It was one of those greatmoments when somebody odious says something incredibly stupid that has devastating consequences for their career.
Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder was ejected from the public eye in 1988 when, on Martin Luther King's birthday, he said that blacks are better at sports because of slave plantation breeding techniques. "During the slave period, the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid?that's where it all started."
This idiotic remark led to his firing as a "commentator" at CBS, where he was in the business of predicting winners and losers from a bettor's perspective. CBS big cheese Brent Mussburger hated the guy anyhow?they once had a fistfight at a midtown Manhattan bar over the amount of airtime Snyder was getting. Strangely, nobody noticed that Snyder's moniker (The Greek) was in his context a racial epithet referring to a reputation for sleaze.
His brother, John Synodinos, said "He felt he was falsely accused. He was praising the blacks actually.
The firing led to a resented obscurity. His autobiography, Wizard of Odds, is to be published next month.
Snyder was a 10th-grade dropout who dealt craps growing up in Steubenville. His mother was shot to death in front of her house by her brother-in-law when Jimmy was 10.
After World War II, he moved to Las Vegas and began making his reputation in public relations, at one point representing Howard Hughes. Before the 1948 presidential election, he polled 1,900 women and found that most of them did not like men with moustaches. As a result, he made Harry S. Truman a 17-to-1 favorite to beat the mustachioed Thomas E. Dewey. When Truman won, Snyder reportedly made $170,000 and was on his way.
Snyder moved to Las Vegas in the 1950s. In 1962, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy shut down his Vegas Turf and Sportsroom and fined him $50,000 after he was caught giving odds to a friend over the phone. President Ford later pardoned him for gambling violations.
Snyder was famous for predicting 18 of 21 Superbowl winners prior to his demise.
However he also predicted that the Jets would lose to the Colts in the 1969 Superbowl, and that Orioles would beat the Mets in that year's World Series. Gotham City particularly mourns his loss. He died April 14, age 77 or 76, depending on which newswire you lay odds on.
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