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Sports Arena
The Gambler
In the end, Alex Karras was lucky he didn’t play for the Detroit Tigers.
Alex Karras, known to my generation more as Emmanuel Lewis’s warmhearted pa on Webster than as a ferocious Lions lineman, passed away earlier this week at 77. Deep in the obituaries, if there at all, contained mention that Pete Rozelle kicked Karras, and the “golden boy” Paul Hornung, out of the National Football League for betting and obnoxious associations in 1963.
Had Pete Rose died this week instead of Alex Karras, the lead, and much of the obituary that followed, would have fixated on gambling. This despite Rose leaving a more indelible mark on baseball than Karras left on football. Alas, the customs of baseball and football are as alike as the neutral zone and the strike zone, the former where balls go and the latter where strikes do.
Americans place more wagers on professional football than on all other sporting events combined. The appearance of handicappers on pregame shows, the easy availability of parlay cards, and the diversity of prop bets (“Will Rex Ryan still be the Head Coach of the Jets Week 17 of the 2012 NFL Season?”) have through the years advertised the ties between gambling and the gridiron.
Fantasy Football, best seen as a recovery program for degenerate gamblers, distorts how one watches the game as grotesquely as betting does. If you have observed a gambler clamor for a team to kick a field goal rather than kneel out the clock, or a rotisserie team owner scream at the quarterback to throw to an obscure player, then you know how both bettors and fantasy enthusiasts watch a different game than the rest of us.
Gamblers play a different game, too, which makes their presence on the field so dangerous. While trailing against Army in 1920, George Gipp, thought by some to be college football’s greatest player, hurled a bomb when the situation called for a punt. “That was gambling, absolute gambling,” a shocked, shocked Knute Rockne later explained, “and proved to me that Gipp was a gambler.”
But the previous year, Gipp made no secret of wagering when he led Notre Dame to an improbable, if profitable, 12-9 conquest of Army. “The victory was literally profitable to the Notre Dame players who, collectively, had raised around $2,000 of their own that they wagered against Army, whose players also put up the same amount, in a winner-take-all bet, not uncommon among big-time college teams of the era,” Jack Cavanaugh explained in The Gipper. The largest chunk of the pot belonged to Gipp, who attended the pool halls of South Bend as religiously as he avoided its classrooms. If the pigskin martyr made a celluloid hero by Ronald Reagan had ever really uttered the phrase, “Win one for the Gipper,” he certainly meant a pool-hall hustle or a card game — not a mere athletic contest.
Part of Karras’s bitterness over his suspension stemmed from the league’s more lenient policy on gambling when it came to bosses. Tim Mara, patriarch of the New York Giants, bought into the NFL through profits earned as a bookie. Carol Rosenbloom, who owned the Baltimore Colts and then the Los Angeles Rams, was an inveterate gambler whose drowning sparked bookie-retribution conspiracy theories. Art Rooney won a fortune picking horses before he went all-in as founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Do as we say, not as we do.
Far from a Pete Rose-pariah, Karras’s star rose after his gambling suspension. He punched out a horse in Blazing Saddles. He manned the Monday Night Football booth with Howard Cosell for several seasons. He could be seen on Johnny Carson’s couch, and alongside Charles Nelson Reilly and Richard Dawson on Match Game, during the seventies. Karras’s career took off after retirement.
In 1962, Alex Karras won the $100 bet on the Green Bay Packers that lost him his job. But he didn’t lose much else. During his suspension, he poured drinks at his controversial bar that initially drew the NFL’s interest, wrestled professionally, and defiantly named his son Alvin — Pete Rozelle’s given first name. With his livelihood and sense of humor intact, the reinstated Detroit Lions captain later informed a referee asking “Heads or tails?” at midfield: “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not permitted to gamble.”
Major League Baseball, which features no games of chance to start its contests, proves less tolerant of its gamblers than the National Football League does of its. If only Pete Rose, a linebacker on the baseball diamond, had answered his true sports calling, he too might have had eulogists depicting him as a person as cuddly as Alex Karras’s television son.
There’s no crying in baseball. There’s no “Say it ain’t so, Art Schlichter” in football.
About the Author
Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The War on Football: Saving America’s Game, blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
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Stilton A. Cheese| 10.12.12 @ 8:45AM
"Mongo only pawn in game of life."
Stuart Koehl| 10.12.12 @ 9:16AM
"Mongo just thorn in side of life".
Occam's Tool| 10.16.12 @ 1:19AM
"Mongo respect Sheriff Bart."
tankrtrash| 10.12.12 @ 8:50AM
Alex Karras spent his football career deep in the trenches down where the rubber meets the road and became the face and embodiment of those poor, nameless bastards that made their living in that meat grinder every Sunday. His humor and panache on Monday Night Football was one of the main reasons I watched it (certainly not to listen to Cosell blow) and he brought some recognition to the guys that made the big stars shine.
