WIZARD OF ODDS by Rosen, Charley

WIZARD OF ODDS
by Rosen, Charley
Order 497013...$17.95
CAPSULE REVIEW BY HOWARD SCHWARTZ: Until Jack Molinas, Ralph Beard and Alex Groza were the only players ever to be banned from pro basketball for gambling. So goes the story of Molinas, in Charley Rosen's new book on the athlete, murdered in the 1970s.Molinas, a world-class athlete, lawyer, and stock market expert was also a big-time gambler and fixer, a double and triple-crosser and a loan shark. The book's opening sets the pace: "Jack Molinas was at the top of his game. Only a rookie with the Fort Wayne Pistons, he was already a certified NBA All-Star who could score whenever he wanted to. Moreover, he was an Ivy League graduate with a genius-level 175 IQ. Rich, handsome, young charismatic, Molinas was irresistible to women. Ah, but Molinas could also lie with a sweet, buoyant smile, and he had a flair for larceny‹he'd much rather swindle two bits from somebody than earn an honest dollar. Not even Molinas could guess how much money he'd gained by conspiring with gamblers to fix ballgames in high school, college and in the pros." There have been other books about Molinas, but this one draws on numerous first-person accounts (including Molinas' own journal), trial transcripts and more than 100 interviews. Too, this is a history of college and pro basketball in its years of innocence -- the 1940s and 50s, when Molinas, an extraordinary player with skills beyond most opponents, played against the likes of Sandy Koufax, who went on to star as a super hurler for the Dodgers and Lou Gossett, of Hollywood fame on the half courts of Brooklyn schoolyards.

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