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Transcript

The NFL: A Dead Owner, A Dead Gangster, A League Founded on Gambling · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:16
Speaker 1: the origins of the NFL are insane. They involved mobsters,
0:21
Speaker 1: bag men, and degenerate gamblers, alleged corruption at the highest level,
0:27
Speaker 1: a body in the trunk of a Rolls Royce, a
0:30
Speaker 1: body on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, and a
0:33
Speaker 1: federal investigation into the men behind some of the greatest
0:37
Speaker 1: sports moments of all time, moments that seemed like poetry
0:41
Speaker 1: in motion, comparable to some of the greatest music ever made.
0:46
Speaker 1: Unlike that loop I played for you at the top
0:48
Speaker 1: of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a
0:52
Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called Yankee Hotel Cha Cha
0:57
Speaker 1: MK two played you that loop because I can't afford
1:02
Speaker 1: the rights to another Brick in the Wall Part two
1:05
Speaker 1: by Pink Floyd. And why would I play you that
1:09
Speaker 1: specific slice of Schoolboy Uprising Cheese? Could I afford it?
1:16
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:19
Speaker 1: April tewod nineteen eighty And that was the day that
1:23
Speaker 1: Carol Rosenbloom, owner of the Los Angeles Rams, and a
1:27
Speaker 1: man at the center of a federal investigation into the NFL,
1:31
Speaker 1: drowned mysteriously in the Atlantic Ocean. On this episode, mobsters,
1:38
Speaker 1: bag men, degenerate gamblers, corruption, murder, and the criminal origins
1:43
Speaker 1: of America's favorite pastime in the NFL. I'm Jake Brennan,
1:50
Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. The two Los Angeles detectives stood
2:26
Speaker 1: in the North Hollywood garage shivering. It was unseasonably cold
2:30
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Or was that just the cold chill
2:34
Speaker 1: of murder making itself known. Neither detective knew for sure.
2:39
Speaker 1: They were fixated on the back of the parked red
2:42
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce. The key to the trunk was in hand.
2:46
Speaker 1: They knew that opening it would prompt more questions than answers,
2:50
Speaker 1: Questions like who really was Vick Weiss and how legitimate
2:54
Speaker 1: a businessman was he? And were the rumors true that
2:58
Speaker 1: our weekends? Vic flew by pre jet into Las Vegas
3:01
Speaker 1: with a suitcase full of cash to lay onto a
3:04
Speaker 1: bookmaker to bet football for his wealthy friends. Back in
3:07
Speaker 1: La gambling was legal in Vegas but illegal most everywhere
3:12
Speaker 1: else in America. In nineteen seventy nine, the word was
3:16
Speaker 1: that Vic bet football for one of the biggest names
3:18
Speaker 1: in football, Los Angeles Rams owner Carol Rosenbloom. Owning a
3:23
Speaker 1: team didn't dissuade Carol from doing the one thing he
3:26
Speaker 1: absolutely should not be doing, wagering on the outcome of
3:31
Speaker 1: his own team's games. That type of behavior would raise
3:35
Speaker 1: even more questions. Were the Rams on the level? Were
3:38
Speaker 1: the Rams throwing games at the behest of their gambling owner?
3:43
Speaker 1: Carol couldn't have that, but he couldn't not bet either.
3:47
Speaker 1: Betting was his birthright. So Vic was put to work
3:50
Speaker 1: as a bagman to place Carol's bets for him, or
3:53
Speaker 1: so they said. They also said Vic placed his own bets,
3:59
Speaker 1: bets with the types of guys you don't well shan
4:02
Speaker 1: mob guys, and the rumor was that Vic owed the
4:06
Speaker 1: mob big. One of the detectives inserted the key and
4:11
Speaker 1: popped the trunk of the Rolls Royce, and there he
4:14
Speaker 1: was bick Weiss, the bag man, bound and bagged, lying
4:20
Speaker 1: dead right there in the trunk. The murder of vick Weiss,
4:26
Speaker 1: a man who watched most LA Rams home games from
4:29
Speaker 1: the press box at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, was
4:32
Speaker 1: never solved, and as far as scandals affiliated with the NFL,
4:36
Speaker 1: it barely qualifies. This event is nothing compared to the
4:41
Speaker 1: scandals of recent years. In twenty thirteen, New England Patriots
4:46
Speaker 1: star tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested and eventually convicted
4:50
Speaker 1: for the murder of friend Odin Lloyd. In two thousand
4:53
Speaker 1: and seven, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, one of the
4:57
Speaker 1: biggest stars in the game at the time, was arrested
4:59
Speaker 1: for his involvement in an illegal dog fighting ring. In
5:03
Speaker 1: two thousand, Baltimore Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis and two
5:07
Speaker 1: friends were indicted for murder. Lewis struck a plea bargain
5:11
Speaker 1: with investigators in exchange for his testimony against his fellow defendants.
5:15
Speaker 1: He received probation for an incident that many believe Lewis
5:19
Speaker 1: had more to do with than he admits. These stories
5:23
Speaker 1: made significant headlines and resulted in major embarrassment for the
5:26
Speaker 1: National Football League, and they all shared one thing in common.
