Interference (17 page)

On the Sunday before the game, Rozelle—who had been notified of the surveillance prior to the mobsters' arrival in Miami—met with NFL player representatives and reportedly gave them a stern lecture about associating with gamblers and betting on NFL games. The Lions' representative and cocaptain, Joe Schmidt, did not attend. Asked by reporters about the continuing gambling investigation, Schmidt replied, “I don't think there's any foundation to it at all.”

On January 7, the day after the Lions-Steelers play-off game, the Detroit police interviewed Wayne Walker. Specifically, he was questioned about any knowledge he had about “shaving points, gambling on football games, or throwing ball games.” According to the police report, Walker replied that he had “no knowledge of any extensive gambling engaged in by members of the Detroit Lions.” He added that he personally “occasionally played a football card” and had bet on a football game on only one occasion—on a game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. He said that he had made the bet with “a close personal friend” who played with the Packers. Walker did not identify the player.

Walker admitted to having become acquainted with mobsters Tony and Vito Giacalone, Dominic and Tony Corrado, Peter Vitale, and Odus Tincher through bar owner Butsicaris. Walker said that even after learning that these men were “gamblers,” he did not stay away from them. He insisted that he simply “would run into them at the Grecian Gardens.”

The Lions, Walker said, occasionally “had a ‘spirit party' in the back hall of the Grecian Gardens which was hosted by Dominic
Corrado” at which all food and drinks were free. Walker described the “spirit parties” as being like “pep rallies” and said that they had been arranged by Karras. Walker added that he once had a drink alone with Vito Giacalone at another bar but denied any other association with him. He reported that a former member of the Lions, Howard “Hopalong” Cassady, was a business associate of the Giacalones, which was confirmed through an independent police investigation.

Walker also admitted that he had been on Odus Tincher's bus en route from Chicago to Detroit after a 1961 game between the Lions and the Bears. He added that he had been on the bus that one time because Jimmy Butsicaris had taken Walker's father along as a guest. Others on the bus during this trip included Vito Giacalone, Dominic, Peter, and Tony Corrado, as well as Karras and Lions end Glenn Davis.

However, Walker denied to the police that he had been either at the Grecian Gardens or driving his station wagon during the August 18 trip to Cleveland. Upon hearing that, the police report continued, “Walker was confronted by the following officers who had observed him during the early morning hours of August 18, 1962: Sergeants William DePugh and Joseph Areeda who had observed him at the Grecian Gardens and Patrolman Eugene Cavistan who had observed him at the Bunk House Cafe.

“After the confrontation, Walker stated that it could be possible that he was at the Grecian Gardens on the above-mentioned date, but that he could not have been at the Bunk House Restaurant.” Walker offered to take a polygraph test, insisting that he had loaned his car to Butsicaris.

Walker was not confronted with the fact that he had been identified as the driver of the station wagon by the Ohio Highway Patrol. The reason? The Ohio patrolman who had stopped the bus and the station wagon on August 18 had developed amnesia when questioned by the Detroit police and could not remember the identity of the driver of Walker's car. Also, their notepads containing the information had been lost. And the dispatcher who had received the information from the officers had since been fired “because of inefficiency.”

Even though the Detroit police officers refused to retract their earlier reports, Rozelle and the NFL believed Walker. In his final report on the matter, Rozelle made no specific mention
of the details of the Lions' associations with members of the Detroit Mafia or whether Walker or any of the Lions players were ever polygraphed.

How widespread had gambling been within the Lions team? Vincent Piersante, then a top official in the Detroit Police Department who was directly involved in the Lions betting case, told me, “I recall an incident in which a bunch of Lions players got their noses out of joint because they were winning the game by one point but had given the three-point spread. There were less than thirty seconds left in the game, and they had an opportunity to score. But instead of driving for the touchdown or field goal, the quarterback Milt Plum decided, ‘We've got the game won. There's no sense in taking a chance.' So instead of going for the score, he just sat on the ball to secure the game. Plum was obviously not betting. One of the reasons Milt Plum was not the effective leader some thought he could've been was because he didn't care about the point spread and that wasn't in the tradition of some previous Lions quarterbacks.”

