710427
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710427
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Lawrence Maddry
VIRGINIAN-PILOT
APRIL 27, '71
CALL HIM WHAT YOU WILL—Svengali or Sultan or Swami—Ted Owens of Norfolk may best be described as a Wizard of Odds.
This incredible man is betting his own mind-over-matter reputation against the management of pro football and basketball squads.
He's trying to make a buck on The Baltimore Colts and straight shooters out of the Baltimore Bullets with no more than ESP and a tuning fork.
He claims he's getting away with it, and it may be so. No matter what happens there hasn't been such a display of the backside of sports since Gussie Moran went in for lace panties.
As you recall, gentle reader, there appeared here, about a week ago a story about Norfolk's Eagle Eye Fleagle Ted Owens. Owens wrote Baltimore Colts board chairman Carroll Rosenbloom that unless the Colts paid him $100,000 he would destroy the club with a mental trumpet the likes of which have not been seen since Joshua blew taps around Jericho.
Fork Cuts Into World Of Sports
Rosenbloom wrote him to lay off but expressed an interest in meeting with Owens sometime, doubtless noting that since the letter his quarterback John Unitas and halfback Tom Matte had experienced injuries.
After an exchange of letters, Rosenbloom is now talking money. On April 12 Owens received a letter from Rosenbloom noting:
"If you could receive permission from Commissioner Pete Rozelle, to aid us for the $25,000 fee, we then, in good conscience, could give your proposal serious consideration."
"Again, thank you for your offer to let us off the hook, we certainly will do everything reasonable to assure our continued success."
If Rosenbloom truly thinks Owens is a modern Mephistopheles, why does he need Rozelle's approval? This kind of linament-headed thinking is what persuades people that professional sports in this country is being run by charlie-horse headed homo sapiens whose thinking runs in the same direction as Wrong-Way Corrigan.
Owens says he needs $100,000 to finance a home in the country and do further research on the tuning fork which he has now perfected to such an extent that he can now move turtles from one side of their bowl to another.
He obviously is the only person connected with this debacle who knows what he's doing. He will lay off and put the hex on the Colts' opponents for $100,000.
It is a matter of indifference to him whether he puts the bad eye on Colts' opponents under a canopy in the stands or hides beneath the floor in darkened waterway passageways, like the Phantom of the Opera.
Leo
IT IS OBVIOUS that Mr. Rozelle's jurisdiction doesn't extend to the sewer. If it does he has found his place and we have no further quarrel with him. It is this business of passing the buck that we object to.
Speaking of passing the Bucks, the Norfolk Eagle Eye Fleagle has also offered to use his restorative mental powers on injured Baltimore Bullets basketball star Gus Johnson.
The Bullets are now engaged in a do-or-die battle with the Milwaukee Bucks for the National Basketball Association Championship.
On Sunday's ABC Television Sports coverage of the game an announcer noted that Owens had offered his services to Bullets' coach Gene Shue and that Shue had turned him down.
"It made me furious," Owens said. "The score was about even when he made the remark and I immediately phoned The Baltimore Sun and told them I was going to mentally destroy the Bullets in the second half." The Sun has confirmed the conversation.
OWENS CLAIMED he used his finger with "a lightning effect" pointing it to the TV screen in his home. "I also put a mental lid over the basket when the Bullets were shooting," he said.
Whatever the cause, it is curious to note that The Associated Press reports of the game state that the Bullets "fell apart" during the second half.
They lost, 102-83, and the Bucks have a two-game lead in the best of seven series. One writer noted that the Bullets looked as awkward as Ernest Borgnine at a meeting of the Colonial Dames.
Owens' recent activities have gotten a rise out of The Baltimore Sun sports writers and were chronicled also in a Washington Post column which marched off, understandably, in all directions.
But it's money for tuning-fork research that Owens is after.
"I'm not an idiot or a nut," he said. "But I'm becoming very impassioned."
He pinged his finger against the tuning fork, producing a ringing hum, like wet fingers rubbed on the rim of a crystal glass.
"What I can do with that is so powerful," he said, "it even frightens me sometimes."
