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

Anthony Giacalone - Vito Giacalone - Odus Tincher

On August 18, 1962, Detroit crime figures Tony and Vito Giacalone and a few of their friends--including Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris--went to Cleveland in their private bus to see the Lions play the Browns in an exhibition game. Jimmy and Johnny shared the driving chores. After the game, Jimmy invited Alex Karras and his teammate John Gordy to return to Detroit on the luxury bus instead of uncomfortable team-provided transportation. As team protocol required, they asked Lion's head coach George Wilson for approval, which he gave.

Karras and Gordy entered Vito Giacalone's renovated Detroit Street Railways (DRS) bus. The exterior was painted in the Detroit Lion's team colors of silver and Honolulu blue. The inside of the former municipal bus was gutted and refurbished with two comfortable couches set across from each other between the bus's doors. A rectangular table could be lowered between the couches from the ceiling for eating or playing cards. A compact bar and a curtained platform with a double bed was situated in the back of the bus. Giacalone was permitted to park the bus behind the Lindell AC when not in use. In return, Jimmy and Johnny occasionally borrowed the bus for family vacations. It was a simple handshake agreement among friends.

Bus layout sketch by Mel Butsicaris.

 

The football players were welcomed aboard with a chilled beer before settling in to play cards for the return trip to the Lindell AC, with an FBI cruiser tailing them all the way back to Detroit. The next morning, Lions' general manager Andy Anderson summoned Karras into his office.

"The FBI reported to Police Commissioner Edwards that you and John Gordy rode back from yesterday's game in a 'party bus' with undesirable elements who do not belong in a professional football player's life. Your bar partners--known gamblers--were also on the bus."

"So what?"

"We've had this conversation before, Karras. Drop your interest in the Lindell AC. That's final!"

"Mr. Anderson, do me a favor."

"What?"

"Trade me!"

Alex Karras--Just a pawn in a world he didn't understand?

 

On January 9, 1963, The Detroit News broke the story of the "hoodlum-operated party bus." The next day, NBC News wanted to interview Karras about the bus ride and the gambling charges that they discovered the NFL was investigating.

The Butsicaris brothers counseled Alex against granting the interview, but he was characteristically headstrong. Karras was guileless and expected everyone else to be that way. With the conviction of the righteous, Karras agreed to the NBC interview which was taped on January 13th. Towards the end of the thirty-minute interview, Karras was asked if he ever bet on sporting events. He glibly answered, "Yes, I do, with my brothers for a cigar or a pack of cigarettes."

When the interview was edited for broadcast, all that anybody heard was the sound bite of Karras answering "Yes, I do" coming from his own mouth. From there, the quote went to the wire services and was distributed nationwide to newspaper, radio, and television outlets. Alex was blindsided by NBC News.

With the end of the regular season, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, a league attorney, and a stenographer held a meeting with Karras. Alex believed gambling was a part of Greek ethnic character. From the age of fifteeen, he hung out with his older brothers in the Fifth Avenue Pool Room in Gary, Indiana. He bet on pool and played cards for entertainment. Everyone he knew did. "I never thought it was sinful and never attempted to hide it or felt the need to do so," he explained to Rozelle.

"Did you ever gamble on NFL games?"

"Never more than $50 a game and never against the Lions. I haven't thrown any football games, and I don't have ties with gangsters. This whole incident is being blown out of proportion."

Even after offering to take a lie-detector test, Karras was suspended for the 1963 football season and fined $2,000 for betting on the Green Bay Packers/New York Giants championship game. The Detroit Lions were fined $4,000 for minimizing information concerning "undesirable associations" and allowing questionable people to sit on the Lions' bench during games.

The Lions' fine was aimed directly at Jimmy Butsicaris, who was often seen on the bench. In addition to being a tavern owner, Jimmy had a weekly radio sports show in Detroit called Sportstalk on WXYZ-AM radio. He had a press pass authorizing him to have team and field access.

Karras told a Detroit Free Press reporter on January 18, 1963, "I must be the most naive guy in the world. How could I get myself in a mess like this when I know I didn't do anything wrong?" In the meantime, Karras settled into his suspension and learned the bar business from the ground up.

End of Part Two

Karras Gambling Suspension Part One 

Karras Gambling Suspension Part Three

Detroit's Lindell AC Sports Bar Relish Tray Brawl

Lindell Athletic Club Bumper Sticker

It looked to Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris like 1980 was going to be the Lindell AC's year. The Alex Karras/Susan Clark co-produced a Made-For TV Movie Jimmy B. and Andre which debuted on March 9th to strong reviews. Much of the movie was shot inside the Lindell, and the bar got lots of free publicity.

