Interference (16 page)

Under oath in 1960, Rosenbloom denied all charges of gambling on or against the Colts. The Colts' owner added that although he was a gambler and had made numerous wagers on the golf course with McLaney, he had never made a bet on a professional football game since buying the Colts in 1953. To say or do anything to the contrary would have violated NFL rules and could have cost him his franchise.

After Benton had circulated the documents, Rozelle was asked by reporters why the case had lain dormant for so long. Rozelle simply replied, “We are exploring the allegations. We do not comment publicly on specific matters we are exploring.” Rozelle also said that there had been a time problem—because the 1962 football season had just ended and other investigations were being carried on.

In the midst of the Rosenbloom investigation, another unrelated betting scandal suddenly went public. On January 4, 1963, Chicago Bears owner George Halas, a friend of Rosenbloom, was quoted in
The Chicago Tribune
, saying that the NFL was investigating the possible gambling activities by “a member of a Midwest team.” Halas added that he had given the information to Rozelle, who was investigating the charges.
⁶

Rumors about possible widespread gambling among NFL players had begun early in the 1962 season after the heavily
favored Green Bay Packers did not cover the spread in its 9-7 defeat of the Detroit Lions in a contest played in Green Bay. Large bets and unnatural money had appeared on this game, which had been placed by beards who had received money from supposedly untraceable sources. Consequently, East Coast bookmakers took several subsequent NFL games off the boards.

After Halas made his statement, Rozelle confirmed that several members of the Bears team, along with players from as many as four other teams, were being investigated—because they “associated with undesirable types.” Rozelle added, “We haven't found any fire, but anytime we see any smoke we look fast.” He also said that the NFL looked into at least fifteen such cases each year. “Normally the only thing they produce is misjudgment on the part of players who are seen in the wrong places talking perhaps with the wrong kinds of people. We have not found a basis for any criminal prosecution. Usually the players are warned, and they immediately get back into line.”

Reportedly, Halas had been miffed because similar charges had been made against the Bears' star fullback, thirty-one-year-old Rick Casares. Supposedly cleared in a probe of his associations with a gambler by passing two polygraph tests, Casares, who liked to gamble in Las Vegas, had admitted a relationship with a Chicago gambler, known only as Zaza, which continued after the Bears and the NFL had instructed him to end it. The first lie detector test had been administered after Casares fumbled twice in a game between the Bears and the Los Angeles Rams in October 1961. He took the second test only a few weeks before the 1963 betting scandal had flared up—in the midst of dramatic changes in the point spreads of recent games.

During the polygraph examination, Casares was specifically asked: “Did you ever attempt to shave points?” “Did you deliberately fumble?” “Have you ever been offered money to shave points?” Casares answered no to all three questions and passed. However, when he answered no to the fourth question, “Is there anything in your personal life for which you could be pressured?” the needle of the polygraph jumped off the page. Casares explained that he had been the driver of a car in 1953 that crashed head-on into another vehicle. His female companion had been killed.

After Casares passed the second test, Halas declared, “The investigation can end right now because I'm convinced not a
single one of the Bears has ever tried to shave points or otherwise fix an NFL game.”

What was not publicly known at the time was that Casares's “godfather” was Florida Mafia boss Santos Trafficante of Tampa, according to two of the player's close friends.

One of these friends alleged, “Rick Casares bet. I remember in one particular game. All of the players, the water boys, everybody was standing on the sideline, totally involved with the game, except Rick—who was sitting alone on the bench with his eye on the scoreboard and the clock. He wasn't paying a bit of attention to the game. He was a total character, and he loved to gamble. He loved to gamble!”

Also investigated was Bob St. Clair, a star tackle for the San Francisco 49ers, who in 1956 had been loaned $6,000 against his salary and, along with several unknown people, had invested in a failed oil project that cost the player $7,000. St. Clair insisted that he had not known that several of those involved in the deal were heavy gamblers with ties to major underworld figures. Reporter Bob Curran wrote, “St. Clair, Rozelle's friend when they were undergraduates at San Francisco, phoned Rozelle and said, ‘They're crucifying me in the papers out here, calling me a crook and rat without even benefit of a trial. You've got to announce your findings that I'm not guilty.'