5:31
Speaker 1: In each case, the trouble that the NFL player got
5:34
Speaker 1: himself into happened in large part because of the people
5:37
Speaker 1: the players chose to associate with. This is partly while
5:41
Speaker 1: the NFL has long had a rule governing who players
5:45
Speaker 1: can and cannot hang around with, the NFL has gone
5:50
Speaker 1: to great lengths to discourage its players from hanging around
5:53
Speaker 1: with criminals. New York Jets star quarterback Joe Namath was
5:57
Speaker 1: forced to claim he was retiring from football in nineteen
6:00
Speaker 1: sixty nine because he wouldn't give up ownership of his
6:03
Speaker 1: Manhattan restaurant, Bachelor's Three, where wise guys and gangsters were
6:08
Speaker 1: known to hang out. Eventually, Joe went back on his
6:12
Speaker 1: pledge to retire and sold his club to return to football,
6:15
Speaker 1: but that didn't really change anything. Illegal betting on football
6:19
Speaker 1: was big business at the time. It still is. But
6:23
Speaker 1: like I said, it was legal to place bets at
6:25
Speaker 1: sportsbooks in Las Vegas, but that money was small potatoes
6:30
Speaker 1: compared to the amount of money bet illegally on professional
6:33
Speaker 1: football throughout the rest of the country, money that was
6:37
Speaker 1: sometimes carried secretly in brown leather bags by guys like
6:41
Speaker 1: Vick Weiss, guys who, sometimes because of the men they
6:45
Speaker 1: associated with, wound up murdered odds makers. Those professional betters,
7:16
Speaker 1: the betting experts, many of whom had checkered associations with
7:20
Speaker 1: mobsters themselves, Those mysterious characters who gathered information every week
7:25
Speaker 1: to set the betting lines for professional football games. I
7:28
Speaker 1: e the point differential, they favored one team over another
7:31
Speaker 1: the point spread. Their work, the odds makers were was
7:35
Speaker 1: entirely dependent on information. Information about the teams determined how
7:40
Speaker 1: the line was set. For those wondering what a line is,
7:44
Speaker 1: it's simple. Say the odds makers set the line at
7:47
Speaker 1: six points and favor the forty nine ers to beat
7:49
Speaker 1: the Jets. That means the forty nine ers are giving
7:53
Speaker 1: the Jets six points. The line is San Francisco forty
7:57
Speaker 1: nine Ers minus six points over the New York Jets.
8:01
Speaker 1: You like the forty nine ers to win even though
8:03
Speaker 1: they're giving the Jets six points. You don't care that
8:07
Speaker 1: the Jets have Aaron Rodgers coming back. The game is
8:09
Speaker 1: being played in San Francisco on a Monday night, and
8:12
Speaker 1: Niners fans will be into it. So you take the
8:14
Speaker 1: forty nine ers for one hundred dollars. Now, for you
8:18
Speaker 1: to win your bet, the forty nine ers have to
8:20
Speaker 1: win by more than six points. If they win by
8:23
Speaker 1: any point differential less than that, you lose. This is
8:27
Speaker 1: the point spread, and defeating it does not come easily.
8:31
Speaker 1: Those six points weren't selected arbitrarily. Those six points were
8:35
Speaker 1: meticulously decided upon using all the information on the planet
8:39
Speaker 1: that the odds makers could get their hands on before
8:41
Speaker 1: setting the line, Meaning the odds maker would not only
8:44
Speaker 1: take into account which team was simply better, but every
8:48
Speaker 1: single possible edge, Which team was playing with the home
8:51
Speaker 1: field advantage, which team had a quarterback with a cold,
8:55
Speaker 1: a kicker who liked to stay up late partying, a
8:57
Speaker 1: wide out with an injury he was keeping from the pub.
9:01
Speaker 1: Any and all information goes into deciding that line because
9:05
Speaker 1: millions of dollars depend on the outcome of that game.
9:09
Speaker 1: The same goes for every football game and every point
9:12
Speaker 1: spread that week, and for every week of the season
9:15
Speaker 1: this season, and for every season going back to the
9:18
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, because betting football illegally was and always has
9:23
Speaker 1: been very big business. But back to the now. Say
9:28
Speaker 1: you win that bet. Say Aaron Rodgers goes out there
9:31
Speaker 1: and craps the bed due to an ayahuasca hangover or something,
9:34
Speaker 1: and the Niners win by a score of twenty eight
9:37
Speaker 1: to twenty one. Congratulations, you now have an extra ninety
9:41
Speaker 1: dollars in your pocket. Oh wait a minute, you say
9:44
Speaker 1: you bet one hundred dollars. Yes that's correct, you did,
9:48
Speaker 1: and yes you won. But you don't win the one
9:51
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, you win the one hundred dollars minus ten dollars,
9:55
Speaker 1: which is the big or the fee you have to
9:57
Speaker 1: pay the bookie for taking the bet. Doesn't matter if
10:01
Speaker 1: you're betting with TAGSI down at the Polish American Veterans Club,
10:04
Speaker 1: or you're placing a bet on fan duel or another
10:06
Speaker 1: of the many legal betting apps. You still have to
10:09
Speaker 1: pay the VIG, which is the fee the bookie, legal
10:13
Speaker 1: or illegal, charges you for booking the bet, for doing
10:16
Speaker 1: business with you, for taking the bet, for paying you out,
10:19
Speaker 1: and presumably for murdering you and stuffing you into a
10:22
Speaker 1: soup bag and locking you up in the back of
10:24
Speaker 1: a red Rose Royce like Vick Weiss. If you don't
10:27
Speaker 1: pay your losses, bookies don't lose. Ever, that's the beauty
10:32
Speaker 1: of it. No matter what. If you lose, they win.
