considering that the team has been a mess lately, with manager John Gibbons trying to fight every player on the team. Halladay has the amazing ability to get his team back on track. Since the beginning of last season the Jays are an eye-popping 21-5 when Halladay pitches the day after a Jays’ loss. The Jays are underachieving this season, but it sure isn’t Halladay’s fault.

Johan Santana, Minnesota Twins – Santana has been the most consistently scary pitcher in baseball the last four seasons. His stuff is incredibly nasty, and batters haven’t been able to figure it out. A flat $100 bet on Santana every time out is the most profitable single bet in baseball this year, yielding a profit of more than $1,550. He’s 15-5 so far this year, but the most incredible stat is that his team has won all seven of his no decisions. That’s the kind of support that Roger Clemens could only dream about.

Like Halladay, Santana is only getting better down the stretch. The Twins have won his last eight starts, dating back more than a month to July 15. He’s allowed one run in his last 15 innings, so his arm isn’t facing the same problems as his freakish young teammate Francisco Liriano. Sure, there’s no such thing as a sure thing, but Santana has been the next best thing.

Jered Weaver, Anaheim Angels – It seems amazing that one family can have an older brother, Jeff, who is such an indescribably bad pitcher, and a younger brother, Jered, who appears to be the next coming of Superman. The younger Weaver is 9-0, the best start ever for a rookie pitcher. His team is 10-2 when he is on the mound, and flat $100 bets on his 12 starts would have you up $828.

The biggest strength Weaver has shown so far in his short, impressive career is his ability to keep it together on the road. The fluke of the Angels schedule has meant that eight of his 12 starts have been away from home. The team is 7-1 in those starts. A cynic could argue that Weaver has beat up on several weak teams in his streak – Seattle twice, Kansas City twice and Tampa Bay. That’s true, and it would be much more of a concern if he hadn’t totally shut the Yankees down two starts back. Besides, barring a major change, his next three starts are against freefalling Boston, the pathetic Mariners and a terrible Baltimore team. Cha-ching.

Miguel Batista, Arizona Diamondbacks – Batista — and his 4.52 ERA — certainly won’t be mistaken for a great pitcher. The 35-year-old boasts a fairly pedestrian 10-5 record, and his team is just 18-8 when he pitches (a 69 percent clip – far below everyone else on this list), but he has been hugely profitable all season – second best only to Santana. A series of $100 bets on his starts would have turned into a profit of $1,339. The last 10 games haven’t had a huge impact on his own record — he’s 3-0 with seven no decisions – but the team has gone 8-2 in the same stretch. Most importantly, five of those wins were as underdogs, and the other three were all as slim favorites. In other words, when Batista pitches and you back him, you get paid for it.

Kenny Rogers, Detroit Tigers – If you had forced me to bet on anything involving the 41-year-old Rogers before the season started I’d have said that he would end the season in jail. The nut job still might, but he’s made us a pile of money on the way there. He’s 13-6 this year, and his team is 6-1 in his no decisions. He’d have made you more than $1,100 by betting on him consistently. In his last ten games the team is 7-3.

He lost three of four starts starting at the end of July, which made me think the wheels might be falling off, but back-to-back solid wins against Texas and the White Sox, including seven scoreless innings against Chicago last start, gives me more confidence in his ability to keep the train on the tracks. He’s 6-1 at home and just 7-5 on the road, so you can feel even better betting on the Roaster in Detroit.

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When people hear about STIHL, they think about old-world care and the handcrafted work of last century’s skilled artisans. This dedication to quality is what has made the Stihl chainsaw the most popular on the market over the last 80 years.

Stihl specializes in developing and manufacturing a wide variety of portable power tools, both gasoline and electric. When looking at purchasing a chainsaw, some due diligence should be performed, yet, I found when shopping around and asking pertinent questions, such as what brand should I look at, most of the time the answer was always… “well, you can’t beat a Stihl.”

Along with Stihl’s dedication and commitment to develop the ultimate product performance comes quite a long history of manufacturing and selling chainsaws.

Andreas Stihl developed the first electric chainsaw way back in 1926. At the time, professional loggers found his innovation very useful and were glad to take advantage of it. Andreas Stihl’s significantly improved the lives of many farmers and woodcutters who had to rely on laborious crosscut saws and axes to etch out a living. It was tough going. Timber harvesting was virtually revolutionized by Stihl’s invention.