“Rozelle told him, ‘Sorry, Bob, we're going to have to make one announcement that will cover every case we've investigated that has been made public'”
⁷

AFL commissioner Joe Foss told reporters that his league was not the target of any investigations. “I'm not so naïve, however, to think that in any league of this kind, with so many players, there may not be a few boys who would have some contact or association with people who might be considered tainted.”

Meantime, yet another NFL investigation concentrated on Detroit Lions star defensive tackle Alex Karras, who was accused of being seen with several Detroit gamblers in a front-page report in
The Detroit News
on January 7, 1963. Karras initially had become a target because of his part ownership in the Lindell Bar with a known gambler and the gambler's brother. The all-pro tackle simply announced that he would quit football before selling his interest in the bar, and his colorful defiance brought him even more attention.

Karras told me, “The NFL asked me to leave the bar because of the unsavory characters who walked into the bar. I said, ‘Fine, I'll do that, just as long as you don't let the unsavory characters come into the stadium.' The NFL did not reply to that. I never worried about whether the league gave me permission or not. I was making nine thousand dollars a year playing football and eighteen thousand with the bar. It didn't make much sense to leave the bar to go play football.”

Then, Karras was interviewed by NBC reporter David Burke on January 13. Early in the interview, Karras stated, “I enjoy betting … I assume that there is betting going on in the league.”

During later questioning, Karras was asked, “Have you ever bet on a game in which you were playing?”

“Yes, I have,” Karras replied.

Karras's indiscretion forced the scandal to explode when the interview was aired on January 16 on NBC's evening news program,
The Huntley-Brinkley Report
.

When told of Karras's appearance on the news program, Rozelle said, “If Karras said that, he may have a real problem.”

13 The Party Bus

DESPITE ALL THE PUBLICITY the 1963 NFL gambling scandal produced, the full story behind the Lions' role in the affair has never been told. In Detroit, the investigation began in the early-morning hours of Saturday, August 18, 1962. Later that night, the Lions were to play the Dallas Cowboys as part of an NFL preseason doubleheader in Cleveland. Detroit police officers were conducting surveillance at the Grecian Gardens, a popular Detroit restaurant in the city's Greektown section. The café was located only a block south of police headquarters.

The police had been tipped off that Detroit's top Mafia figures were present at the restaurant that night, including: Anthony Zerilli, the son of the boss of the Detroit mob, Joseph Zerilli, and an officer of the Hazel Park Racing Association; Peter Vitale, a narcotics trafficker; Sam Giordano, who had been twice convicted of gambling; Anthony Corrado and Dominic Corrado, the sons of the “enforcer” of the Detroit Mafia, Peter Corrado; Anthony Cimini, a lieutenant in the local underworld; Anthony Giacalone, who was convicted of bribing a police officer in an effort to end the department's gambling surveillance and arrests; Vito Giacalone, Tony's brother and a convicted gambler; and Anthony Thomas, a convicted murderer.

Also identified in the police reports as being with the group was Wayne Walker, a linebacker for the Detroit Lions.

At 4:10
A.M
., the police observed Vito Giacalone drive out of the parking lot in a 1947 twin-bus containing several men and
women. The bus—painted in blue and silver, the Lions' team colors—was registered to Odus Tincher, a three-time-convicted gambler who was part of the group. The police report stated that Walker left the restaurant with the group and climbed into his 1961 Oldsmobile station wagon with Idaho tags and followed the bus.

The “party bus,” as it was known to the Detroit police, was a frequent sight on the city's streets. When in use, the bus was always loaded with mobsters, their women, and booze. There was even a bar and some bunk beds built in. So many Detroit gangsters were seen in the bus at the same time that one police officer joked that a simple speeding violation could lead to the biggest arrest since the 1957 Apalachin Conference.