10:36
Speaker 1: If you win, they win. Because winner lose the bet,
10:39
Speaker 1: they still collect the VIG, and that VIG from all
10:42
Speaker 1: the bets they make, from all the action they take.
10:45
Speaker 1: It adds up as long as they keep the number
10:48
Speaker 1: of bets somewhat even as long as the number of
10:50
Speaker 1: people who bet on the forty nine ers is close
10:52
Speaker 1: to the number of people who bet on the Jets.
10:54
Speaker 1: The wins will offset the losses, and the wig will
10:57
Speaker 1: provide the gravy on top. The way a bookie loses
11:01
Speaker 1: is if they let the money get too heavy on
11:03
Speaker 1: one side of the bet or another, say, if too
11:06
Speaker 1: many people are betting the forty nine ers and not
11:07
Speaker 1: enough for betting the Jets. If this happens, the odds
11:10
Speaker 1: makers just move the line. In this case, they'd increase
11:13
Speaker 1: the number of points the Niners were giving the Jets
11:15
Speaker 1: to entice betters to take the Jets, to even out
11:18
Speaker 1: the amount of money bet on each team to cover
11:20
Speaker 1: the collective ass of the bookies. So no matter which
11:22
Speaker 1: team wins, the house with its vague always wins. So
11:30
Speaker 1: in a game where a single point can mean the
11:32
Speaker 1: difference between winning and losing millions of dollars, you can
11:36
Speaker 1: see why inside information about the team is so important.
11:40
Speaker 1: The information determines the point spread. Odds makers want to
11:43
Speaker 1: know every single thing they can, and they want to
11:45
Speaker 1: use that information to set the best possible lines. Where
11:49
Speaker 1: do you think odds makers get this information? Often from
11:54
Speaker 1: people close to the team, from journalists, from team personnel,
11:58
Speaker 1: even yes from players. Given this dynamic, you can see
12:03
Speaker 1: why the NFL doesn't want its star players hanging out
12:06
Speaker 1: with known undesirables, with gangsters, with the very men responsible
12:11
Speaker 1: for all of the betting being waged illegally on professional
12:14
Speaker 1: football back in nineteen sixty nine. The NFL didn't want
12:19
Speaker 1: the headache of having to deal with the accusations that
12:21
Speaker 1: went along with Joe Namath hanging out with mobsters. If
12:25
Speaker 1: the quarterback of the New York Jets was hanging around
12:27
Speaker 1: with the nefarious men who controlled illegal betting in America,
12:30
Speaker 1: Who's to say that the Jets quarterback wasn't susceptible to
12:33
Speaker 1: the corrupt influence of these men, men he counted as friends.
12:37
Speaker 1: Who's to say that the quarterback wasn't giving valuable information
12:41
Speaker 1: to his gangster friends, or worse, that he was impacting
12:45
Speaker 1: the game with his play to benefit his gangster friends.
12:48
Speaker 1: The league couldn't have it. The integrity of the game
12:51
Speaker 1: was at state. So either Joe Namas had to leave
12:54
Speaker 1: his mafioso buddies behind and divest from his restaurant, or
12:57
Speaker 1: the NFL was going to leave Joe Namath behind Broadway.
13:01
Speaker 1: Joe chose the wise guys, but walked away from football
13:05
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty six for a minute anyway.
13:08
Speaker 1: Then Joe, like I said, caved, sold this club and unretired.
13:14
Speaker 1: The NFL has always made claims about safeguarding the integrity
13:18
Speaker 1: of the game. The subject is one that the league
13:20
Speaker 1: has always been intimately familiar with and concerned about. Not
13:24
Speaker 1: because the NFL is led by moralists, no, precisely the opposite.
13:30
Speaker 1: It's because the NFL was founded by, and for the
13:32
Speaker 1: bulk of the twentieth century, run by degenerate gamblers. Its
13:37
Speaker 1: team owners. Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney was a racetrack owner.
13:43
Speaker 1: New York Giants owner Tim Morrow was himself a bookmaker
13:46
Speaker 1: at Saratoga Racetrack, a track under the control of the
13:50
Speaker 1: notorious gangster Meyer Landscape. Charles Bidwell, the original owner of
13:55
Speaker 1: the Chicago Cardinals, the team that eventually became the Arizona Cardinals,
13:59
Speaker 1: was a known as associated notorious gangster Al Capone. All
14:04
Speaker 1: three owners are now in the NFL Hall of Fame,
14:08
Speaker 1: but another owner does not, and that would be former
14:11
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Rams owner Carol Rosenbloom, the man whose rumored
14:16
Speaker 1: bag man wound up dead in the back of that
14:18
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce and a man whose own death remains one
14:22
Speaker 1: of the most mysterious events in the history of the NFL.
