Missed chip shot bails out bettor in Super Bowl XXI
Super Bowl betting memories
Handicapper Doug Fitz (Systemplays.com), a Cleveland native, was devastated in 1987 when “The Drive” engineered by Denver quarterback John Elway in the AFC title game denied his beloved Browns a trip to the Super Bowl. But everything went his way at the big game, where he scored cheap tickets, cashed a ticket on the winner and also hit his prop bet.
Super Bowl XXI, Giants-Broncos, Jan. 25, 1987: “I was at the game in the Rose Bowl when the Giants demolished the Broncos 39-20. It was close at halftime but the Giants just destroyed them in the second half, which was good for me because I had the Giants laying 8½ and I covered it.
“A funny story with that game was I was supposed to meet a guy beforehand and get tickets from him. He was a neighbor. But something got screwed up and we wouldn’t get ahold of the guy. Remember, there were no cellphones then. We finally got ahold of the guy the morning of the game. I thought we’d pay $300 or $400 a ticket. He was already at the game and there’s a chain-link fence around the Rose Bowl. We met this guy and he literally handed us the tickets through the chain-link fence. He said, ‘Just give me $100 apiece for them.’ By comparison, 12 years later, I bought my wife and son Super Bowl tickets for Denver-Green Bay and it cost me over $2,000.
“Before I left to go down to Pasadena, I saw the prop they have every year, ‘Will there be any scoring in the last two minutes of the first half?’ The reason it always has the ‘Yes’ at minus-200 is because it normally happens. But what caught my eye back then was the plus-190. I thought, ‘Wow, this is some good value there.’ So I bet it, and the last play of the first half, Denver’s barefooted kicker, Rich Karlis, goes to kick a chip-shot field goal. He misses it and I won the bet. I thought I was really smart after that. The next three or four years, I bet that prop and I think I lost it every time.”
Todd Dewey/Review-Journal