At 5:50
A.M
., both the bus and Walker's car arrived at the Bunk House Cafe in Toledo, which was described in the police reports as being “connected in gambling operations in the Toledo area.” The police looked into the café through a window and observed nine Detroit men and four women sitting and talking together. A half hour later, both the bus and the station wagon left the café and continued on to Cleveland. Also, three other people, who had not been present in Detroit, were now in Walker's car. Among them was Raymond Gentile, the owner of the Bunk House, who was identified by police as “a well-known hoodlum in that area.” In all, there were now sixteen people in the Detroit group.

At 7:39
A.M
., according to police reports, the Ohio Highway Patrol “stopped the bus and the station wagon but got only the names of the drivers of the vehicles—Vito Giacalone was driving the bus and Wayne Walker was driving the 1961 Olds station wagon.” The cars proceeded to Cleveland without further interruption.

A few days later, the Detroit police decided to discuss the matter with the Lions' head coach, George Wilson. An appointment was made at a surburban restaurant, the Fox & Hounds Inn, which was part-owned by Donald Dawson, the Detroit gambler. During their conversation, Wilson said that he knew nothing about Walker's reported drive to Cleveland, but that several of his players—Walker, Alex Karras, guard John Gordy, and defensive end Darris McCord—had requested to return to Detroit apart from the rest of the team. Wilson said that all but Walker were to be traveling on a bus. Walker wanted to return in his
own car—which was going to be driven to Cleveland by Jimmy Butsicaris, a weekend gambler and Karras's partner in the Lindell Bar.

Pete Rozelle had ruled the Lindell off limits to NFL personnel because Detroit gamblers and Mafia figures often went there. However, Rozelle, according to Wilson, had lifted the ban when Karras told him that he wanted to become a partner in the Lindell with Butsicaris and the gambler's brother. Karras had paid the Butsicarises $40,000 for his one-third interest. Lions president, William Clay Ford, supported Karras's Lindell partnership.

The police report continued that Wilson had said, “Karras was a gambler and he [Wilson] didn't believe that he would ever stop gambling.” Wilson told the police that he would talk to Karras and Walker—as well as make the Grecian Gardens off limits to his players.

On January 4, 1963, as revelations about NFL gambling started to become public, the Detroit police interviewed Jim Butsicaris. In generally confirming the police surveillance reports, Butsicaris added that he and another Detroit gambler had sat on the Lions bench during the game as guests of Karras and Walker. Although Butsicaris was not identified in any police reports as being among the Detroit group traveling to Cleveland the previous August, he told the police that he, not Walker, had driven Walker's station wagon to Cleveland. The police did not confront him with the fact that the Ohio Highway Patrol had identified Walker as the driver.

After the game, Butsicaris said, the Detroit group went to Captain Frank's restaurant near Cleveland Stadium for dinner. Although Walker was not listed as being in attendance, the Detroit group was joined by players Gordy and Karras. Vito Giacalone picked up the check for everyone, according to Butsicaris, who added that Gordy and Karras then stayed with the group at the Shaker House Hotel in Cleveland. They all returned together on the bus the following afternoon as Giacalone's guests.

Detroit Police Commissioner George Edwards reportedly gave Rozelle a written report on December 27, 1962. However, Lions president Ford said that he wasn't notified of the police investigation until December 31. He learned of the probe from the Lions' general counsel. Apparently, head coach Wilson had failed to report his August meeting with the Detroit police to his superiors.

On January 6, 1963, after the NFL betting probe was revealed, the Miami police, at the request of Detroit police officials, placed Vito Giacalone and another Detroit mobster, Mike “the Enforcer” Rubino, under physical surveillance while they were present at the Lions-Pittsburgh Steelers play-off game at the Orange Bowl in Miami Beach. They were accompanied by Tony Zerilli and Tony Corrado. The Lions won the game, 17-10.

The Miami police had learned that the four Mafia figures were registered at a local hotel under assumed names. However, while tailing them in traffic, the police twice lost the mobsters' rented Cadillac. Although there were no known contacts between the Mafia figures and Lions players during that trip, the Detroit gangsters were observed meeting with Joseph Massei, the gambling overlord of the Miami area.