14:32
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. We're we're, We're In.
14:39
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty eight, baseball was America's favorite pastime that was
14:44
Speaker 1: all about to change because of a single illegal bet,
14:48
Speaker 1: a million dollar bet. The New York Football Giants were
14:51
Speaker 1: facing off for the league championship against Carol Rosenbloom's Baltimore Colts,
14:56
Speaker 1: the team Rosenbloom owned before becoming owner of the Los
14:59
Speaker 1: angele Less Rams back in fifty eight. Rosenbloom watched the
15:04
Speaker 1: game's final minutes along with the rest of America, on
15:07
Speaker 1: the edge of his seat. This was the most anticipated,
15:11
Speaker 1: most watched, most listened to, most read about, and most
15:14
Speaker 1: talked about professional football game to date. The sport was
15:18
Speaker 1: still young. Baseball and its larger than life personalities Mickey
15:22
Speaker 1: Mantle Willie may Stand usual had a solid grip on
15:26
Speaker 1: America's imagination, but the drama about to unfold in this
15:30
Speaker 1: football game would capture American hearts and minds. The game
15:36
Speaker 1: was tied seventeen seventeen in sudden death overtime. The point
15:40
Speaker 1: spread was three and a half points. Rosenbloom's Colts were
15:44
Speaker 1: giving three and a half to the Giants, and he
15:46
Speaker 1: win by less than three and a half points, and
15:48
Speaker 1: all the betters who took the Colts, including their degenerate
15:51
Speaker 1: gambling owner Carol Rosenbloom, who had three million dollars wagered
15:55
Speaker 1: on the outcome with two friends, would lose. All tied
16:00
Speaker 1: up in overtime, the Colts and their young quarterback Johnny
16:03
Speaker 1: Unitas marched deep into Giants territory. A three point field
16:07
Speaker 1: goal would secure the win in the Championship for the Colts,
16:10
Speaker 1: and they were now well within field goal range, but
16:13
Speaker 1: for some reason, they kept driving. Uniteds threw a risky,
16:17
Speaker 1: dangerous pass from the eight yard line. The hearts of
16:20
Speaker 1: every Colts fan in America stopped in unison until the
16:23
Speaker 1: Colts tight end pulled the ball out of the air
16:25
Speaker 1: and caught it at the one yard line. The one
16:28
Speaker 1: yard line a field goal now would have been a
16:31
Speaker 1: chip shot from that distance in victory and the championship
16:34
Speaker 1: would have been in hand. But while Colts owner Caro
16:38
Speaker 1: Rosenbloom sat watching with his million dollar bet riding on
16:41
Speaker 1: a three and a half point win, by his Colts
16:44
Speaker 1: three and a half points that a three point field
16:46
Speaker 1: goal would not have secured. The Colts did something highly suspicious.
16:52
Speaker 1: They went for the touchdown. They went for the six points.
16:56
Speaker 1: On the next play, Uniteds took the snap and handed
16:59
Speaker 1: the ball to Holt's running back Alan Amichi. Amichi plunged
17:03
Speaker 1: forward across the goal line to score a touchdown in
17:05
Speaker 1: sudden death, winning the championship for the Baltimore Colts and
17:09
Speaker 1: the million dollar bet for their owner, Carol Rosenbloom. The
17:15
Speaker 1: game was breathtaking, and the historic final drive, with all
17:19
Speaker 1: of its high drama, cemented football as America's new favorite pastime,
17:23
Speaker 1: which the game most certainly would grow into over the
17:26
Speaker 1: coming years. Ask any member of the Baltimore Colts about
17:30
Speaker 1: that final play, and they tell you Unitus called it
17:33
Speaker 1: on his own, that it was his daring, cutthroat competitive
17:36
Speaker 1: nature to do so. Yet the rumors persisted, The whispers
17:41
Speaker 1: grew louder that Colts owner Carol Rosenbloom wasn't on the level.
17:45
Speaker 1: Never was that he was betting football while owning a
17:49
Speaker 1: football team. Reportedly, that wasn't all that Carol Rosenbloom was
17:53
Speaker 1: up to as an owner By nineteen seventy two, Rosenbloom
17:57
Speaker 1: had become the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, and
18:00
Speaker 1: the Rams were on their way to their first Super
18:02
Speaker 1: Bowl appearance. All NFL postseason games create incredible demand for tickets.
18:08
Speaker 1: Ticket scalping, procuring tickets at face value and then turning
18:11
Speaker 1: around and selling those tickets at an inflated value is
18:15
Speaker 1: and always has been a big illegal business that the
18:18
Speaker 1: NFL has had to contend with. By the time the
18:21
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Rams put together a real team, a team
18:24
Speaker 1: led by fearsome defensive n Jack Youngblood, a team capable
18:28
Speaker 1: of reaching the Super Bowl, a massive federal investigation was underway,
18:33
Speaker 1: one led by the IRS, in which Rams owner Carol
18:36
Speaker 1: Rosenbloom was reportedly being investigated for his part in an
18:39
Speaker 1: illegal ticket scalping scam, a scam that Rosenblum's wife denied
18:44
Speaker 1: her family took part in, but nonetheless a scam that
18:47
Speaker 1: a sworn legal deposition would reveal Rosenbloom and other NFL
18:51
Speaker 1: owners have been allegedly running for years, a scam in
18:54
Speaker 1: which owners like Rosenbloom would allegedly purchase thousands of their
18:58
Speaker 1: team's tickets for postseason games and put them on the
19:01
Speaker 1: black market to be resold at massively inflated prices for
19:06
Speaker 1: a game back in the seventies, when a ticket costs
19:08
Speaker 1: ten dollars, ten thousand tickets marked up to one hundred
19:11
Speaker 1: dollars each and resold on the black market would result
19:14
Speaker 1: in a take of one million dollars. In that sworn deposition,
19:19
Speaker 1: Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis alleged that NFL Commissioner Pete
19:23
Speaker 1: Rozzell was himself scalping tickets. Roselle adamantly denied the allegation.
