Alex Karras' NFL Gambling Suspension--Part One of Three

Detroit Lion tackle Alex Karras

The trouble started in 1961 when reports of Detroit Lion Alex Karras' gambling on professional sports and associating with underworld figures reached the desks of Lions owner William (Bill) Clay Ford and NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Detroit police commissioner George Edwards and the local FBI had Karras under surveillance for a year because of his association with Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris and his co-ownership of the popular Lindell AC (Atheletic Club) sports bar.

Alex Karras met the Butsicaris brothers soon after he arrived in Detroit to play for the Lions. The bar was known for its legendary hamburgers and walls festooned with sports memorabilia. It became a hangout for sports writers, sports fans of every stripe, and shady characters who enjoyed rubbing elbows with local team players like everyone else did.

Some of these characters happened to be professional gamblers. Karras liked the place because the owners were Greek and their place reminded him of his hometown Gary, Indiana. The Lindell AC was his refuge where he could relax and relate to people.

Johnny and Jimmy Butsicaris

 
Karras became a regular customer and was befriended by the brothers. When their bar opened in 1949, Meleti Butsicaris and his sons each owned one-third of the business. After their father died, the brothers asked Karras if he would like to buy their father's share, so they could move the bar to a better location down Michigan Avenue and renovate an available property. For a $45,000 buy-in, Karras became a partner.

To compound gambling suspicions against Karras, his favorite restaurant in Detroit was The Grecian Gardens in Greektown. Gus Colacasides was the owner and basically the patriarch of all local Greeks in Detroit. Karras liked the authentic Greek food and the atmosphere and went there weekly. I can personally vouch for the quality of their food.

The restaurant's late night clientele included gamblers, bookies, and ranking underworld figures. Some pretty tough customers would see Karras and come up and shake his hand and strike up a sports conversation. At the heart of it, they were sports fans and Karras was a Lion celebrity. Soon, he felt like one of the boys.

All the while, Karras was under police surveillance everywhere he went. In 1962, the general manager of the Lions Andy Anderson summoned Karras into his office and cautioned him about being in the bar business with the Butsicaris brothers. "They're gangsters and hoodlums--stay away from them."

"The Hell I will!"

"If you stay in the bar business with them, the Lions will take steps."

"Tell Bill Ford that I need the work because I can't raise my family on the lousy $12,000 a season he pays me."

For the first few years of his NFL career, Karras wrestled "professionally" in the off-season as part of a masked tag team attraction to make financial ends meet. Now that he had a growing family, he was tired of travelling every weekend throughout the Midwest.

Karras had known Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris for two years and knew they were not connected to organized crime. They were hard-working saloon owners, and these alleged "gangsters" were their customers. It was free enterprise and that wasn't a crime.

But then there was the issue of Karras and a fellow teammate John Gordy riding home after an exhibition game against the Cleveland Browns on a "party bus" owned by Vito Giacalone, but it was registered to Odus Tincher--a retired DSR bus driver, known gambler, and former convict. The Giacalone brothers were also known gamblers and underworld crime figures connected with the Detroit Partnership (Mafia). The Detroit Police and the FBI wondered why the party bus was often parked in back of the Lindell AC when not in service.

End of Part One

Karras Gambling Suspension Part Two