Today,the use of Stihl chainsaws is no longer limited to the logging industry and has spread to other fields as well. The chainsaw has become such a versatile tool; while it’s use amongst professional woodcutters is wide and varied, it’s use has spread to the home owner, where the once arduous task of chopping firewood has now “become a breeze” through the application of the trusty chainsaw. The chainsaw has become an important part of the farming landscape; I remember growing up on our farm and learning to use a chainsaw at an early age. There were always trees that needed to be trimmed and land cleared. The landscaping industry have adopted the chainsaw as an important part of their make up. Contractors use of the chainsaw involves such things as cutting landscaping and cross ties as well as large timbers.

Stihl chainsaws have been constantly refined over the past 80 years. A reduction in weight and increased operating efficiency is a major reason why the chainsaw is no longer restricted to the professional woodcutting industry. Innovations such as the elastostart, anti-vibration system and improved shock absorption have catapulted the chainsaw to it’s level of versatility. Dual braking systems and the inertia activated chain brake are more reasons why Stihl has remained at the top of the chainsaw tree.

During the last few years, the company has joined the fight to protect the environment. It has come up with new ideas to develop techniques that decrease hydrocarbon emissions. This has been a blessing for people who work in restricted areas.

Andreas Stihl’s successors say that his commitment to quality has remained constant throughout the company’s history. Stihl has maintained it’s position in the power tools industry through that very commitment. And there are a lot of chainsaw users who would appreciate the lesser workloads they now face because of this versatile machine.

Dean Caporella is a professional Journalist and Sportscaster who takes an interest in a wide variety of topics. A country kid at heart Dean says… “Growing up on a farm, chainsaws were a common part of the country landscape.” Get all the latest news, views and reviews on chainsaws at http://www.chainsawlife.com

At a time when the world is increasingly complicated and frightening, readers seem to be looking for alternatives to the sex and violence so prevalent in what is frequently offered to the public as entertainment@ today. One of these alternatives is the inspirational anthology, which is typically a collection of short true-to-life stories that carry the reader into a more comforting, nostalgic or spiritual world.

The proliferation of inspirational anthologies in bookstores attests to the popularity that this genre has achieved in recent years. The Chicken Soup, Cup of Comfort, and Chocolate for a Woman’s Soul series are only a few examples. These easy to pick-up and put-down collections fill a need in our fast-paced society for many people who only have time to enjoy a quick read, but they are also favorites of many other readers.

The growing market for anthologies has opened up new opportunities for publishers, editors, and writers. The writers always receive compensation of one kind or another; if not money, at least recognition and building up of credentials.

Five years ago, we decided to put our experience as writers and editors to work on an anthology which turned out to be an exciting, but very challenging, endeavor. Challenging, because we had no specific guidelines to go by; we learned as we went. However, now, as the co-editors of an anthology published by iUniverse in December, 2003, “The Simple Touch of Fate,” we would like to share with you what we have learned about compiling and editing such a collection.

CHOOSING A THEME FOR YOUR ANTHOLOGY

Choose a theme for your anthology by researching the anthologies already on the market. A logical starting point is your local library. Not only will this give you an opportunity to check out and read some anthologies, but you can review Books in Print for a comprehensive listing of anthologies that have been published to date. For a look at the latest anthologies, visit the large book stores in your area. And, of course, your most valuable tool may be the Internet: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves.

Once you are familiar with what is on the market, it is time to put your creative energies to work to come up with your theme. The three anthologies that we first mentioned above are intended in some way to give the reader renewed faith in humankind. The titles presage the theme inherent in the stories by evoking warm feelings of family and home–the soothing smell and taste of chicken soup prepared by a loving mother, the sharing of a cup of hot tea with a dear friend, the feelings of well-being engendered by the rich taste of chocolate.

Perhaps you have a special interest or hobby that can be the focus of an anthology, such as history, sports, or travel. Our own anthology, “The Simple Touch of Fate,” came about because one of the co-editors, Arlene, who is a professional editor, edited a manuscript that told the story of a young man whose life was saved due to his sister’s premonition. This story made Arlene think about a fateful event where her own life was saved, and led to the idea of an anthology involving Fate.

GOING IT ALONE OR WITH A PARTNER?

Decide whether you prefer to work on your anthology project by yourself, or with a partner.
Maybe you are the type of person who likes to have total control and has the time to do all the necessary work on your own, such as calling for submissions, reviewing the stories you receive, contacting agents and publishers, and one of the most time-consuming tasks of all, editing and final proofreading the stories you choose for your collection. On the other hand, as we found out, it can be more emotionally satisfying to share the workload, the frustrations, and the successes with another person.

WHICH COMES FROM — THE PUBLISHER OR THE ANTHOLOGY?

