"The best book on the NFL's connection to the mob and the American gambling scene was Dan Moldea's groundbreaking "Interference." Moldea tore apart the league's papier-mache image and illustrated that, without gamblers, it would have remained on the sandlots.
Take Tim Mara, for instance. He was a major New York bookmaker who in 1925 purchased the New York Giants. Mara was connected to a bookmaking organization later known as the Genovese crime family.
And there's Charles Bidwell. He was a bootlegger and racetrack owner who bought the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) in 1933. Among Bidwell's business associates was Scarface Al Capone, who didn't get that scar on the gridiron.
Art Rooney, who was tight with major bookmakers, in 1940 purchased the Pittsburgh Pirates (now the Steelers). Rooney's high-rolling gambling and association with underworld types was ignored by the league he helped create.
There's Bert Bell, the horse junkie and Capone pal who purchased the Frankford Yellow Jackets and later the Philadelphia Eagles. Of course,
a more notorious gambling Eagles owner was Leonard Tose, whose compulsion ruined his life and, once again, bent the league's cardboard facade.Dick Richards, who bought the Portsmouth Spartans (now the Detroit Lions) didn't hide his bets on his own team with underworld bookmakers. Give him credit for candor, a commodity sorely lacking these days.
One of my favorite stories is the tale of Mickey McBride, who bought the Cleveland Browns at a time he was partners with Chicago racket boss James Reagan in the Continental Racing Wire -- the Capone mob's link to nationwide horse betting.Although many know that Estes Kefauver's early-1950s U.S. Senate rackets committee focused on organized crime's connection to the American gambling scene, few may remember that Bidwell and McBride were among the notorious characters mentioned with the likes of Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky.
For big-league hypocrisy, you can't beat the NFL's refusal to lift even a scolding finger to mobbed-up gambler Carroll Rosenbloom, who owned the Baltimore Colts and later the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom was pals with Lansky bagman Lou Chesler and Genovese bookmaker Gil Beckley. Evidence suggests Rosenbloom participated in tainted games and associated with Mafia bookmakers all his life.
More recently, San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo was tied to a felonious gambling licensing deal linked to then-Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Although uncharged, DeBartolo is no longer officially associated with the team. Not even the NFL could ignore such a public link to scandal."
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