[BJ Nemeth]

Here's an update on the status of the second prop bet, involving Sean McCabe spending 24 hours shoulder deep in the ocean. There is some bad news, but first let me answer a question that several people have brought up about the waves.

The waves down here in the Turks & Caicos seem like a small factor. There are waves of course, but they are not anything like what many of you are imagining. There is no surfing here, and in shoulder deep water (five feet or so), I think there would only be occasional waves of consequence.

Of course, that's not to say the weather conditions couldn't quickly degrade. Within the last half hour (around 12:30 am), an intense tropical thunderstorm has arrived. At times, the rain has been coming down hard and fast, and using the old see-the-flash-of-lightning-and-count-the-seconds-until-the-thunder-arrives trick indicates that some of the flashes were within two miles. If Sean McCabe (or anyone) had willingly stayed out in the ocean shoulder deep during this storm, they would qualify for combat pay. (Hell, if this storm arrived about 20 hours earlier, I think Giannetti would have abandoned the pool bet.)

Now for the bad news.

I spoke to Sean McCabe about two hours ago, and he told me that the money on the other side of the bet dried up -- apparently Mark Seif and others had second thoughts. It's not that they thought it was a bad bet; rather, they feared for McCabe's safety and didn't want to be responsible for him hurting himself.

For his part, McCabe is still 100% confident that he would survive this. He says he knows the factors and the risks better than anyone, and he can do this, but he won't do it unless someone (or a group of someones) puts up 100,000 at 1-to-1 odds. He even asked me to post something online (which I'm doing right now) to see if anyone wants to take the "don't pass." In McCabe's own words, "I just need ten guys to put up $10,000 each, and I'll do it tomorrow [Sunday]."

McCabe won't eat during the bet, but he must be allowed to wear a hat and be given clean water to drink and stay hydrated. He also refuses to attempt this for less than six figures -- while McCabe is confident he can do it, he knows that it will suck hard and take a beating on his body. He figures he'll be on his back for a while once it's over, and he estimates that it would take a full week for him to recover. But he's skipping the tournament in Aruba, and isn't planning to play again until the WPT event in Barcelona, Spain (which starts October 11th).

For McCabe to take the bet, there needs to be a total of $100,000 in action against him. If there are any serious takers out there, you probably know someone down here that you can contact to broker the deal. (Unfortunately, I can't get involved on the money side of this, so please don't send inquiries my way.)

So, are there any serious takers out there?