Chapter 17
EVAN NEWMAN BRUSHED invisible ashes off his trousers and said, “We have reason to suspect a gambling fix in our league, Jack, something that could be as bad for football as the Black Sox scandal was for baseball.”
I was bothered by this intrusion into my office, but also intrigued. Andy’s inventory of former clients was calling to me from my briefcase, Justine needed me on the Schoolgirl murders, and I had a conference call meeting with our London office in twenty minutes—a scandal in the House of Lords no one knew about yet.
I looked at my watch and said, “Give me the highlights. Please. I’ll help if I can.”
Fred spoke up. “Jack, we think this thing may have started about two years ago—in a wildcard play-off game. On paper, winning should have been no problem for the Giants. Their opponent, Carolina, was good, but a couple of defensive backs were out. Their quarterback had a hairline fracture in the index finger on his throwing hand. This game shouldn’t have been close. But you may remember this, Tommy—”
“Jack.”
“Jack, I’m sorry. Jesus. Anyway, in the third quarter, Cartwright’s touchdown run, into a hole you could’ve driven a Brinks truck through, was called back. The ref said it was a holding penalty, and in the fourth quarter, as New York was trying for the kick that would’ve sent the game into overtime, there was another penalty that took them out of field goal range.”
Fred went on, his face getting redder. “New York lost by three. At the time, the calls just looked bad. There was the usual talk in the sports press that eventually faded as the play-offs moved ahead.”
“Okay, Jack.” Dix spoke next. “Fast-forward to the third game of last season between the Vikings and the Cowboys. Different set of circumstances but basically the same scenario.”
My uncle jumped in again. He wanted to tell the story play-by-play. “This time the Vikings get a forty-yard pass called back at the end of the second quarter that would’ve sent them into the locker room ahead by seventeen points.”
Fred was gesticulating angrily, telling me that another questionable holding penalty wiped the pass off the board. “As they lined up at the end of the fourth quarter for what would’ve been the winning field goal, the Vikings get called for an illegal shift which nobody, nobody saw except the referee.
“Again it takes them out of field goal range, the game goes into overtime, and they lose.”
I saw where these stories were going, of course. Bad calls happen in football and people scream about the officials and then they get over it. For Fred Kreutzer, Evan Newman, and David Dix to come to me, it meant they had more to go on than alleged bad calls in a couple of games.
Newman said, “We’ve looked at the tapes ad nauseam, Jack, including last Sunday’s game in San Francisco. We see a pattern. All told, eleven games stink badly over two and a half years. Nine of the losing teams had winning records and seven of them made the play-offs.”
My uncle said, “A lot of people lost a lot of money on these games. They’re starting to wonder if there’s something funny going on.”
“Why come to me?” I asked. “Why not take this to the commissioner first?”
“We don’t have any proof,” said Dix. “And frankly, Jack, if something did happen, we don’t want the commissioner and the press and the public to hear about it. Ever.”