19:29
Speaker 1: It should be noted that Al Davis and Pete Rozzell
19:32
Speaker 1: were practically sworn enemies regardless. By the end of the
19:36
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the federal investigation in the NFL ticket scalping
19:40
Speaker 1: expanded beyond Carol Rosenbloom and focused on an LA gangster
19:44
Speaker 1: named Jack Kataine. According to reports, this gangster had allegedly
19:50
Speaker 1: threatened Steve Rosenbloom, the son of Carol Rosenbloom, for his
19:53
Speaker 1: involvement in exposing the ticket scalping scam. In response, Steve
19:59
Speaker 1: Rosenbloom's attorney they took legal action against the gangster, a
20:02
Speaker 1: significant move, and as the investigation progressed, and the pressure
20:07
Speaker 1: on Jacketang and his gangster associates increased. Something very bad happened.
20:16
Speaker 1: When the mafia decides to whack somebody, typically it isn't
20:20
Speaker 1: done in haste. Instead, it's meticulously planned. Mobsters criminally associated
20:26
Speaker 1: men are like most men, creatures of habit Men, especially
20:31
Speaker 1: the older, they get, fall victim to the comfort of
20:34
Speaker 1: their routines. Gangsters know this. This is why when they
20:38
Speaker 1: decide to kill. In preparation for carrying out their murders,
20:42
Speaker 1: they'll figure out their victims' habits. What they do each morning,
20:46
Speaker 1: where they get their coffee, how they take it, where
20:50
Speaker 1: and when they exercise every day, what route they take
20:53
Speaker 1: to work, where they hang out with their girlfriends before
20:55
Speaker 1: they go home to see their wives and children. Those
20:58
Speaker 1: sorts of things. Carol Rosenbloom cherished as morning swims. Swimming
21:04
Speaker 1: off of Florida's Golden Beach near Miami, where his winter
21:07
Speaker 1: home was located on an idyllic stretch of coastline, was
21:11
Speaker 1: part of Rosenbloom's morning routine. Rosenbloom was an experienced swimmer,
21:16
Speaker 1: even at his advanced age of seventy two. Carol Rosenbloom
21:20
Speaker 1: knew the tides, he knew the currents, He knew when
21:23
Speaker 1: the sharks swam and how to avoid them, But he
21:26
Speaker 1: didn't know how to avoid the sharks he was doing
21:29
Speaker 1: business with. On the morning of April second, nineteen eighty,
21:35
Speaker 1: a time when Carol Rosenbloom and others, including gangster Jack Cataine,
21:38
Speaker 1: were mired in a federal investigation surrounding illegal ticket scalping,
21:43
Speaker 1: an inquiry that might unearth who knows what other incriminating
21:46
Speaker 1: evidence from Rosenbloom's years of illegal betting on football. On
21:50
Speaker 1: that morning, as was his daily routine, Carol Rosenbloom plunged
21:54
Speaker 1: into the Atlantic Ocean for his morning swim, and, despite
21:57
Speaker 1: his experience as a swimmer, Carol Rosenbloom, the owner of
22:01
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Rams, drowned mysteriously. It would have been
22:08
Speaker 1: the perfect murder. Carol Rosenbloom was oblivious to the fact
22:13
Speaker 1: that while he swam out into the ocean, there was
22:16
Speaker 1: a killer waiting for him underwater, a man in a wetsuit.
22:20
Speaker 1: The man submerged himself deeply beneath the surface until Rosenbloom
22:25
Speaker 1: swam above him, and then at the perfect moment, the
22:29
Speaker 1: man in the wet suit reached up and grabbed Rosenbloom
22:32
Speaker 1: by the ankle and pulled him down under the water.
22:35
Speaker 1: Rosenbloom struggled, but the man in the wet suit held
22:37
Speaker 1: him under until water completely filled the seventy two year
22:40
Speaker 1: old's lungs, killing him. On the beach a lone tourist
22:48
Speaker 1: at this early hour, a French Canadian named Raymond Tange
22:52
Speaker 1: saw Rosenbloom in the water struggling. He sprinted into the ocean,
22:56
Speaker 1: dove in and swam toward Rosenblum. That's when he saw
23:00
Speaker 1: something slick and black moving in the water away from
23:04
Speaker 1: the beach under the waves, and then gone for good.