He came from a different era and I'll miss him.
cuban pete| 10.12.12 @ 10:38AM
The point spread for the famous Colts v Giants sudden death game that "made" pro football was five points. You will recall in those days the goal post was on the goal line. The Colts could have kicked a chip shot field goal and won but instead Unitas threw a pass and Ameche punched in a touchdown to win the game but more importantly cover the spread. Do you think that decision was made by Weeb Eubank the coach or Carol Rosenbloom the owner?
Moe Blotz| 10.12.12 @ 12:32PM
Enough time remained on the clock to work the ball closer to the goal line in order to make a field goal easier, instead the Horse scored a touchdown. The NFL did not have the sidewinders kicking back then, and most attempts had to be from inside the 40 yard line. If the Baltimore Colts had run out of downs, they would have kicked the field goal. Trying to revise history by accusing management of collusion does not fly.
cuban pete| 10.12.12 @ 2:57PM
No revision. I'm just saying Rosenbloom wanted to cover the spread. I heard this "theory" from several people, all of whom bet a lot of money on sporting events.
The American Spectator | 10.12.12 @ 2:36PM
Thanks, Pete. More on the game here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
L.E. Powers| 10.12.12 @ 10:42AM
I'm not sure, Daniel--are you complaining about Karras' getting a pass or about how unfair life has been to Pete Rose? I grant that Charlie Hustle
was definitely great ball player, but he never accepted responsibility for his actions and moved on. Karras did that. Americans want to forgive and love their gifted celebrities. Just look at the rehab of Robert Downey, Jr. Dealing with your problem and then working hard to demonstrate your change turns mistakes into heroic stories of sin and redemption.
When Rose came clean in 2004, he was looking at Cooperstown. If he tried doing what Karras and Downey did, people would love him and he' have had a more fulfilling life.
Mars the Avenger| 10.12.12 @ 11:43AM
Another film legend (Mongo!) and football great passes from the scene. May God rest your soul, Mongo....
KyMouse| 10.12.12 @ 11:55AM
We happened to be watching the old miniseries "Centennial" this week, thanks to Netflix, and watched Karras portray a farmer through many episodes. He did a pretty good job.
Cromulent| 10.12.12 @ 4:03PM
You think Karras hated Rozelle? Ha. He really hated Russ Thomas.
cicero| 10.12.12 @ 4:44PM
Good stuff. No one liked Russ Thomas. He knew nothing about football, and was only where he was because he was the guy that picked the owner up when he was too drunk to drive home.
The Gipp era has been defined by that stupid movie. In fact, a lot of the players, including Gipp, were paid to play. He never went to class, and never graduated. My dad was from that era, and played in the old Ohio Valley League - now the NFL. He played for the Wheeling Bearcats, who played against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears, Cinci, and the Canton Bulldogs (who became the Detroit Lions). Notre Dame offered him a schoralship, and took him on a tour of the campus. He turned it down, as he had only finished thee 8th grade, and needed the wages from the steel mill to help support the family.
Karras was a character. Before the sidewinder kickers, he complained about the Green Bay kicker, who only one half of a foot, so his shoe was flat in front, giving him an advantage. He kicked a 52 yard field goal to win a Thanksgiving Day game. Tfhat is why the game was so much fun. The characters.
Frederick Giannini| 10.13.12 @ 8:47PM
The kicker with half a foot was Tom Dempsey of the Saints, who kicked a 63 yard field goal against Karrras' Lions in 1970.
Frederick Giannini| 10.13.12 @ 8:48PM
Sorry, "Karras" not "Karrras".
Oldefarte| 10.14.12 @ 1:39PM
Yes absolutely, and as a lifetime Saints fan, I'd add that Tom Dempsey was born with a clubbed foot and hand/arm. He, like Karrass, made the most of his talents and life, as many in the New Orleans community can attest to his many charitable endevers after his kicking days in the NFL expired!!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 10.14.12 @ 1:42PM
Oh, and also, his clubbed foot was thoroughly investigated by the NFL commissioners office [Pete Roselle] and determined to be completely legal as to their/NFL rules of play. Karras' storytelling of same 63 yard kick was intended as comedy and was understood as same!!!!!
Oldefarte| 10.14.12 @ 1:44PM
Oh and finally, it was a 63 yard field goal, not 53 yard one. Lets don't shortchange a clubfooted kicker his due 10 extra yards for a longstanding record, okay?????
Oldefarte| 10.14.12 @ 1:35PM
Oh Pete Rose? Rumor has it that Dodgers' former manager Tommy Lasorda was once asked if he thought Pete Rose should be allowed to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. Lasorda contemplated the question for a long time and finally answered........RULES ARE RULES! Alex Karras obviously won't be entering the NFL HOF either, but at least with him, the question of same will never enter a conversation. RULES ARE RULES! Karras did apparently live his life in mostly an honorable fashion from beginning to end, and I don't know if same could be said of Rose and others. Karras made the most of his talents within his lifetime, and if all of us could say the same thing about ourselves, the world would be a far better place in which to live!!!!!!
Occam's Tool| 10.16.12 @ 1:20AM
Alex was a superb actor---check him out in Victor/Victoria.