Columnist Joe Delaney: Sports betting another entertainment option

SPORTS BETTING, done sensibly, can be a great form of personal entertainment. ... Watch the action at each of the hotel sports and race books during the Chicago Bulls vs. Utah Jazz finals. ... Stop by on Saturday when the Belmont race is being run; listen to that ever-growing unison roar as the horses head for the finish line.

If the Bulls and the Jazz go down to a seventh game, look for two new records, total NBA betting handle and a new TV rating high. ... Even a mismatch like the Holyfield vs. Akinwande fight will have heavy sports book play Saturday evening.

Race horse betting has been declining in importance through the years, sports book betting gets most of the action today. ... Old-timers will remember when the late Sammy Cohen's Race Book on the Strip was the place to be seven afternoons a week.

Sammy was right

When the Stardust Hotel enlarged its sports and race book in the early 1970s, Cohen correctly predicted the demise of books like his, the growth of sports betting vs. horse betting, and the state-of-the-art books in major hotels today. ... The Stardust book really caught on when Lee Pete began his nightly radiocasts and was later joined by football great Jim Brown on Fridays and Saturdays.

Pete and Brown opened the door for radio sportscasts in this area. ... Lee's still the best at this. ... Today, there is a surfeit of sports talk programs, most of them entirely negative, as is the case with most call-in talk shows on radio everywhere.

We miss the fun at Sammy Cohen's when Shecky Greene, Jack Klugman and Guy Marks were regulars, along with the late Hank Henry and Tommy "Moe" Raft filling our afternoons with laughter.

Another Sinatra story

Nick O'Neill, a poet with a camera, and this writer were filming one of my six documentaries on Ireland in the early 1970s. ... It was a Sunday afternoon in Bray, a town some 20 miles south of Dublin. ... Nick opted to attend the five o'clock mass and I had opted for a drink at the Vevay Inn, on a knoll above the churchyard.

An accountant, name lost, treated me to a pint of Guinness and inquired where I was from. ... When I said, "Las Vegas," he asked if I knew Frank Sinatra. ... When I answered in the affirmative, he immediately took over and the conversation became a monologue.

"Tell Mr. Sinatra that I am his No. 1 fan in Ireland. I've seen every one of his films and can recite his lines from memory. I own every record of his ever released here. He must return to performing, he owes that to the world, please tell him this."

What happened

Realizing this would be great in the documentary, I asked him not to leave and ran down the hill to the church, hauled Nick out of his pew and to his car, which was blocked, immovable. ... We unpacked the gear and carried it up the hill on the run, only to find out from the bartender that "his wife had 'coom' and took him away." ... I remembered that he did ask for an autographed picture of Sinatra as I was dashing out.

The story was told in a Sun column and a copy was sent to Sinatra's office. ... Our accountant received a beautiful, framed oil painting with a note thanking him for his support and assuring "my new Irish friend that I will sing again," signed "Francis Albert Sinatra."

The accountant passed away the next year and left the painting to his friends at the Vevay Inn. ... Sinatra did play Dublin in the early 1990s; too bad his "new Irish friend" couldn't be there.

Friday addenda

Weekend special: Brenda Lee in concert, 8 p.m. Saturday, at the Flamingo-Hilton. ... Entertainer Michael La Rocca made the Big 4-0 Thursday, belated birthday bests. ... La Rocca performs Tuesday through Saturday at the World Trade Center Hotel at 8 p.m. ... Join us in Beatty and Rhyolite this Saturday or Sunday for Railroad Days and Rhyolite Tours. ... Support the Sun Summer Camp Fund. ... See you next Thursday.

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