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NEW YORK -- Tyler Austin wasnt sure if Yankees manager Joe Girardi would let him face a right-hander in the ninth inning.Switch-hitting veteran Mark Teixeira was still on the bench, and the right-handed hitting Austin isnt far removed from a long slump.Girardi stuck with the rookie, and he came through, helping the Baby Bombers continue their unlikely push into postseason contention.Austin hit a solo homer in the ninth to give New York its season-high fifth straight victory, 5-4 over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night.Brian McCann hit two homers for the Yankees, who moved a season-high nine games over .500 (74-65).After blowing three leads during the first six innings, New York moved within two games of Baltimore for the second AL wild card and four games of AL East-leading Boston. Resurgent New York plays 20 of its remaining 23 games against division opponents, putting it in position to compete despite selling off key pieces at the Aug. 1 deadline.I think everybody in this clubhouse believes that we can make a push at this thing and get in the postseason, Austin said. Its an exciting time right now.Austin homered off Erasmo Ramirez (7-11) on a 3-2 pitch for his third homer since being called up Aug. 13. Teammates met him at home plate by dousing him with water in a raucous celebration.That was a huge team win for us, Austin said, and a special moment.A long one coming, too. Injuries and poor performance slowed Austins climb through the minors, and in 2015, he was demoted from Triple-A to Double-A during the season. He opened back at Double-A Trenton again this season, a disappointing assignment, but then forced his way to the majors with his bat.I didnt give up, kept battling and you know, here we are, he said.After homering in his big league debut, Austin entered a 4-for-33 slump that ended Sunday. He since has a five-game hitting streak.Girardi decided to let the 25-year-old Austin bat because Ramirez has better numbers against left-handed hitters.And hes in the game, Girardi said of Austin. A lot of times its a lot easier if youre in the game.The pesky Rays kept coming back, getting two homers each from Kevin Kiermaier and Steven Souza by the sixth. This was the first game this season in which three players had multiple homers, per the Elias Sports Bureau.MAC ATTACKMcCanns homer in the second landed in the luxury suites just below the third deck in right field. His second put the Yankees up 4-3 in the fourth, giving him 19 for the season.The left-handed slugger is one shy of his ninth straight 20-homer season and 10th overall but entered on a 3-for-20 slide.You want to pull your weight around here, McCann said. For a large part of the season, I havent been doing that. So tonight was nice to get to some baseballs and backspin them.WELCOME ABOARDTampa Bay hit four homers after being joined by new hitting coach Chad Mottola earlier in the day. Mottola was promoted from minor league hitting coordinator after Tampa Bay fired Derek Shelton on Tuesday.Kiermaier homered twice in the first three innings, setting a career high with his 11th homer in the third. Hes hit safely in a career-best 12 straight games, the longest streak by a Ray this season.Souza had his third multihomer game of the season, and second at Yankee Stadium.`PEN GAMESNew York had to use five relievers on a night when its bullpen was already short-handed. Girardi hoped to avoid using Dellin Betances, Tyler Clippard, Adam Warren and Luis Severino, so he had to dig deep in the bullpen when CC Sabathia went just four innings, allowing three homers while throwing 87 pitches.Girardi was still aggressive matching up his left-handed relievers, including when Tommy Layne (2-1) entered and struck out pinch-hitter Logan Morrison to end the ninth.BACK IN THE GROOVEAlex Cobb made his second start since having Tommy John surgery and allowed four runs over six innings. He gave up two homers and threw 89 pitches.Hes around the strike zone, extremely efficient, kept his pitch count down, gave us every opportunity to win, manager Kevin Cash said.A SMALL PARTYThe paid attendance was 27,631, under 30,000 for just the second time at Yankee Stadium -- the first was 27,532 on Tuesday. That was the first time under 30,000 since 2004.BALK BACKUmpires called Yankees reliever Jonathan Holder for a balk that let in a run in the fifth inning, then overturned the call.Holder motioned with his glove for McCann to show him the signs again, and first base umpire Jordan Baker called a balk, allowing Logan Forsythe to score from third.The Yankees argued, and the umpires conferred before overturning the decision.TO THE BALLOTSThe Staten Island Yankees, one of New Yorks Class-A affiliates, are holding a fan vote to decide on a new team name. The options are: Bridge Trolls, Island Heroes, Killer Bees, Pizza Rats and Rock Pigeons.TRAINING ROOMRays: SS Matt Duffy will have surgery Friday on his left heel. Dr. Bob Anderson, team orthopedist for the NFLs Carolina Panthers, will perform the operation. ... RHP Chase Whitley is expected to return following Tommy John surgery in one of the next three games. Whitley pitched for the Yankees in 2014 and `15 but was placed on waivers and claimed by Tampa Bay last November while recovering from the surgery.UP NEXTRays: Rookie LHP Blake Snell (5-7, 3.39) starts vs. New York on Friday night. He struck out seven over six innings of one-run ball in a win against Toronto last time out and has a 2.61 ERA in two starts against New York this season.Yankees: RHP Michael Pineda (6-11, 5.10) pitches against Tampa Bay. Pineda