Gorham Press in 1940 andbecame Hechtâs partner. Hirschfield changed the name of the company to Athletic Publications, Inc.; and its newsletter, Weekly Gridiron Record , became better known as simply The Green Sheet . The whole operation consisted of only eighteen full-time employees but, at its height, annually grossed nearly $10 million.
Mort Olshan, who was like a âsurrogate sonâ to Hirschfield, worked on The Green Sheet along with Karl Ersin, Jimmy Harris, and Joe Katzman, who was the senior handicapper. Olshan told me, âThere were four handicappers with Leo Herschfield, who was the active partner with a one-third interest and ran the service operation. I never met Billy Hecht in my whole life; he was never around. He had another partner [Joe Numero] in the separate bookmaking part of the operation. They were bookmakers and took the action. They had separate jobs and separate offices from the service activity.
âLeo was a totally honest man, and he avoided all the shady associations. He had a mind that worked like a computer. Even though he wasnât a sports fanatic who followed the games religiously, and he didnât have anything to do with the actual handicapping of the games, he knew instinctively when a wrong line was set.â
Born in 1926, Olshan is a Buffalo native and a Marine combat veteran who saw action in Okinawa in World War II. He attended the University of Buffalo for one year, hoping to become either a sports reporter or play-by-play announcer. He says that he, too, has been collecting newspaper and magazine clippings about football since he was seven years old.
âI read an article entitled âThe Wizard of Oddsâ about Leo and the Minneapolis line in Collierâs magazine, and on an impulse I went to Minneapolis to ask Leo for a job. I thought that there was excitement in betting and handicapping, and that there might be a future in it for me. Athletic Publications, Inc., also published player statistics and the schedules for all the games in the entire country, including the rotation of the gamesâwhich was crucial to the industry and really united it.
âI started working at The Green Sheet in 1948 making ninety dollars a week as a statistician. By the end of my first month, my salary was increased to a hundred. And after a couple more months, I was raised to a hundred and fifteen dollars. I had tears in my eyes when they gave me those raises, because that was bigmoney for a twenty-two-year-old man at the time. When I got there, we expanded The Green Sheet with different features and write-ups, so that it became more of a full-service, multidimensional publication with interesting stories and analyses of games.â
Olshan says that each of The Green Sheet handicappers worked independently of one another. âWe would read everything we could get our hands onâmaybe as many as forty daily newspapers each day. Most of our work was done on Saturday and Sunday after we analyzed the college and professional games. On the basis of our information, we would set our own lines.
âEvery Monday morning, the four of us then went into Leoâs office with our own numbers. Because we were trying to equalize or balance the publicâs money on each game, we would have to carefully assess the strengths and weaknesses of the two teams and the publicâs perception of the games and then anticipate how the public would bet. It was rare, if ever, that we could achieve a totally even distribution of the betting, but we worked hard to get as close as possible. Joe Katzman would compare our individual point spreads, and we would often argue over the numbers. Joe would arbitrate the differences and would make his own adjustments based on the discussion. He would then set the ultimate line that would then be distributed around the country. The whole idea was to come up with a line that our subscribers could use and profit by.â 2
As NFL
Mort Olshan, who was like a âsurrogate sonâ to Hirschfield, worked on The Green Sheet along with Karl Ersin, Jimmy Harris, and Joe Katzman, who was the senior handicapper. Olshan told me, âThere were four handicappers with Leo Herschfield, who was the active partner with a one-third interest and ran the service operation. I never met Billy Hecht in my whole life; he was never around. He had another partner [Joe Numero] in the separate bookmaking part of the operation. They were bookmakers and took the action. They had separate jobs and separate offices from the service activity.
âLeo was a totally honest man, and he avoided all the shady associations. He had a mind that worked like a computer. Even though he wasnât a sports fanatic who followed the games religiously, and he didnât have anything to do with the actual handicapping of the games, he knew instinctively when a wrong line was set.â
Born in 1926, Olshan is a Buffalo native and a Marine combat veteran who saw action in Okinawa in World War II. He attended the University of Buffalo for one year, hoping to become either a sports reporter or play-by-play announcer. He says that he, too, has been collecting newspaper and magazine clippings about football since he was seven years old.
âI read an article entitled âThe Wizard of Oddsâ about Leo and the Minneapolis line in Collierâs magazine, and on an impulse I went to Minneapolis to ask Leo for a job. I thought that there was excitement in betting and handicapping, and that there might be a future in it for me. Athletic Publications, Inc., also published player statistics and the schedules for all the games in the entire country, including the rotation of the gamesâwhich was crucial to the industry and really united it.
âI started working at The Green Sheet in 1948 making ninety dollars a week as a statistician. By the end of my first month, my salary was increased to a hundred. And after a couple more months, I was raised to a hundred and fifteen dollars. I had tears in my eyes when they gave me those raises, because that was bigmoney for a twenty-two-year-old man at the time. When I got there, we expanded The Green Sheet with different features and write-ups, so that it became more of a full-service, multidimensional publication with interesting stories and analyses of games.â
Olshan says that each of The Green Sheet handicappers worked independently of one another. âWe would read everything we could get our hands onâmaybe as many as forty daily newspapers each day. Most of our work was done on Saturday and Sunday after we analyzed the college and professional games. On the basis of our information, we would set our own lines.
âEvery Monday morning, the four of us then went into Leoâs office with our own numbers. Because we were trying to equalize or balance the publicâs money on each game, we would have to carefully assess the strengths and weaknesses of the two teams and the publicâs perception of the games and then anticipate how the public would bet. It was rare, if ever, that we could achieve a totally even distribution of the betting, but we worked hard to get as close as possible. Joe Katzman would compare our individual point spreads, and we would often argue over the numbers. Joe would arbitrate the differences and would make his own adjustments based on the discussion. He would then set the ultimate line that would then be distributed around the country. The whole idea was to come up with a line that our subscribers could use and profit by.â 2
As NFL
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