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By Root 806 0

he would like to know any information. A check later proved that the rival paper did not have the story and had no intention of printing any. “George Strickler, National Football League public relations director, denied today that any ‘special investigation’ was in progress concerning rumors that league players were associating with gamblers,” wrote Sheer, adding that the Washington Times-Herald, which published the story of the probe, had “misrepresented” its information to NFL Commissioner Elmer Layden, and had “misquoted” him.

The Redskins lost their third straight game, and second straight to the New York Giants, by a score of 31-7, on December 12. That set up an Eastern Title playoff game in New York on December 19 between the Giants and Redskins. This time, Washington defeated the Giants 28-0, and advanced to play in Chicago the next week for the NFL title.

Layden said he did not find the “slightest bit” of evidence of collusion between gamblers and anyone connected with professional football. “The penalty for betting is expulsion from the league, and it will be enforced swiftly and vigorously,” Layden said.

Redskins owner George Preston Marshall asked D.C. police chief Edward J. Kelly to investigate the rumors. Kelly said his men could find no evidence that any Redskins player had been “frequenting gambling houses or liquor bars.” And the rumors soon died out.

MY OPINION

Let’s think about the ways to properly fix a team game. First, you take a heavily favored team, really prohibitive favorites like the Redskins would have been against the Steagles and the Giants. If a star like Sammy Baugh was involved in the fix, the conspiracy could have been limited to just the gamblers and one or two players. Baugh controlled everything for the Redskins, on offense, defense, and special teams.

It’s not like Baugh was a millionaire, either. He fought frequently with Marshall over salary, having to do vaudeville stage shows in the off-season (in which he would throw footballs to the balcony, where his receiver, Millner, was to pull in the receptions) to make ends meet. Baugh, like all pro athletes of the time, had no leverage in contract talks. One year he created leverage with owner Marshall by threatening to retire from football to play shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals.

So, the players weren’t rich. The team probably had so much confidence that they thought they could turn the switch and win whenever they needed to. These were the ingredients for a conspiracy, where gamblers and players altered outcomes of games. In the more than six decades after the 1943 Redskins, in this age of microphones and cell phones and camera phones and monitoring of players, it would be downright impossible to fix NFL games by getting to individual players. Players would be crazy to raise eyebrows under these watchful times. That’s not to say that eyebrows weren’t raised over more recent NFL games, but the suspicions about fixes usually fell on owners, coaches, and referees.

But back in the 1940s, things were different. I can understand how players would have been tempted to throw games, or at least shave points. There were no injury reports. Baugh, who hardly played in the November 21, 1943, game against the Bears, could have pulled himself from the game at any time.

I believe there was a conspiracy. Denials by Marshall and Layden were too pat, and too smug. Newspapers could not have “misrepresented” information to the NFL and the public. The fact that the paper began an investigation, and then just a few days later shut it down, with the NFL publicly putting all rumors to bed, leads me to believe that someone got paid off.

In researching this period of Redskins and Bears history, I came across a great bit of gamesmanship. In fact, it’s one of the best acts of gamesmanship I can think of. It speaks to the great rivalry, and what lengths teams would go through to win.

In the 1940 season, George Halas and Luke Johnsos helped perfect the telephone-from-the-press-box trick. Luke had watched an exhibition game between the Bears and the