Unless you are a well-known author or have a track record, such as the Chicken Soup series or spin-offs, you will need to prepare at least a proposal and sample stories, and possibly a complete manuscript, to get the attention of an agent or publisher. Of course, if you are self-publishing, this is not an issue.

WHO WILL WRITE THE STORIES– THE EDITORS OF THE CONTRIBUTORS?

Are you going to write the stories, edit the stories written by contributors, or a combination of both? For the most part, in “The Simple Touch of Fate,” we used stories by other writers, but we also wrote stories based upon our own experiences and as told to us.

HOW AND WHERE TO SUBMIT SUBMISSIONS

We found that the best way to solicit submissions is through writers’ newsletters and web sites on the Internet. The newsletters allowed us to post our calls for submissions at a nominal, or even no, charge. We also actively pursued stories by word of mouth, and by following up on current news stories that had a fate theme, either to reprint them (with permission, of course), or to interview the principals, and then write our own stories. We interviewed Jacob Herbst from Israel who missed American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston on 9/11 and Larry Hicks who saved the life of NASCAR celebrity Jack Roush, and they were happy to cooperate with us in presenting their stories in our book.

KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR CONTRIBUTORS

E-mail addresses change; so be sure your contributors give you their home and work addresses and telephone numbers, and additionally, a back-up contact, in case you have problems finding them. Emphatically remind contributors to advise you if any of their contact information changes.

PROVISIONS TO INCLUDE IN THE CONTRACT WITH THE CONTRIBUTORS

Among other things, you must decide what story rights you will ask for, and what payment you will offer to contributors. We are aware of payment by the best selling anthologies of as much as $300 or more; others run contests for stories; new anthologies may pay with a copy of the book and a bio, which is an accepted practice. Many fine writers are willing to allow a one-time use of their work simply because they are interested in the theme of the book. New writers may be seeking the writing credentials provided by having a story in print. There may be other money-making opportunities for contributors even if the anthology is nonpaying; e.g., the sale of reprint rights, speaking engagements, or other writing assignments as a result of the exposure.

We required our contributors to represent in writing that their stories were true and that they had the right to offer them to us for publication without violating contract or copyright laws. We also required that they give us the right to edit their work and change the title. You should consult with an attorney about your contract once you have determined the basics to be included. He or she may have additional suggestions, such as adding a choice of state law and forum selection clause to the contract.

PUTTING TOGETHER THE ANTHOLGOY

If you are representing your stories as true, you must decide whether you will fact check the stories, or take the authors’ word for it. In our case, we did as much fact checking as we found to be reasonably possible, such as dates and places. We lost some stories in the process! The Internet is a valuable resource for fact finding, and also for editing. Reference librarians on the web answer difficult editorial questions free of charge.

Trouble areas to look out for; e.g., proper permission for reprints, intellectual property rights, invasion of privacy. Many anthologies include some reprints of stories that have appeared elsewhere, as does ours. Be sure that you get permission from the owner of the copyright, in writing, to reprint the story, and that they understand exactly the use to which it will be put. Some of these sources require that the publisher (not the editor) seek permission for reprinting the item, and may require payment, sometimes based upon the number of books you publish. Be aware that owners zealously guard their trademarks and copyrights.

In our case, we contacted the trademark owner for permission to use the name of a well-known game in one of our stories. We were told that we could use it with certain changes to the story, which we decided not to make because these changes would have taken away from the effectiveness of the story. We solved the problem by having the author use a generic term instead of the trademark name for the game. Different legal standards apply to invasion of privacy issues for private individuals as opposed to those in the public eye; and you need to be particularly wary when dealing with a private person, even though public personalities can still have their privacy invaded. The Internet is a valuable source of information on these issues. However, if you cannot resolve them on your own, consult with an attorney.

CONCLUSION

Assembling an anthology is hard work, but it can also be very rewarding work. We had the good Fate to receive stories from all over the world from people in various walks of life, as they told about their personal brushes with Fate. And, we were fortunate to have become Internet friends with many of the contributors to our book. We are looking forward to a sequel.

Arlene Uslander and Brenda Warneka are co-editors of “The Simple Touch of Fate.” Uslander is the author of 14 non-fiction books and is an award-winning journalist. Warneka is a practicing attorney who writes on legal topics, travel, and human interest. They each wrote several stories for the anthology.

Please visit our website: http://www.thefatesite.com and if you have a true Fate story of your own, you may submit it through the Fate website.

The book can be ordered by by calling the publisher’s toll free number 800-288-4677international orders 00-1-402-323-7800) or through Amazon.com and other online bookstores.
©2004, Arlene Uslander and Brenda Warneka