Rozelle's probe concluded that Alex Karras had made no fewer than “six significant bets” since 1958, including $100 on his own team in 1962 in a game with the Packers—and another $100 on the Packers that same year in its title game with the New York Giants. In the wake of these revelations, Karras said, “I haven't done anything I'm ashamed of, and I am not guilty of anything.”

During my interview with Karras, I asked him about the players' associations with the Detroit mobsters. Karras replied, “Games were never mentioned. They never tried to get inside information or any edge on the field. I never heard anyone get out of line and ask me any of those stupid questions ‘Who's going to win and by how much?'

“I'm from Gary, Indiana. And I know what betting is. I've been betting all my life. My association with those guys I hung around with was, number one, they were my age, and, number two, we hung around the same places, like the Grecian Gardens, and we met each other socially at the places where we hung around. It wasn't a heavy relationship. It was a ‘same-age' relationship. We had a lot in common. So I never had any problem with them; and they didn't have any problem with me.”

Karras added that the Lions' management was fully aware of these associations between the players and the mobsters—and never did anything about them.

Rozelle's investigation also showed that running back Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers, the 1956 Heisman Trophy winner from Notre Dame, had associated with lumber company owner Abe Samuels, a West Coast gambler who was part owner of the Tropicana, a Las Vegas hotel/casino. The two men had met in San Francisco prior to the 1956 East-West college football game. They struck up a social relationship and later Hornung, who personally bet as much as $300 a game, provided him with “inside information” about the Packers team.

According to a report made public by the NFL, Samuels, who wasn't named, had “developed the habit of querying Hornung by telephone regarding his opinion of the outcome of various games.” In one season, Hornung won $1,500 from his gambling on NFL games. Samuels admitted to betting nearly $100,000 each season.

Also implicated with Samuels were both Rick Casares and Bears line coach Phil Handler, who had worked for the gambler as a salesman at his lumber company for fifteen years during the off-season. Samuels had also offered Hornung a job with his Louisville printing company. “This is a business deal and has nothing to do with Hornung as a football player,” Samuels told
The Chicago American
.

Casares told the newspaper, “I've met Abe Samuels a few times, but I knew him as a businessman. When you meet a man in a group and he is identified as a businessman, you can't very well ask him if he gambles on football games.”

In his attempt to defend his Packers teammate, defensive end Bill Quinlan told UPI, “Take Samuels. Sure I know the man. And so does Paul and a lot of other players. But understand this—never once did the man so much as ask any of us how we thought we were going to do in a ball game.

“It's ridiculous. A man like Samuels, with his money, needs a Hornung or a Quinlan or a Dan Currie [a Packers linebacker] like he needs a hole in the head.”

Rozelle said that he had heard rumors about Hornung and began his investigation during the spring of 1962. It is not known whether Quinlan or Currie were also targets of the probe. However, it is clear that Hornung was not actually questioned until January 1963.

Why the long delay? “I didn't want to confront him until we had absolute proof,” Rozelle told reporters, “and we didn't get
that proof until this past January … When I told Hornung of the charges, he admitted them.”

On April 17, 1963, commissioner Rozelle indefinitely suspended Hornung and Karras. Five other Detroit players—guard John Gordy,
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running back Gary Lowe, linebacker Joe Schmidt, linebacker/placekicker Wayne Walker, and defensive end Sam Williams—were fined $2,000 each for betting on NFL games in which they were not playing. Each had bet $50 on the December 30, 1962, NFL championship game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. The Packers won, 16-7.

Dick “Night Train” Lane remembers when the bets were made. “There was a place where we met,” he told me. “I was there and little Archie Stone [a close friend of Jim Butsicaris] said, ‘The guys are talking about who they're going to bet on; they're going to bet on the Giants.' I told him that I thought Green Bay was going to win. I told him, ‘They can bet anything they want. I'm going to the golf course.'”