Sixty-year-old Jimmy Butsicaris also had a popular Sunday night radio program on WXYZ-1270 AM which aired 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm called Sports Talk: Live from the Lindell AC. Jimmy interviewed coaches, managers, and local sports heroes from Detroit's professional sports teams and their opponents from a booth set off in a quiet corner of the bar. A special phone line was installed so Jimmy could take questions from area sports fans to ask his guests on-air.

Then on April 29, 1980, some out-of-town trouble walked into their neighborhood sports bar. Two off-duty Pontiac police officers left a Tigers vs. Texas Rangers afternoon game early at Tiger Stadium that they attended with sixteen fellow Pontiac policemen. The game wasn't going well for the Tigers, so two of the officers left early. They tucked a note under the windsheild wiper of the church bus they had taken from Pontiac, Michigan. The note said they were at the Lindell and come by to pick them up after the game. Incidently, the Tigers lost that game 10-5.

The pair had a few beers at the ballpark before they walked several blocks to the Lindell.The brawl started when the police officers became loud and rude to some of the Lindell customers. Fifty-nine-year-old Johnny Butsicaris told them to tone it down. Then the pair began eating from a relish tray at a nearby table without ordering food. Johnny told them the relish tray was for people who bought hamburgers. The two men became obnoxious and threatened Johnny.

Johnny Butsicaris

 

Jimmy Butsicaris told the Detroit Free Press two days after the brawl, "Johnny took their beers and told them to leave. Then one of them grabbed a nearby beer bottle by the neck motioning like he was going to hit my brother with it. His partner wanted to get in on the action too, so I grabbed him and threw him up against a pole. That's when my bar's security stepped in and started pushing them out the front door.

"Then their friends arrived. Ten or twelve of them. They saw what was happening and jumped in. They knocked my brother John down and punched and kicked him until they broke his ribs. My tailbone is still bruised and my spine hurts. My foster son Andre Reynolds got hit hard on the head with a steel beer keg tapper, and my son-in-law David Jackson was hit in the eye with it too. When Andre went outside to write down the license plate number of the bus that the group had taken to the ballpark, one of the original trouble-makers pulled a concealed weapon and waved him off." 

Detroit police investigators discovered the rowdy bar patrons were off-duty Pontiac police officers. They questioned several Pontiac officers involved in the incident who claimed they were attacked rather than the other way around. When Jimmy heard from a reporter that the assailants were police officers, he was outraged.

Jimmy Butsicaris

"Thirty-one years I've been in the business, I never had anything happen like this and then to find out it was coppers. Cops are supposed to stop fights, not start them. I'm gonna do something. I want some satisfaction. They just can't come in here from the suburbs and jack up my bar. I'll never allow bus loads of people into the bar again. They're always zonked and make trouble. We don't run that kind of bar."

Beyond the bar fight, his brother Johnny was bothered by how the press portrayed their bar as a dangerous place to go. "Me and my brother worked hard to make the Lindell a neighborhood sports bar where Detroit fans might meet their professional sports heroes."

On May 2nd, officers Donald Weyer (34) and Raymond Felice (32) were suspended with pay pending an internal investigation. At the end of the month, the Pontiac Police Department released the findings of their investigation concluding that the incident was caused by "unauthorized consumption of peppers and pickles from a relish tray which caused unjustified and excessive harshness on the part of Lindell AC employees."

The investigation concluded that Officers Weyer and Felice "were not drunk anytime during the (two-minute) incident nor did they conduct themselves in a disorderly or unlawful manner." No mention was made of the gun Officer Weyer pulled on Andre Reynolds.

Jimmy was incensed. "The reputation of our establishment is hurt after this white-washed investigation. My brother and I promote the Lindell as a place where people can bring their families. We don't want the reputation of being a skid row saloon where a brawl can break out at any time."

Although Jimmy Butsicaris said there was no real damage to the bar, the brawl sent four people to Henry Ford Hospital. The Butsicaris brothers brought a $50,000 lawsuit against the Pontiac police officers and the City of Pontiac on June 5th. The suit asked that police pay for injuries he and his family sustained, their court costs, and their attorneys' fees. Any money beyond that would be donated to a church charity.

Sixteen days later, the two Pontiac police officers countersued the brothers for one million dollars apiece for assault and slander. Both lawsuits were settled out of court, but Jimmy was the victim of further collateral damage.

In July, Jimmy's radio program contract ran out. Operations manager Michael Packer at WXYZ-AM cancelled Jimmy's popular Sunday evening Sports Talk: Live at the Lindell AC after nine successful months on the air. The bad publicity from the brawl was more than the station bargained for, but Jimmy wasn't too broken up about it. Preparation for the Sunday night show took up a good part of his week, and he wasn't making enough money to make it worth his while.

Jimmy B. and Andre made in Detroit