Lawrence Maddry
VIRGINIAN-PILOT
APRIL 27, '71
CALL HIM WHAT YOU WILL—Svengali or Sultan or Swami—Ted Owens of Norfolk may best be described as a Wizard of Odds.
This incredible man is betting his own mind-over-matter reputation against the management of pro football and basketball squads.
He's trying to make a buck on The Baltimore Colts and straight shooters out of the Baltimore Bullets with no more than ESP and a tuning fork.
He claims he's getting away with it, and it may be so. No matter what happens there hasn't been such a display of the backside of sports since Gussie Moran went in for lace panties.
As you recall, gentle reader, there appeared here, about a week ago a story about Norfolk's Eagle Eye Fleagle Ted Owens. Owens wrote Baltimore Colts board chairman Carroll Rosenbloom that unless the Colts paid him $100,000 he would destroy the club with a mental trumpet the likes of which have not been seen since Joshua blew taps around Jericho.
Fork Cuts Into World Of Sports
Rosenbloom wrote him to lay off but expressed an interest in meeting with Owens sometime, doubtless noting that since the letter his quarterback John Unitas and halfback Tom Matte had experienced injuries.
After an exchange of letters, Rosenbloom is now talking money. On April 12 Owens received a letter from Rosenbloom noting:
"If you could receive permission from Commissioner Pete Rozelle, to aid us for the $25,000 fee, we then, in good conscience, could give your proposal serious consideration."
"Again, thank you for your offer to let us off the hook, we certainly will do everything reasonable to assure our continued success."
If Rosenbloom truly thinks Owens is a modern Mephistopheles, why does he need Rozelle's approval? This kind of linament-headed thinking is what persuades people that professional sports in this country is being run by charlie-horse headed homo sapiens whose thinking runs in the same direction as Wrong-Way Corrigan.
Owens says he needs $100,000 to finance a home in the country and do further research on the tuning fork which he has now perfected to such an extent that he can now move turtles from one side of their bowl to another.
He obviously is the only person connected with this debacle who knows what he's doing. He will lay off and put the hex on the Colts' opponents for $100,000.
It is a matter of indifference to him whether he puts the bad eye on Colts' opponents under a canopy in the stands or hides beneath the floor in darkened waterway passageways, like the Phantom of the Opera.
Leo
IT IS OBVIOUS that Mr. Rozelle's jurisdiction doesn't extend to the sewer. If it does he has found his place and we have no further quarrel with him. It is this business of passing the buck that we object to.
Speaking of passing the Bucks, the Norfolk Eagle Eye Fleagle has also offered to use his restorative mental powers on injured Baltimore Bullets basketball star Gus Johnson.
The Bullets are now engaged in a do-or-die battle with the Milwaukee Bucks for the National Basketball Association Championship.
On Sunday's ABC Television Sports coverage of the game an announcer noted that Owens had offered his services to Bullets' coach Gene Shue and that Shue had turned him down.
"It made me furious," Owens said. "The score was about even when he made the remark and I immediately phoned The Baltimore Sun and told them I was going to mentally destroy the Bullets in the second half." The Sun has confirmed the conversation.
OWENS CLAIMED he used his finger with "a lightning effect" pointing it to the TV screen in his home. "I also put a mental lid over the basket when the Bullets were shooting," he said.
Whatever the cause, it is curious to note that The Associated Press reports of the game state that the Bullets "fell apart" during the second half.
They lost, 102-83, and the Bucks have a two-game lead in the best of seven series. One writer noted that the Bullets looked as awkward as Ernest Borgnine at a meeting of the Colonial Dames.
Owens' recent activities have gotten a rise out of The Baltimore Sun sports writers and were chronicled also in a Washington Post column which marched off, understandably, in all directions.
But it's money for tuning-fork research that Owens is after.
"I'm not an idiot or a nut," he said. "But I'm becoming very impassioned."
He pinged his finger against the tuning fork, producing a ringing hum, like wet fingers rubbed on the rim of a crystal glass.
"What I can do with that is so powerful," he said, "it even frightens me sometimes."
Collection
Citation
“710427,” Archive Home, accessed July 30, 2026, https://pkman.org/archive/items/show/462.