Sport: Too Much Money

In baseball, the scandal was minor. In Louisiana, a half dozen players of the Evangeline (Class D) League were charged with betting against their teams.

In pro football, the attempted bribery of two of the Giants’ players (TIME, Dec. 23) was a different matter. The newspapers played it as the worst scandal since the “Black” Sox threw the 1919 World Series. Alvin Paris, the tinhorn gambler who tried to fix last fortnight’s pro football championship game, was still in jail. Who was behind him? The papers hinted darkly of a big-time Jersey gambling ring, which was not above fixing prize fights and college basketball games.

The Giants’ boss, Tim Mara, once one of the biggest of the bookies, wondered why his two players, Merle Hapes and Frank Filchock, had failed to tell anyone they had been offered bribes.

What did it all add up to? Columnist Grantland Rice wrote angrily: “Unfortunately, too much money has come into sport. Call it big business—football, baseball or tennis—but don’t call it sport . . . in my opinion the colleges, with the money they hand out to alleged amateurs, are far below the professionals in ethics and true sportsmanship. . . .”