23:08
Speaker 1: At that moment, two other men were suddenly in the
23:11
Speaker 1: water with Tangy and Rosenblum, and they grabbed Rosenblum's dead
23:14
Speaker 1: body and pulled them ashore. Raymond Tangy followed them and
23:18
Speaker 1: then tried to revive Rosenbloom. The two men pushed him
23:21
Speaker 1: away and told him the fuck off. Raymond Tangy stood
23:25
Speaker 1: and shock with the dead American at his feet as
23:28
Speaker 1: the two men simply walked off the beach. The police
23:33
Speaker 1: arrived soon after. Police reports state that Carol Rosenbloom's death
23:38
Speaker 1: was accidental, but nowhere in the report does it mention
23:41
Speaker 1: Raymond Tangy's eyewitness account, in which Tangy is on record
23:45
Speaker 1: recounting on film recounting actually to a retired Canadian Mounty
23:49
Speaker 1: into a PBS frontline news crew. It should be mentioned
23:53
Speaker 1: here that Raymond Tangy had a completely clean police record
23:56
Speaker 1: and was never the subject of any criminal investigation. Unlike
24:01
Speaker 1: Carol Rosenbloom, the l A Rams owner, Unlike Jacketaine, the
24:05
Speaker 1: mobbed up ticket scalper, unlike Vic Weiss the dead Bagman,
24:10
Speaker 1: and unlike Al Davis the owner of the Oakland Raiders
24:14
Speaker 1: and his business associate, the casino boss Alan Glick and
24:18
Speaker 1: their partner Tamara Rand, who, like Carol Rosenbloom, would also
24:24
Speaker 1: wind up mysteriously dead. Betting football illegally is a dangerous game, sometimes,
24:56
Speaker 1: as noted in this episode, it's even deadly. But this
25:00
Speaker 1: despite that risk, betting illegally for some former NFL players
25:04
Speaker 1: still offered enough upside to take the risk. The average
25:08
Speaker 1: NFL player's salary in nineteen seventy was only twenty three
25:11
Speaker 1: thousand dollars adjusted for inflation. That's only one hundred and
25:15
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand today's dollars, and that's barely more than the
25:18
Speaker 1: average American household brings in per year. So for a
25:23
Speaker 1: rank and file player making at best average money in
25:26
Speaker 1: a violent occupation, that is quite literally reducing his overall
25:29
Speaker 1: health and life expectancy. It's not hard to imagine how
25:33
Speaker 1: a player could convince himself to take money from odds
25:35
Speaker 1: makers for coveted information, or from gangsters or corrupt owners
25:40
Speaker 1: in exchange for influencing a game with his play. Throughout
25:44
Speaker 1: the NFL's history up until the modern era, many players
25:48
Speaker 1: have come under suspicion for illegally gambling. But the punishment
25:51
Speaker 1: doled out by the NFL for running a file of
25:53
Speaker 1: league rules, fines, and suspensions was nothing compared to the
25:58
Speaker 1: punishment doled out by the mafia for breaking its rules.
26:02
Speaker 1: And one of its rules is you don't fuck with
26:05
Speaker 1: made guys or even connected guys. The poor schmuck never
26:13
Speaker 1: saw it coming. The pen such an unlikely weapon, but
26:18
Speaker 1: there it was, flashing toward him, held in the nubby
26:21
Speaker 1: hand of notorious Las Vegas gangster Anthony Spilatro, jabbing into
26:26
Speaker 1: the schmuck with unexpected violence, straight into his neck. Blood
26:30
Speaker 1: splurted out fast, far and wide, covering the bar and
26:34
Speaker 1: the two showgirls standing near the schmuck, not to mention
26:37
Speaker 1: Anthony's face. But Anthony was undeterred. He continued stabbing the
26:42
Speaker 1: schmuck over and over and over again until the schmuck
26:46
Speaker 1: felt dead on the barroom floor. That pen and neck justice,
26:52
Speaker 1: says Jacob Bannon from Converge once called it, but I
26:55
Speaker 1: digress was doled out to the schmuck because the schmuck
26:58
Speaker 1: had insulted the gangster's friend, Frank Lefty Rosenthal not quite
27:02
Speaker 1: a mobster, but a connected guy, a guy who ran
27:05
Speaker 1: a very lucrative casino for the mafia. If any of
27:09
Speaker 1: this sounds familiar to you, it's because this information comes
27:12
Speaker 1: from the Martin Scorsese film Casino. Frank Lefty Rosenthal's character
27:17
Speaker 1: is named Ace Rothsneen played by Robert de Niro, and
27:21
Speaker 1: Anthony Spilatro's character is named Nicky Santoro played by Joe Peshi.
27:26
Speaker 1: Both characters interact with a man named Philip Green played
27:30
Speaker 1: by Kevin Pollack. Philip Green is the so called legitimate
27:33
Speaker 1: businessman who serves as the frontman for the mafia Philip
27:38
Speaker 1: Green's character is based on a guy named Alan Glick,
27:41
Speaker 1: and Alan Glick was indeed a real life mafia frontman
27:45
Speaker 1: for a very real casino named the Stardust. Alan Glick
27:50
Speaker 1: also had legitimate business ventures in Las Vegas, or should
27:54
Speaker 1: I say legitimate adjacent business ventures, and a number of
27:57
Speaker 1: those business ventures were established in partnership with the NFL's
28:01
Speaker 1: very own Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders, as
28:05
Speaker 1: well as with Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame coach Don
28:07
Speaker 1: Shula and a handful of players. Glick, in his pursuit
28:12
Speaker 1: of further business success beyond the Stardust Hotel at casino,
28:16
Speaker 1: often found himself in partnership with NFL figures. To finance
28:20
Speaker 1: these ventures, he turned to the Teamster's pension fund, a
28:24
Speaker 1: source of money notoriously controlled by the mafia and the
28:27
Speaker 1: corrupt presidents of the Teamsters, including the infamous Jimmy Hoffa.
