Jim O'Donnell: Author has published 4 books on NFL 'make believe' - is anyone paying attention?

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, a suburban insouciant bet the Arizona Cardinals in a "Sunday Night Football" game.

At the half, Kyler Murray and the Cards were getting beaten up.

In the second half, they got a few "fortuitous" calls, forced an OT and won.

The wager cashed.

The Insouciant felt no euphoria, only grimy. The win was far too "make believe." The payoff sequences seemed as genuine as fruit juice at a Dollar Tree.

AUTHOR BRIAN TUOHY KNOWS the feeling all too well.

The Kenosha-based Tuohy knows it so well that he has published no fewer than four books since 2010 that deal with the surreal-outcome side of the NFL and other major sports.

Essentially, he states and reinforces the basic idea that much of what Sportin' America holds as sacred and righteous just isn't so.

The series began with "The Fix Is In: The Showbiz Manipulations of the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and NASCAR" (published by Feral House).

It continued with:

• "Larceny Games: Sports Gambling, Game Fixing, and the FBI" (Feral, 2013);

• "A Season in the Abyss: Sports Gambling vs. the NFL's Integrity" (Mono Press, 2015); and,

•"The Fix Is Still In: Corruption and Conspiracies the Pro Sports Leagues Don't Want You to Know About" (Feral, 2019).

HIS MOTIVATION WAS a simple one:

"I hate being lied to," Tuohy said. "And as a sports fan, I realized some time ago that the leagues were lying to me.

"Lying about performance-enhancing drugs, lying about criminals playing in their games and lying about the gambling infesting their sports.

"I wondered how deep those lies went. So I decided to investigate ... because no one else would."

TUOHY SAYS HE USED The Freedom of Information Act to obtain more than 400 FBI files dealing with "sports bribery."

He also dug deeply into applicable federal law regarding where the dividing points are between organic sports competitions and entertainment exhibitions.

What he discovered should have been earth rattling.

"I came to understand sports leagues are really entertainment businesses. There is no legal difference between the NFL and World Wrestling Entertainment, Tuohy said. "Because of this fact, the NFL can legally manipulate and or outright fix the outcome of its games.

"I believe every fan has seen this firsthand. Stars get calls, a well-timed penalty flag assists a team to a dramatic score like those that propelled the L.A. Rams to their Super Bowl victory last winter, or to whichever #Strong team amazingly won its championship."

FOR HIS EFFORTS, TUOHY SAYS that the mainstream media has labeled him "a conspiracy theorist" and marginalized his toil:

"When the second book came out eight years ago, Sports Illustrated worked with my publisher and agreed to run an excerpt from 'Larceny Games'. After two or three weeks of back and forth, they ghosted and never ran anything relating to the book at all."

According to Tuohy, in the end, the folks at "60 Minutes" were no more keen to amplify against the best interests of their network's most reliably profitable programming.

"During my second chat with a producer from '60 Minutes,' I was told that, they prefer to be 'the outlet that does the research instead of interviewing someone on air who did it for them.'"

Profit-sensitive sorts from ESPN and HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" have never called.

Neither has representatives of PBS mainstay "Frontline," which kicked off its existence in January 1983 with Jessica Savitch and an episode that focused on pro football, organized crime and gambling titled "An Unauthorized History of the NFL."

TUOHY'S BOOKS REMAIN AVAILABLE through Amazon, at Barnes and Nobles and other major retailers and via his website - thefixisin.net.

With the NFL set to kick off another five-month run of mesmerizing insanities later this week - and millions of baby gamblers now lured into the mystic chase - Tuohy knows his message will likely remain overwhelmed.

Perhaps he is a prophet in the Arctic, one wandering the ice floes.

But he concludes: "I don't believe in coincidence when it comes to multibillion dollar businesses like the NFL.

"Too often, the superstar wins or the much-hyped storyline achieves its Cinderella-like ending. That's because these sports leagues are adult fairy tales, built on outright fabrications to give thirsty sports fans what they want. And that's drama, week in and week out.

"All of it brought to you by televisions networks and sponsors that literally fund these leagues and cover their eyes from this reality."

But the parallel reality is that if it means Justin Fields and the '22 Bears get script-written into a 20-0 season, who in these parts is going to itch and moan?

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.