Until now, the most famous bet in football history wasCarroll Rosenbloom’s under-the-table $25,000 wager on his Baltimore Coltswinning the 1958 championship game.
Such a number looks like small potatoes now as the NationalFootball League opens its 100th season this week with a full, arms-open-wideembrace of gambling This time, it’s legal, though – and this time, the betswill be computed in the millions.
All Rosenbloom’s bet might have done is change the course ofpro football history.
He owned the Colts back in the 1950s, back when they playedthe New York Giants in the fabled Sudden Death championship contest that’sstill called “the Greatest Game Ever Played” because it changed America’ssporting culture.
Back then, baseball was the national pastime. The SuddenDeath game was the start of pro football’s sporting dominance, which enters fertilenew (but tricky) territory now with the widening legalization of sports bettingacross the country.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law that hadbanned sports betting in most states. A dozen states have formally legalizedit. Several more are close. Maryland legislators will likely take a look at itthis coming General Assembly session.
Not that legalisms have ever stopped fans from betting.
Pro football’s always drawn huge numbers of bettors. Fans study the weekly point spreads like haftorah lessons. As the league commences its 100th season, any honest reading of its history acknowledges that some of its earliest owners were themselves hip deep in gambling.
The Giants’ owner Tim Mara had been a bookmaker at SaratogaRacetrack. The Steelers’ Art Rooney owned a racetrack, and the ChicagoCardinals’ Charles Bidwill made his fortune printing pari-mutuel tickets.
And then there was Rosenbloom. Everybody, including then-NFLCommissioner Bert Bell, knew Rosenbloom was betting every week. The league’sposition on all betting was: Pretend it isn’t happening. Make sure nothinghappens that effects play on the field. And to those such as Rosenbloom, pleasebe discreet.
Rosenbloom used to place his wagers with an eastsidebookmaker named Gussie Huditean, who owned a Highlandtown nightspot known asGussie’s Downbeat. Long after Rosenbloom died in 1979 – under questionablecircumstances, while Rosenbloom was swimming – Gussie insisted the Colts’ ownerbet with him every week.
But on the championship game, Gussie said, Rosenbloom handedover $25,000.
The bet set up one of the most whispered-about plays in NFLhistory. The point spread on the title game had the Colts winning by 3½ points.In the overtime period, they drove deep into Giants’ territory, where an easyfield goal would break the 17-17 tie.
To many, it seemed far safer than going for a touchdown. Buta field goal would only give the Colts a three-point victory – a championship,yes, but it wouldn’t have covered the point spread, and would have leftRosenbloom $25,000 poorer.
Is that why the Colts went for the touchdown?
Rosenbloom wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t even admit he’d placeda bet. Coach Weeb Ewbank simply said he trusted quarterback John Unitas morethan he trusted the erratic kicker Steve Myhra.
Over the years, if you asked any of the Colts about it, theywere insulted. That game was the triumph of their lives, and they resented anyoneimplying Rosenbloom’s money was even a minor factor in their victory.
But the legend hung over the sport for years. It became areference point when frustrated gamblers saw one of their bets slip fromvictory to loss over some inexplicable play, or some questionable call by areferee.
And that leaves the league in its newest, trickiestterritory. If legalized betting expands the dollars, does it also expand theaccusations about gambling money affecting the games themselves?
There’s more money coming in – but is the league opening a door and stumbling off a cliff on the other side?
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, most recently “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age” (Johns Hopkins University Press).
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