is 0-1 with a 7.04 ERA over his past three starts. Fake Nike Air Max Free Shipping .Y. -- Bills receiver Stevie Johnson has a bone to pick with the NFL schedule maker. Nike Air Max Outlet . -- Aaron Murray threw for 408 yards and three touchdowns, ran for another score, and led No. https://www.fakeairmaxwholesale.com/ . -- The Bishops Gaiters are showing they belong among the countrys top varsity football teams. Fake Nike Air Max China . Vettel, who has already clinched his fourth straight F1 title, enters the finale with a chance to equal Michael Schumachers 13 victories in a year and match the record of nine consecutive wins by Alberto Ascari in the 1952 and 1953 seasons. Nike Air Max Clearance . There are surprises among the Vezina candidates, but most of the others are standard top-tier performers, even if the two Hart Trophy runners-ups have never been quite as good as they have been through the first half of the season. LAS VEGAS -- UFC 200 is Saturdays undisputed biggest betting event, the marquee attraction of a busy sports weekend that also includes the Wimbledon mens and womens finals and the Euro 2016 final.The card was dealt a blow when Jon Jones dropped out of the headlining match with Daniel Cormier, but the UFC was able to quickly fill the void as former champion Anderson Silva signed on to fight Cormier in an intriguing nontitle bout. The Miesha Tate-Amanda Nunes womens bantamweight title bout now takes over as the headliner, with popular heavyweight Brock Lesnar also taking on Mark Hunt -- and just like that, the buzz around the T-Mobile Arena is as electric as ever.The fact that this kind of change doesnt derail the whole show (and that one cant imagine a boxing card scrambling so effectively on short notice) shows how far the Ultimate Fighting Championship has come, especially since its humble beginnings as a niche sport in the 1990s. Weve come to expect the UFC to have exciting title fights and competitive cards from top-to-bottom for fans and bettors alike.That hasnt always been the case.UFC 1 was held on Nov. 12, 1993 at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado, and was promoted by original owners Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). Early editions of these mixed martial arts events -- commonly referred to as MMA, which includes all the other organizations, although were focusing here on the history of the UFC -- were promoted as no-holds-barred bouts with no rules. There was no set number of rounds and there were no weight classes; contestants fought until the loser was knocked out or choked out, or tapped out.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) famously referred to the fledgling sport as human cockfighting in 1996 and there were calls to outlaw it. The UFC had many other critics, and it wasnt able to get licensed in Nevada. Instead, it held cards all over the country in a wide variety of cities: Charlotte, North Carolina; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Casper, Wyoming; Buffalo, New York; Detroit, Michigan; Birmingham, Alabama; Augusta, Georgia; Dothan, Alabama; Bay St. Louis, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Lake Charles, Louisiana; and Atlantic City, New Jersey. The UFC also hosted events in Puerto Rico and Japan as its fan base grew.The UFC slowly made its way into pop culture and the mainstream, receiving a big boost in that regard when it was featured on the wildly popular TV show Friends on May 8, 1997. In an episode titled The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion, Monicas millionaire boyfriend Pete Becker (played by Jon Favreau) competes in the octagon and repeatedly takes a beating.John Avello, the director of race and sports at the Wynn Las Vegas, was at his former job at Ballys in the mid-1990s.This was 20 years ago, so I dont have specific recollections of conversations of UFC at that time, Avello says now, but the discussions were probably similar to what were seeing now with esports. I dont recall any meetings with the Gaming Control Board like were having already with esports, but we were keeping an eye on it and deciding how we would book it and how it would be handled by Gaming.Lets face it, it was a younger persons game -- just like esports is now -- but us old bookmakers know how to adjust, and when they cleaned up the sport, it made it OK for us to book it.While the no rules policy appealed to the desired demographic of 18-to-34 males, the UFC gradually outlawed eye-gouging, fish-hooking, hair-pulling, head-butting and blows below the belt to make the sport less barbaric. To appeal to state athletic commissions, they also added rounds and a scoring system to make it more like a sport -- more like boxing, but still decidedly different.The Fertitta brothers -- Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta III, who inherited the Palace Station Hotel-Casino from their father, Frank Jr., in 1993 and built the Station Casino empire here in Las Vegas -- bought the UFC for $2 million in 2001 (current UFC President Dana White, the Fertittas childhood friend, also owns a minority ownership stake). That was just after UFC 29, and they continued to legitimize the sport, which ultimately led to the UFC getting licensed in Nevada.Marc Ratner was the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission from 1992 to 2006 and is credited with helping the UFC get licensed in the state. Ratner later left the NSAC in 2006 to become the UFCs vice president of regulatory affairs, and he has helped the UFC get licensed in every other state -- capped off by New York making it legal in March. Thats a huge comeback