SPORTSDAY

'Golden Boy' tells all about gambling in NFL

In his new book, "Golden Boy," Paul Hornung says gambling in the National Football League was going on among players and owners long before he entered the league in 1957.

Hornung, who played for the Packers from 1957-'66, was suspended for the 1963 season by Commissioner Pete Rozelle for gambling.

"The biggest bet I ever made in those days was $800, and I always bet on us to win," Hornung writes, referring to his gambling when he was with the Packers. "But it was just for fun, more than anything. I don't think I ever won or lost more than $2,000 on a season, which was peanuts for a guy making $100,000 a year to film four commercials for Chevrolet and another $75,000 from Marlboro."

Hornung says he and a Packers teammate were betting on NFL games with someone who lived in the teammate's home state. He said they won "about $10,000, which was serious money back then," but the bookie who took their bets ended up stiffing them.

Hornung declines to name his teammate, who was not punished by the league. Hornung and Detroit defensive tackle Alex Karras both were suspended by Rozelle.

After the suspension was announced, Hornung says, his teammate was concerned about getting caught.

"I heard he was so scared he checked himself into a hospital because he didn't want anybody calling him for interviews," Hornung writes. "He asked me what I had told Rozelle. I told him, 'I didn't mention a word about you.' He got away with it."

Hornung says gambling was part of the culture of growing up in Louisville, Ky., and that "Green Bay was like Louisville in that gambling was more or less a way of life.

"Gambling to me was just another form of fun and entertainment, sort of like chasing girls and going out on the town," Hornung writes. "Hell, (Vince) Lombardi himself loved the racetrack."

Hornung writes Detroit quarterback Bobby Layne was a gambler who bet on games in which Layne played. He points to the 1958 College All- Star Game in which Layne played. Layne threw six interceptions and his back-up three "in a suspicious 35-19 loss," Hornung writes.

Hornung writes Layne told him in the first Packers-Lions game in the 1958 season Layne had bet the Lions to cover a 3 1/2-point lead. The game was tied, 13-13, late in the fourth quarter. Detroit drove to the Packers 7 and faced fourth down.

The field-goal team came on to try a kick, but Layne waved them off, then called a pass play. He overthrew his receiver in the end zone. The game ended in a tie.

Hornung says Rozelle met with him in New York on Jan. 8, 1963, to confront him about the gambling issue. Rozelle also tried to get Hornung to name teammates and others in the league who gambled. Hornung refused.

"At first, I denied gambling on anything," Hornung writes. "But I knew he had me when he told me the league had been conducting a secret investigation for 10 months and had tapped my phone in Green Bay."

Hornung said he did some gambling with Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. on the 1979 Super Bowl, Dallas vs. Pittsburgh.

DeBartolo bought the San Francisco 49ers for his son, Eddie Jr.

"We talked about the point spread and finally, because of something I said, Mr. D. changed his mind and decided to bet the other way," Hornung writes.

"I asked if he could bet a couple of dimes (thousands) for me because he had a bookie in Pittsburgh who was offering a more attractive point spread than the one I was getting in Louisville. We won our bets and Mr. D said, 'I saved a lot of money because of you.' "

Rating Packers-Bears

The Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers game Sunday on WITI-TV (Channel 6) had a rating of 39.4. An estimated 349,399 households in the Milwaukee area saw all or parts of the game.

That was about a point lower than the season average for all Packers games on local TV last season, which averaged a 40.3. The two Packers-Bears games last season had higher ratings than the first one between the two teams this seasons. Last year's game in Week 4 had a 44.2 rating, and the one in Week 14 had a 41.2 rating.

A total of 68 percent of the TV sets in use on Monday night were tuned to the Packers-Bears game. A share for an average Packers game last season was 65, which means 65 percent of the sets on at the time the Packers played their games were tuned to the Packers.

Weathering the delay

The Wisconsin game at Arizona on Saturday, which included a 90- minute delay because of lightning in the Tucson area, had a rating of 8.3 or 73,604 households in the Milwaukee area. The game was carried on Fox Sports North.

Total air time for the game was 4 hours 15 minutes, from 3 to 7:15 p.m.

The rating for the game peaked at 12.3 or 109,076 during the 6:45 to 7 p.m. quarter hour.

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