Lane insists that he did not, per se, make a bet. Instead, he told Stone, “‘Archie, if you want to bet fifty dollars, I'll put it up for you.' I gave him the fifty, and I left. I don't know whether he bet it or not. I never got anything, and I wasn't looking for anything.”

During the NFL's investigation of Karras, Lane says Karras had fingered him as being among those who bet. “Alex told Pete Rozelle, ‘Night Train was there, and you don't have him down.' So I told Alex, ‘What are you mentioning my name for? You're drowning, and you want to pull people down with you?'

“Rozelle asked me to take a lie detector test. I took it, and I passed. They asked me about a couple of guys in Las Vegas, and I told him that I hadn't been in Vegas for years. In my earlier days, I was a gambler. I'd gamble on anything. But I never bet on pro football while I was playing.” Lane, who also admitted to knowing Detroit gambler Don Dawson and the Giacalone brothers, was not accused of any wrongdoing.

However, the Detroit team was also fined $4,000 because its head coach, George Wilson, although not personally fined, had failed to report “certain associations by members of the Detroit team,” according to the NFL.

Rozelle also announced that he had received evidence that several other players around the league had been playing football betting cards. The players involved, who were not named, were
reprimanded but not fined. Neither Rick Casares nor Bob St. Clair was charged with any wrongdoing. Those other players and coaches who had also admitted relationships with Abe Samuels were not fined or reprimanded either.

After the penalties were handed down, Rozelle wrote in his final report, “There is no evidence that any NFL player has given less than his best in playing any game. There is no evidence that any player has ever bet against his own team. There is no evidence that any NFL player has sold information to gamblers.” Rozelle interviewed fifty-two people “relating to individuals connected with eight different clubs” during his probe of the players.

Karras remains defiant about the whole matter and told me, “I put myself on the line by saying that I gambled on the
Huntley-Brinkley Report
, which was totally edited [and taken out of context]. I went on to say how I gambled and what I gambled on. ‘Do you gamble?' I said, ‘Yes.' ‘That's Alex Karras of the Detroit Lions saying that he gambles.' That to me was a total setup. I don't know who set me up, but whoever it was—it worked. It was probably Carroll Rosenbloom and George Halas. Because it took a lot of heat off the NFL by putting Paul Hornung and me on suspension.”

However, Hornung was completely repentant. “I made a terrible mistake,” he told reporters. “I realize this now. I am truly sorry.”
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The suspensions of both players were lifted after one year. They were reinstated to their teams.

Meantime, NFL Players Association president Pete Retzlaff, a star end for the Philadelphia Eagles, announced that the NFL players will “police our own ranks. If the league advises us that a player is frequenting a shady establishment, we'll have three or four of the club leaders attempt to straighten him out.” Retzlaff, who also owned a cocktail lounge, asked, “How do you recognize these creeps [gamblers who frequent bars owned by NFL personnel]? They seek us out, we don't seek them out. If the league or the owners know who they are, let them tell us.”

After announcing the players' punishments, Rozelle added that his investigation of Rosenbloom was continuing but, “Carroll Rosenbloom has denied the charges [of betting against the Colts in 1953] in a sworn affidavit given to the commissioner and each of the individuals making such charges has since repudiated or withdrawn the allegations in affidavits or signed statements.”
³

In fact, of all those signing statements against Rosenbloom,
only Robert McGarvey, the former Philadelphia police officer and Rosenbloom aide, actually recanted. In a complete turnabout, McGarvey said, “I did all the betting on football games. Rosenbloom to my knowledge never bet on a pro game. I thought Rosenbloom would seek me out and offer me a job or something … I therefore repudiate my affidavit.”

Richard Melvin and Larry Murphy—the two other Rosenbloom associates who had signed affidavits against him—never repudiated their stories in their subsequent statements to Rozelle. Larry E. Murphy added, “My statement doesn't back down on a thing.”

McGarvey refused to be questioned about any pressure he had received to sign the repudiation—or who had applied it.