Playing for Keeps

Book cover of Playing for Keeps

Book description

A look at how close the Mafia came to gaining control of professional football explores the seamy underside of college sports, money laundering, gambling, and game fixing

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Why read it?

1 author picked Playing for Keeps as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Bonnie Tiell, Ed.D

Author

This book reads like a fictional suspense novel, but it’s not! It was engaging from the beginning where the opening lines seemed like the author was staging a murder mystery in a small town. However, the familiar characters from sports agents to owners to players in the 1980s quickly piqued my interest, and soon it was apparent that the story was about the mafia’s unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the NFL in the eighties through money laundering, racketeering, bribery, wire fraud, and more.

I was intrigued by the political gamesmanship of the NFL, which was determined to eradicate the mafia’s takeover…

From Bonnie's list on power structures and politics in sports.