28:31
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, Alan Glick took some of that
28:34
Speaker 1: mob controlled money, along with a measly five thousand dollars
28:38
Speaker 1: from Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, and invested it into
28:41
Speaker 1: a shopping center. Davis was rewarded a whopping twenty five
28:45
Speaker 1: percent of the company for his meager investment, which quickly
28:49
Speaker 1: returned upwards of a million dollars for Davis. There's no
28:53
Speaker 1: telling what Alan Glick made on his investment. Glick was
28:57
Speaker 1: always making money and apparently unafraid of who he has
28:59
Speaker 1: set in the pursuit of obtaining that money. One unhappy
29:03
Speaker 1: partner of Alan Glicks was a woman named Tamara Ran,
29:07
Speaker 1: who sued Glick for a half a million dollars over
29:09
Speaker 1: a real estate deal they had that went south. On
29:14
Speaker 1: November ninth, nineteen seventy five, the Oakland Raiders were favored
29:17
Speaker 1: to defeat the underdog New Orleans Saints. They did so
29:21
Speaker 1: forty eight ten, easily covering the spread, and on November ninth,
29:25
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, Tamara Ran walked into her San Diego
29:29
Speaker 1: home roughly around dinnertime as expected, and on that Sunday,
29:33
Speaker 1: the New England Patriots, despite being on the road, defeated
29:37
Speaker 1: Tamara's hometown team, the underdog San Diego Chargers, by a
29:41
Speaker 1: score of thirty three to nineteen. Pats also covered the spread.
29:46
Speaker 1: Tamara Ran walked into her kitchen and there's no telling what,
29:49
Speaker 1: if anything, she thought about the beating that the Minnesota
29:52
Speaker 1: Vikings laid on the Atlanta Falcons that day. The Vikings
29:55
Speaker 1: covered the spread as well, but there was no cover
29:58
Speaker 1: for Tamara Rand on November ninth, nineteen seventy five. She
30:03
Speaker 1: never saw the man with the gun, just the quick flash,
30:07
Speaker 1: and the only spread she was concerned with after that
30:10
Speaker 1: was the spread of twenty two caliber bullets flying toward
30:13
Speaker 1: her across her kitchen, striking her dead instantly efficiently, Gangland style.
30:21
Speaker 1: Tamara Rand was suing mobbed up businessman Alan Glick. The
30:25
Speaker 1: information Tamara Rand possessed about Alan Glick was bound to
30:29
Speaker 1: come out, providing much needed evidence for investigators against the mafia.
30:33
Speaker 1: So Tamara Rand was murdered. Investigators then focused on Alan
30:38
Speaker 1: Glick's friend, Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis. The news of
30:42
Speaker 1: Davis and Glick's fortuitous real estate deal spilled onto the
30:45
Speaker 1: front pages of newspapers nationwide. For the NFL, this was
30:51
Speaker 1: bad news. Alan Glick may have passed for legitimate in
30:55
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, but anywhere else in the country he was
30:58
Speaker 1: as dirty as they came. Here was an NFL owner
31:02
Speaker 1: admitting to being in business with him, and not only that,
31:05
Speaker 1: Al Davis was claiming publicly that other coaches and players
31:09
Speaker 1: coached Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins, wide receiver Lance
31:12
Speaker 1: Alworth of the San Diego Chargers, and many other high
31:15
Speaker 1: level NFL players and coaches also had business dealings with
31:19
Speaker 1: the mobbed up Alan Glick. The NFL couldn't have any
31:23
Speaker 1: of this, so the league stepped in and, just as
31:26
Speaker 1: it had with Joe Namath, forced Shula and others to
31:29
Speaker 1: divest from their business dealings with Glick. They all complied,
31:33
Speaker 1: all but Al Davis, the Oakland Raiders owner, told NFL
31:37
Speaker 1: Commissioner Pete Rizzell to go fuck himself. Al Davis gangster.
