A Global Fiasco: Walter Dilbeck’s Third Major League

Shifty. That’s a good word for Walter Dilbeck, the huckster who launched the Global Baseball League in 1966. And launched it again in 1968. And crashed it in 1969. The barely believable saga of Dilbeck and his self-styled third major league involves 11 Hall of Famers, a former vice president of the United States, a crooked preacher, and an international incident, with cameo appearances by Frank Sinatra and Howard Hughes.

The world was not exactly clamoring for another baseball league in 1966. The American and National leagues had recently expanded to 10 teams each, with a promise of more. The minors had shrunk from 59 circuits to 18 in a decade and a half, and some of the survivors were teetering. Professional football was ascendant. It was fashionable — again — to proclaim baseball dying or dead.

Undaunted, Dilbeck hatched his scheme on October 21, 1966, when he announced that representatives from 14 cities had met in Evansville, Indiana, to adopt a charter for the new league. He said the Global would begin play in 1968 in U.S. cities and later extend its reach to the Philippines, Japan, and Puerto Rico.1 “We can find better players than there are in the major leagues,” he declared. “I’d say there are only 20 or so in each league who would be good enough to play in our league.”2 That laughable exaggeration set the tone for all that came later.

Walter J. Dilbeck Jr. was a 48-year-old Evansville real estate developer who claimed to have played briefly in the minors and was part-owner of the Class-A Rock Hill, South Carolina, club. He was a decorated World War II hero; the Associated Press reported that he had been awarded two Distinguished Service Crosses for valor, the Army’s second-highest medal, as well as four Bronze Stars and four Purple Hearts (though not all of the awards could be verified.) “He’s not inclined to let you forget it,” Bill Fleischman wrote in The Sporting News.3

His postwar record was less distinguished. He had run twice for mayor of Evansville unsuccessfully, once garnering only 586 votes. Sports Illustrated reported that he had lost his Indiana real estate license in 1955.4 Now he was promoting land deals in Kentucky. A stout man with a neat Clark Gable mustache, he described his wardrobe as “flashy clothes, lively clothes.”5 Dilbeck projected a salesman’s glib confidence, but he was a moderate-sized fish in a small pond, a trout aspiring to be a whale.

After additional meetings in November and January, he declaimed, “When some old boys who have held the reins since 1900 tell us this nation of 200,000,000 people is not capable of fielding three major leagues, I challenge this.” He identified five cities that had anted up $50,000 deposits toward a franchise: Milwaukee, Phoenix, Jersey City, Indianapolis, and San Diego.6 As subsequent events showed, this was almost certainly false.

A month later Dilbeck shifted to a new roster of cities including Louisville, Charlotte, and Omaha. But he was vague about stadium leases and declined to discuss the league’s financing. If he had a plan, it depended on securing a network television contract. He said he was in negotiations toward that end.7

The baseball establishment weighed in through the game’s bible, The Sporting News, with a warning to prospective investors. Editor C.C. Johnson Spink wrote that the Global League “got off on the wrong foot” by failing to seek an audience with Commissioner William Eckert and pledge allegiance to Organized Baseball. If it dared to proceed as an “outlaw,” Spink predicted, failure would be swift and sure.8

The Global League was fully capable of failing without Spink’s advice. By mid-1967 the circuit had vanished. Dilbeck shifted his focus in a new direction. In October he paid a reported $65,000 for the bankrupt Toronto Triple-A franchise and persuaded the International League to move it to Louisville.

Louisville had been without professional baseball since 1962, when the American Association folded. Kansas City A’s owner Charlie Finley had teased the city with a proposal to bring his team there, but nothing came of it. Now Dilbeck bragged, “I’m going to make a major league town out of Louisville in two years or so.” Pumping up his bona fides to the local paper, he touted his real estate projects in Kentucky and dropped the names of Governor Ned Breathitt and the late Senator Alben Barkley. He confided that Hollywood was making a movie of his wartime exploits.9

The Louisville Colonels scored a working agreement with the Boston Red Sox, who named former big leaguer Eddie Kasko as manager. Dilbeck promised him a $15,000 bonus for winning the pennant.10 The club finished fifth in 1968, but led the league in attendance with more than 225,000.

