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Jimmy Snyder (sports commentator)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jackdempsey187 (talk | contribs) at 10:09, 16 May 2006 (Steubenville is not a suburb of Pittsburgh.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder (September 9 1919April 21 1996) was an American sports commentator and Las Vegas bookie. He was born Dimetrios Georgos Synodinos in Steubenville, Ohio.

As a football commentator, Snyder was controversial. He would often give his picks for winners of games and touted his ability to make the right picks, which critics claimed were indirectly encouraging gambling; Snyder countered by saying that he never gave the spread of the games, so his picks couldn't be considered an endorsement of gambling. On January 16, 1988, he was fired by the CBS network (where he was a contributor to the NFL Today program) after publicly stating that African Americans were naturally superior athletes because they had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery: "During the slave period, the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid—that's where it all started."

Jimmy the Greek died of a heart attack in Las Vegas, at the age of 76.


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