Posted on 08/26/2013 6:49:21 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Jean King, Bobby Riggs an 'elaborate mob setup'
Tennis star Bobby Riggs, top, and Billie Jean King are shown in action during the "Battle of the Sexes" match in the Astrodome in Houston, on Sept. 20, 1973.
The ultimate “Battle of the Sexes” — a 1973 match between the No. 2 -ranked woman tennis player and a retired male Wimbledon champion — was rigged so Mafia bosses could cash in on the betting, a new report claims.
The incredible claims have been lobbed at the reputation of the late hard-court hustler Bobby Riggs, by one of his former country club co-workers.
Hal Shaw told ESPN that Riggs’ famous loss to Billie Jean King was orchestrated by a mob boss who the tennis icon was into for $100,000 in gambling debts.
Riggs was a retired 55-year-old champ when he lost to King, then the world’s No. 2 women’s player, on Sept. 30, 1973, in the most-hyped match in tennis history.
Riggs — who died of prostrate cancer at age 77 on Oct. 25, 1995 — artfully played the role of male chauvinist pig in the weeks before the match. King’s win subsequently became a watershed moment in the women’s lib movement.
But it was all a huge setup, according to Shaw, who was an assistant golf pro 40 years ago at the Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in Tampa, Fla. where Riggs was also working.
Shaw said he was toiling late one night fixing golf clubs when he saw mob lawyer Frank Ragano, notorious Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante Jr. and New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello enter the clubhouse.
Ragano told the men that Riggs was going to “set up two matches … against the two best women players,” Shaw told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Really....who DIDN'T know it was all for show.....geesh...we are really gullible.
Motorsports and horse racing.
“People need to accept he had a bad day at the office — just as Margaret Court did when she played Bobby,” said King, in New York for the US Open.
Fake woman, fake match, fake win, fake medal - in Chicago we call them a bunch of "fakers".
I'm sure Bobby wanted to win and he could win, but he didn't because winning would have made him a first class loser.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.