from when 36 states banned no-holds-barred fighting in the 1990s.The first card held in Nevada was UFC 33, which took place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Sept. 28, 2001. Hugh Citron was a sportsbook supervisor at Mandalay Bay, which was an independent book at that time, and jumped at the chance to set MMA odds.I followed UFC since its inception and was fascinated by it, Citron said, but we didnt book it until we hosted that first event in Las Vegas. The main reason was to give the fans going to the fights a chance to bet, but we found out right awaay that the UFC had very dedicated fans -- and they werent afraid to bet.ddddddddddddIn the following years, other books started booking UFC but would usually just do the main event. But we knew that any fights we put on the board would get tons of action.As Citron alluded to, the UFC became more popular with the sportsbooks in Vegas as MMAs popularity grew in the mainstream, and stars such as Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz emerged. Bettors also loved that most fights didnt go to the judges scorecards, so there were more clear-cut results rather than the kind of controversial decisions that have plagued boxing.The Vegas sportsbooks handle UFC mostly the same way as boxing, with odds on the two fighters and an over/under on the number of rounds. There hasnt been much in the way of prop betting, though there have been a few notable exceptions. When UFC 183 was held on Super Bowl eve in 2015, the Westgate SuperBook posted a prop on the number of completed rounds in the Anderson Silva-Nick Diaz fight vs. the number of made field goals by the Patriots and Seahawks; the FGs were -0.5 and a -150 favorite, but the Silva-Diaz bout went five rounds and only one FG was made in the Super Bowl.Another milestone event was UFC 51 on April 9, 2005, which featured the finale of The Ultimate Fighter reality show that aired on Spike TV. Avello -- who has become well-known outside Nevada for his odds on reality shows such as Survivor, American Idol, The Bachelor and just about any other reality show you can name -- said he remembers getting caught up in The Ultimate Fighter craze, which White, to this day, credits as the turning point when the UFC really went big-time. Avello points out there were other factors that helped the UFC become the force that it is today.There were big names, for sure, but UFC also benefited with the decline of boxing, Avello said. Boxing, which really made this town back in the day with so many big fights, started to fall apart with so few big names except for Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in recent years, and the heavyweight division has pretty much been nonexistent. UFC has pretty much just filled that void. If the sport of boxing had stayed strong, UFC wouldnt have had as easy of a time growing like it has.Citron marvels at how the sport has continued to increase in popularity, but says handicapping UFC hasnt changed too much.Back when we started booking UFC, it was easier to follow because there were maybe 10 fighters in each weight class, so it wasnt hard to know them all pretty good, he said from his Stratosphere office, where he has worked since 2012, and still enjoys putting up his UFC odds. Now, the UFC has hundreds of fighters, so that makes it more challenging. Its still not like boxing, where you can make a heavy favorite. In UFC, you never want to lay a really big price, because as weve seen with some of the big upsets, anything can happen. The fighters have to engage, unlike boxing, where a fighter might be able to dance around. When you have to engage, theres a lot more ways to lose.Avello agrees with certain public sentiments that the UFC has almost grown too much, and does question whether the product is getting to the point of overexposure. It took 16 years to get to UFC 100 in 2009, or an average of just over 6 cards a year, and now were at UFC 200 just seven years later -- an average of about 14 pay-per-view cards per year, to say nothing of the cards broadcast on TV.Even though Avello mentioned the decline of boxing several times, he stops short of saying UFC has surpassed boxing in the betting arena.Its still comparing apples and oranges, Avello says. Theres still nothing like a big title fight like we had last year with Mayweather-Pacquiao, but the problem with boxing nowadays is that you rarely get a card with good fights on the undercard. But if you take away those mega-boxing events, the UFC cards out-handle the lesser boxing events because theyre usually deeper with more good fights.However, Jay Kornegay of the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook disagrees, saying that the UFC out-handles boxing, at least at his book, and it comes down to that increase in volume.UFC out-handles boxing at a 2-to-1 clip, with boxing being skewed by a few marquee fights, said Kornegay, adding that an average UFC card takes in bets comparable to a solid NFL playoff game. This disparity is widening every year. UFC cards can offer up to 10 matches to wager on, while boxing only offers one to three at most. A lot of boxing undercard matches arent worthy for posting on betting boards.Despite losing the Jones-Cormier matchup, Saturday nights UFC 200 will still produce big lines at the betting windows at the sportsbooks in Vegas. As of 10 a.m. PT Friday, the consensus Vegas lines for the top fights were:Tate -240 over Nunes, a popular underdog play at +200Hunt -170 over the popular Lesnar at +150Cormier -450 over Silva at +375And a great matchup with a tight line, featuring Frankie Edgar (-115) vs. Jose Aldo (-105) ' ' '