Winfield Denies He Gambled, as Alleged in Magazine Story

Dave Winfield discounted sources quoted in Sports Illustrated’s Aug. 13 issue who said he gambled on sports other than baseball, citing as support of his innocence Commissioner Fay Vincent’s exoneration of him after an investigation into the activities of New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.

The magazine said New York free-lance writer Allen Barra claimed that Winfield had talked about sports wagers and made phone calls to get odds on sports events. However, Winfield said he owned neither the car phone nor the answering machine on which Barra claimed to have heard those conversations.

Barra said Wednesday that he had no tangible proof that Winfield had placed bets “but I’m sure that’s what he was doing” when Barra overheard Winfield discussing point spreads on basketball games. “They weren’t betting on baseball. It was January, anyway,” said Barra, who didn’t make the conversations public at the time because he considered them off the record. Barra said he will detail his recollections next week in The Village Voice, a New York City-based weekly newspaper.

When questioned about the story Wednesday, Vincent said the investigation revealed “no reason to find that Dave had misconducted himself. Dave fully cooperated with us.” He also said the magazine story contained “nothing significant.”

Winfield agreed, saying: “I’ve been open. The commissioner has looked into this, and there’s nothing to all of this. Winfield doesn’t gamble; he doesn’t consort with gamblers. I can’t even give you the language. Anybody who knows me knows that.”

Winfield acknowledged having given $15,000 to gambler Howard Spira but only at the request of his then-agent, Al Frohman, and without knowledge of how it was to be used. Spira, who had ties to organized crime, was paid $40,000 by Steinbrenner to uncover damaging information on Winfield. Steinbrenner last week was ordered to relinquish his title as managing general partner of the Yankees.

“The only person who got muddied in the investigation is George Steinbrenner, and that’s because he was dealing in dirt,” Winfield said. “He tried to bring me into the situation, but he couldn’t. . . . Yeah, I’m upset (about the story). The unnamed sources, well, I’m going to have people looking into this.”