When the major leagues announced a new round of expansion for 1969, Dilbeck entered his horse in the race. “Money and financing are not our problems,” he wired National League President Warren Giles. “We have the desire, therefore it will come.”11 The NL chose San Diego and Montreal for its new franchises. With both majors now comprising 12 teams, no further expansion was likely any time soon.

Seeing the setback as an opportunity, Dilbeck pulled the Global League off the trash heap in June 1968. He had one of his allies write a letter to Commissioner Eckert seeking Organized Baseball’s blessing for a third major league, but Eckert’s reply was noncommittal boilerplate.12 Dilbeck charged full speed ahead.

This time around, he said four Japanese teams would join franchises in Louisville, Jersey City, Dallas, and Mexico City. Players? No problem: “I’m sure out of 200 million people in this country you’ll find some good baseball players.”13 They would play a 100-game schedule beginning in 1969 with tickets priced at $5.14

In an interview with The Sporting News, he said, “We wouldn’t be competing with the majors. We would be somewhere between Double-A and Triple-A.”15 But not just another minor league. The games would pause during the fifth inning for a halftime show featuring “Geisha girls” among other entertainment.16

Jack Corbett, a longtime minor-league owner with connections in Japanese baseball, came aboard as executive vice president (no relation to the author). He said the league would not raid the majors or minors for players. The Globals advertised for investors to establish farm clubs for the new circuit.

To skeptics, Dilbeck said he had arranged a multimillion-dollar line of credit with an unnamed Indianapolis bank. The league planned to begin its 1969 season in June and cap it off with a true World Series in September. Dilbeck offered the job of managing the Louisville entry to Eddie Stanky, former Cardinals and White Sox manager. Stanky said he was considering it.17

In October Dilbeck rolled out another big name. Former baseball commissioner Happy Chandler agreed to serve as commissioner of the Global League. The 70-year-old Chandler, a former Kentucky senator and governor, had been forced out of the major-league commissioner’s office back in 1951. He and Dilbeck presided over the signing of the Global’s first player, Arnold Edward Davis, a 21-year-old pitcher from Evansville.18

Continuing his media blitz in the fall, Dilbeck raised his sights: “We plan for this to be the third major league in not too many years. We’re here to compete with Organized Baseball.” He had shifted again and was now talking of a six-team circuit with three in the United States and three in Japan. Dilbeck said Louisville and Jersey City were set and he planned to award the remaining franchise to Tampa investor Bunny Mick. But Mick said, “I think he’s getting a little ahead of himself.” He had not applied for a franchise.19

Dilbeck claimed he had an agreement with the National Association, the governing body of the minors, to play in minor-league parks when the home teams were on the road. But National Association President Phil Piton said there was no such agreement. He did point out that any “barnstorming team” could rent a ballpark.20

Retired slugger Johnny Mize signed to manage one Global team; he didn’t know which one. Former American League umpire Bill McKinley was appointed supervisor of umpires. Stanky was offered the position of vice president of player development at $75,000 a year, but he was not interested.

In February 1969 the league scheduled tryout camps in four cities with former major leaguers Mize, Enos Slaughter, Gordon Jones, and Stu Miller in charge. Another shift: Dilbeck now said the circuit would include San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Caracas, Venezuela.

One big red flag: except for Dilbeck in Louisville, none of the other team owners had revealed themselves. The unknown Dilbeck was the only public face of the league. Commissioner Chandler had retreated to his old Kentucky home.

Just a decade earlier the Continental League had declared itself the third major. The Continental had many advantages over the Global. It attracted deep-pocketed owners in eight large cities and enlisted the visionary executive Branch Rickey as its president and spokesman. While the majors had resisted expansion beyond the Northeast and Midwest for more than half a century, new cities had grown up with a thirst for big-league status. There was pent-up demand for baseball.

But despite its bona fides, the Continental League disbanded before it played a game — when the two major leagues agreed to expand. “It was ridiculed as a sham,” one of the organizers, Houston’s Craig Cullinan Jr., said, “but on the contrary it was an enormous success because it ran what became the biggest bluff in the history of professional sports.”21

Walter Dilbeck didn’t have the cards to run such a bluff. He had to play the hand he had dealt himself.

