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You bet Tiger’s great!

Tiger Woods has beaten everyone else. Next may come Britain’s bookies.

With a flood of bets coming in on him, odds in Britain have dropped to 4-1 on Woods winning this week’s U.S. Open.

The odds on Woods keep falling. They started out at 20-1 and fell to 4-1 Tuesday after the bookmakers Ladbrokes took a $16,400 bet on Woods.

“There has never been a situation quite like this, even when Jack Nicklaus was 2-1 favorite for the (British) Open back in the 70s the sums involved were minute in comparison,” Ian Wassell of Ladbrokes said.

“If Tiger wins this week it will be an awful week for bookmakers around Britain. None of us will escape.”

A Greg Norman win could hurt even more. He pays out at a gazillion-to-1.

Yankee Yamalka Appreciation Night

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is so upset with the singles-hitting Cecil Fielder that he tried to include Fielder in a deal with Toronto for Shawn Green.

When Green’s name came up in a meeting of top Yankees officials, senior adviser Arthur Richman, who has gained credibility after wisely recommending Joe Torre and Mel Stottlemyre to Steinbrenner in October of 1995, perked up.

Richman told Steinbrenner that Green showed fine potential as a hitter. It also didn’t hurt, Richman told Steinbrenner, that Green is Jewish. Richman reasoned that a Jewish player might help boost their weak attendance.

And imagine the increased sales of Kosher hotdogs.

This scribe’s no Modern-day Saint in Salt Lake

Think Dan Shaughnessy will be allowed back into the Beehive State for the 2002 Winter Olympics?

The Boston Globe columnist had these choice observations while covering the first-ever NBA Finals in Salt Lake City:

Utah Jazz is an oxymoron. Utah Jazz is like Harvard Dunces, Miami Polar Bears, or Kansas City Lobsters. Utah Jazz is like New York Polite or the Washington Honest.

Utah is about obedient, conservative, white folks, happily floating in a salty lake, breathing fresh air and observing the laws of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sunday’s sellout at the Delta Center will make your typical whitebread Fenway Park crowd look like the Million Man March.

Put it this way, Sen. Orrin Hatch watched Friday’s Game 3 sitting 3 feet away from Utah coach Jerry Sloan. Think he would be on the bench if the Jazz were still playing in New Orleans?

Massaging the opponents’ interleague ego

San Francisco outfielder Barry Bonds told The Sporting News he feels there is no question as to who’s the best player in the game.

“What Junior (Ken Griffey) is going to do throughout the course of his career is going to (be) well over anything I’ve ever done,” Bonds said. “Junior is going to take the game to another level that I don’t think anyone is going to be able to catch up to. Junior will surpass me throughout his career by a lot. Not by a little. By a lot.”

The last word …

“One less Belle to answer. David Justice is all torque, no cork.”

- A sign behind the visitors dugout at Jacobs Field during the Indians series against the White Sox

, DataTimes