31:44
Speaker 1: Al Davis didn't care what Pete Rizzell thought. Al Davis
31:47
Speaker 1: didn't care what anyone thought. When you got right down
31:50
Speaker 1: to it. Pete Rizzell, the commissioner of the NFL, worked
31:54
Speaker 1: for Al Davis. He worked for all the other owners
31:57
Speaker 1: as well, and just like Al Davis, all those owners
32:01
Speaker 1: were in the business of making money both inside and
32:04
Speaker 1: outside in the NFL, and for some by means both
32:07
Speaker 1: legal and illegal. Going back to the founding of the
32:10
Speaker 1: league in the earlier part of the twentieth century, al
32:13
Speaker 1: Davis was old school If Hall of Fame owners like
32:16
Speaker 1: Art Rooney, Tim Mara and Charles Bidwell were a product
32:19
Speaker 1: of crime and vice, why was there suddenly a double
32:22
Speaker 1: standard for Davis and his Vegas connections. His business dealings
32:27
Speaker 1: were just as legitimate, if not more so, than the
32:30
Speaker 1: deals of other NFL owners Carol Rosenbloom included. But unlike
32:36
Speaker 1: Art Rooney and Tim Marra, Carol Rosenbloom is not in
32:40
Speaker 1: the NFL Hall of Fame. Al Davis is in the
32:44
Speaker 1: NFL Hall of Fame because despite any questionable business dealings
32:48
Speaker 1: he may have had with nefarious characters, he built an
32:51
Speaker 1: incredible franchise. The Oakland Raiders have won three Super Bowls, and,
32:56
Speaker 1: unlike Carol Rosenbloom's nineteen fifty seven Colts, no illegal gambling
33:00
Speaker 1: stink around the Raiders championship seasons. Al Davis passed away
33:06
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven. Nine years later, his Raiders moved to
33:11
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, a city where al Davis made part of
33:14
Speaker 1: his fortune with the mobbed up Alan Glick. It's a
33:18
Speaker 1: move that never would have happened forty years ago because
33:21
Speaker 1: of organized crime's grip on Vegas and the influence of gambling,
33:24
Speaker 1: both legal and illegal. When the new Las Vegas Raiders
33:29
Speaker 1: Stadium was completed in twenty twenty, it came with a
33:32
Speaker 1: massive eighty five foot torch, which is lit before every
33:35
Speaker 1: home game to honor the late Al Davis. Outside the
33:39
Speaker 1: stadium is another monument, the city itself, Las Vegas, a
33:45
Speaker 1: monument to gambling vice in illegality, built by some of
33:49
Speaker 1: the most cold hearted killers the country has ever produced.
33:53
Speaker 1: A city built on legal gambling, but a city run
33:56
Speaker 1: by illegal interests, a city that became so profitable that
34:00
Speaker 1: its success is responsible for the seemingly impossible the legalization
34:05
Speaker 1: of gambling beyond Vegas city limits throughout the cities and
34:08
Speaker 1: states across America. The expansion of legalized gambling beyond its
34:13
Speaker 1: traditional boundaries was facilitated in part by the NFL's confidence
34:18
Speaker 1: and the integrity of its game. The NFL, now a bohemos,
34:23
Speaker 1: has become too big to be corrupted by low level
34:26
Speaker 1: mafiosos hustling the streets and sports books of Las Vegas.
34:31
Speaker 1: As an enterprise, the NFL is more powerful these days
34:35
Speaker 1: than the Italian American mafia. The NFL generates nearly twenty
34:40
Speaker 1: billion dollars per year legal sports betting generates nearly eleven
34:45
Speaker 1: billion per year, and you can bet your bottom dollar
34:49
Speaker 1: that just like the mafia got its veig off of
34:51
Speaker 1: every bet placed on football in years past, today the
34:55
Speaker 1: NFL gets its piece of that eleven billion that has
34:57
Speaker 1: waged legally on professional football. The amount of money to
35:02
Speaker 1: be made is staggering. It's too much not to partake in.
35:07
Speaker 1: Or what about the integrity of the game, You ask,
35:09
Speaker 1: what about players being tempted by the money they can
35:11
Speaker 1: make from betting on their own teams? Well, that's an
35:15
Speaker 1: easy question to answer. Today, the average NFL player's salary
35:20
Speaker 1: is nearly one million dollars. That's ten times what the
35:23
Speaker 1: average American household brings in per year. Adjusted for inflation.
35:27
Speaker 1: It's ten times what the average football player earned back
35:30
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. As well. These days, the players
35:34
Speaker 1: make too much money to risk losing it through corrupt
35:37
Speaker 1: gambling endeavors. So nowadays, the NFL doesn't have to worry
35:41
Speaker 1: about its players falling victim to gangsters and gambling and
35:44
Speaker 1: throwing games because NFL players just make too much damn money.
35:48
Speaker 1: Simply put, the risk isn't worth it. There's too much
35:52
Speaker 1: at stake to cover the spread too much to lose
35:57
Speaker 1: to disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right.
36:16
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this week's episode on the origins
36:18
Speaker 1: of the NFL, an episode that dealt with integrity and corruption.
36:22
Speaker 1: Because of that, this week's question of the week is
36:25
Speaker 1: which athlete in the history of sports has been the
36:28
Speaker 1: biggest disgrace? In why I'm not just talking football. You
36:32
Speaker 1: can go to any sport you want six one seven,
36:34
Speaker 1: nine oh six six six three eight, leave me a voicemail,
36:37
Speaker 1: send me a text and let me know. You can
36:39
Speaker 1: also reach me out disgrace lampod as well on Instagram,
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Speaker 1: X and Facebook. Leave a review for the show on
36:44
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We'll win some free merch. Okay,
36:48
Speaker 1: here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly
36:53
Speaker 1: and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for
36:56
Speaker 1: this episode can be found on the show notes page
36:59
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37:04
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