WHEN NFL TITLE GAME WAS FIXED

It was 1946, the war was over, and sports were huge. The not so infant NFLwas drawing sellout crowds in most of their venues. Gamblers attempted to fix the 1946 NFL title game between the Bears and Giants by bribing two players, Giant QB (Flingin') Frankie Filchock and their main running back, Merle Hapes. Pro football was already the "coming" game, 58,000 jammed the old Polo Grounds for the '46 title game, and so the "fix" story had great resonance at the time. The scheme was discovered the day before the game and it was so big that the mayor of New York, the police commissioner, Giant owner (the first Mara), and NFL Commissioner Bert Bell all met secretly in the Mayor's office on Saturday. It has always been rumored that Giant owner, the grade school educated Mara, made much of his money before the Giants as a bookie and thus knew "everybody." The main New York interest in the game surrounded the really good Filchock (he beat out Sammy Baugh for the starting QB job when both played for the Redskins), and the first great Jewish player, Bear QB Sid Luckman.

Bert Bell, the NFL commissioner, had vast illegal gambling connections and it is said that the nation wide bookie establishment let Bell know that huge amounts of money were being bet on the Bears, which meant beating the fourteen point spread (the Bears won by 14 points, the exact point spread). Tim ("What, Me take bets?") Mara quite possibly been aware of the action as well. The meeting resulted in the immediate suspension of both Hapes and Filchock. Mara and the cops apparently discovered that, while Hapes had accepted the money, Filchock had turned them down flat. Filchock was allowed to play and Hapes never played another down in the NFL. Later, Filchock was also banned, a dirty deal if ever there was one.

The important things to know here are that the scheme was uncovered because the illegal bookmakers phoned both Bell and Mara and told them of the huge bets being placed on the Bears. Without the "help" of the bookies the fix would have worked. That relationship between the NFL commissioner's office and the vast network of illegal bookies has been maintained through this day so that any and all unusual betting is known long before a game is played. It is a sign of the times that the bribe offered to each player was only $2,500. The winner's share was $1,900.

NFL refs are also watched closely by this arrangement so that it's next to impossible for any of them to run up any kind of gambling debt.

There is no way to control either the super rich NBA players or refs that isn't being done. What Stern is NOT doing is tracking the betting. It ain't enough to monitor Vegas or Atlantic City because the betting limits are so low that no scheme with big gamblers can possibly occur in either 'Vegas or Atlantic City; online or overseas bookies would never accept a big bet. What Stern has to do is what the NFL has done ever since Bert Bell back in the 40s has been doing. Make connections with the illegal bookies, the guys who take $100,000 bets, and find out where there is unusual action. If those guys suddenly find a bunch of guys betting big they should be able to either phone in their concerns, or the NBA should be calling them on a daily basis.

Only a connection with the illegal bookies will work.