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john darmy wrote:There's a chapter in The Conspiracy Reader about this. One of the first alleged instances was the 1958 NFL championship game between the Colts and the Giants. The Colts' owner, I think it was Carroll Rosenbloom, allegedly placed a huge bet on the Colts to cover the 4-point spread. The game went into overtime and the Colts had the ball inside the 10-yard line and could have easily kicked a field goal to win, but that wouldn't have covered the spread. They kept going until they got the touchdown and the six-point victory. From betting on football games, I have absolutely no doubt that some games are fixed. <p></p><i></i>
The owners of there NFL football teams - the Dallas Cowboys, the New Orleans Saints and the Baltimore Colts, became entwined in the drama that revolved around the assassinaton of President Kennedy.
Of course the Cowobys, with the Hunts, Merchesons and Wynnes are mentioned prominently in the JFK assassination lore, though John Mecom, Jr. of the Saints, is less so. George DeMohrenschildt, the accused assassin's mentor, traveled to Yougslavica on oil business for John Mecom, Sr., and his son, besides owning the Saints, was said to be in the banking business with Leon Trujaque, a New Orleans Import-Export merchent who employed the accused assassin at the same time DeMohresnchildt was in Yougslacvica.
Then there's Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Baltimore Colts, who was unfortunate enough to buy, from Meyer Lansky, major interest in the Hotel Nacional in Havana, shortly before Fidel Castro took over. Rosenbloom also bankrolled other mobsters who became entwined in the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro and let LBJ stay at his beach house during the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.
While the owners of the Cowboys and the Saints are closer tied to the people present at Dealey Plaza when JFK was killed, I am already familiar with Rosenbloom as a character in my book "Birth of the Birdie - The First 100 Years of Golf at Atlantic City Country Club."
In reviewing sports history there's a lot of ink spilt on the players and the games, but very little about the team and club owners, who were in many ways, major players in much bigger games. .
While I know very little about the Hunts or Mecoms, other than their appearance as characters in the Kennedy assassination, I do know quite a bit about Carroll Rosenbloom.
I know, for instance, how to spell his name, with two rs, two ls, and two oos, and that he lived at the Jersey Shore, in a beach house at Margate, and was a well respected and prominent member of the Atlantic City Country Club.
Rosenbloom, a wealthy industrialist who owned the Baltimore Colts, also lent Leo Fraser the money to purchase the club from Leo's brother Sonny Fraser, who was forced to sell the club in order to open the Atlantic City Race Track, along with his partners H. "Hap" Farley and Jack Kelly (Grace's dad). There were illegal slot machines in the Tap Room of the country club, and Sen. Smathers of Florida, who didn't want the race track competition, was making an issue it, so instead of getting rid of the slot machines, Sonny sold the country club to his brother Leo, just back from the war.
Leo Fraser borrowed the six figures to buy the club from his golfing pal, Carroll Rosenbloom, and paid him back every penny.
Rosenbloom was a legend in the men's locker room at the Atlantic City Country Club. where Al Capone allegedly hid out for a week during the 1929 organized crime convention.
Then there was the greatest football game ever played. Legend has it that Rosenbloom called in the final scoring play from the Atlantic City locker room, having them run the ball for a touchdown instead of a field goal, which wouldn't have covered the spread. I know that's not true because Rosenbloom would have been at the game and not in the locker room. But some say the bet and the play were true.
A serious gambler, Rosenbloom was suspected of being the "anonymous" member of the Atlantic City Country Club who promised to increase the purse of the US Women's Open if Babe Zaharius could break 300 for the tournament. When she came in at 301, she said it was okay not getting the bonus as it would put her in a different tax bracket.
Rosenbloom had a Cuban connection, and took the Atlantic City Country Club golf pro down to Havana to play the golf pro at the Havana Country Club, for major stakes. One of Rossenbloom's golfing pals was Al Bessellink, a Merchantville Country Club pro who became a notorious golfer on the pro tour. Another one of Rossenbloom's foursome, Mike McLaney, convinced him to buy major interest in the Hotel Nacional from Meyer Lansky, shortly before Castro came to power. Good deal, bad timing.
Then in the summer of 1964, Rosenbloom served as unofficial host to President Lyndon Johnson during the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Johnson had a hotel room, and was officially listed as staying there, but he thought Bobby Kennedy had the room bugged and was trying to take over the convention, so he moved into Carroll Rosenbloom's beach house in nearby Margate.
It was no secret after awhile, and people who gathered outside the house were sometimes pleased to be greeted by Lady Bird, who is remembered as a real lady.
LBJ on the other hand, was a real Son of a Bitch. It's a shame he didn't play golf, he may have been a better person.
Rosenbloom then became the international man of mystery when he was found floating dead in the waters off his Florida home, having drowned suspiciously. His ball team, having traded the Colts for the Rams even up (to avoid capitol gains) was taken over by his wife, and the rest is history.
Although the gambling angle is well documented, primarily by Dan Moldea, the Cuban angle is only referenced by Gus Russo (Live by the Sword), and there's really very little on LBJ's stay at Rossenbloom's Margate White House.
Moldea's investigation into NFL gambling even led to gruesome autopsy photos of Rosenbloom being published and broadcast on TV, while Russo alleges a golfing connection between old man Joe Kennedy, President Kennedy and Mike McLaney, their Palm Beach neighbor.
If you read all the quotes below, you eventually get to Bert Bell, Jr., for whom the NFL Bert Bell Award is named, and a Philadelphia football personage, whose son, Bert Bell III, took the photo that is my avatar on the Education Forum...
I know from a first-hand source -- whom I will name, if legally pressed -- that Dan Moldea had privately complained that the major publishers had "blackballed" him after he wrote a book called Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football. The blackballing stopped the moment he agreed to write a book about the Robert F. Kennedy assassination pushing the "lone nut" hypothesis...
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