He made a high-stakes bet to strengthen his hand, according to several bizarre stories that broke in the spring of 1969. Bob Addie of the Washington Post wrote that the Global League had offered “fabulous contracts” of $500,000 over four years to a glittering lineup of 10 major-league stars: Don Drysdale, Ron Santo, Juan Marichal, Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Jim Bunning, Jim Fregosi, Joel Horlen, Jim Maloney, and Bill Mazeroski. Addie said Drysdale was recruiting more players.22

Robinson and Fregosi confirmed the offers, and Hank Aaron said he had been approached with the same deal. Robinson said Dilbeck had met with the players and told them he was negotiating with the Hughes Television Network to provide the money and broadcast the league’s games.23 Sandy Grady of the Philadelphia Bulletin also reported that Hughes TV money was the bait.24

The billionaire hermit Howard Hughes had bought Sports Network Inc., a syndicator of sports programs, put his name on it, and was looking to expand. But Hughes Network President Dick Bailey called the stories “ridiculous.” He said he had never discussed a proposal from the Global League.25 The network was preparing to bid for Major League Baseball and NFL broadcast rights. Flirting with a competing league could kill its chances.

While Dilbeck was silent, the league’s vice commissioner, Hillman Lyons, denied any attempt to raid the majors for players. Still, the story had a ring of plausibility. During the offseason the Major League Baseball Players Association had orchestrated a mass holdout, with the vast majority of players refusing to sign their 1969 contracts in a standoff over the pension plan. As spring training approached, uncertainty hung over the game.

Several of the named stars were nearing the end of their careers and might be tempted by a big payday. Fregosi was being threatened with a salary cut after a bad year. Drysdale was struggling to recover from a shoulder injury that would force him to retire a few months later. And Dilbeck had a history of making extravagant promises.

Without a TV contract, Addie reported, the Global League was “on the verge of extinction.”26 The league spokesman called that speculation “a big joke.”27

The Global League reached its high tide on April 2, 1969, when about 150 players reported for spring training in Daytona Beach, Florida, under the direction of Mize and Slaughter. The league now had actual players on an actual ball field coached by actual major leaguers. Former all-star shortstop Chico Carrasquel led a contingent from his native Venezuela, and a retired Japanese star, Toru Mori, brought the sharpest-looking team to camp. Former Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez was prepping the Puerto Rican entry. A Dominican team was said to be on the way. The U.S. clubs represented Jersey City and Mobile, Alabama, at least on paper. Their hopefuls included a former big-league pitcher, Ed Rakow, and a future one, Oscar Zamora (who soon left), but few had professional experience.28

Mize disclosed that the league would play a revolutionary brand of baseball: unlimited pinch-hitters and pinch-runners, and free substitution, with players allowed to exit the game and return. “It could be a whole new concept of baseball — offensive and defensive teams like in college football,” he said.29

One of the players, third baseman Bobby Bragan Jr., said Dilbeck “was kind of an odd character. He had all these rules. You can’t smoke. You can’t drink. You can’t cuss. You can’t go anywhere after 11 p.m. Of course, nobody paid any attention to ’em.” After a couple of weeks of practice games, Dilbeck took the players out for steaks and booze and gave each one a $100 bill. That was just about the last money Bragan ever saw from the Global League.30

Soon the league announced it was ready to begin its season — in Latin America. Opening Day was set for April 24 with games in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Caracas, Venezuela. “The major leagues lose money the first month of the season,” Dilbeck explained, “and I can’t see playing baseball in the States in April and May.”31

It was a strategic error born of desperation. After scrambling to cover the heavy expenses of spring training, Dilbeck was counting on big crowds south of the border to replenish his bank account. His advance men in Venezuela assured him that enthusiasm was high. But playing in the Caribbean and South America meant no coverage in U.S. newspapers.

Dilbeck told his hometown Evansville Press that 20,000 people had turned out for the opener in Caracas, with just one hitch. When the American flag was raised, anti-American demonstrators stormed the field. Dilbeck said he had restored order by threatening to “kill the first s.o.b. who touched the flag.”32 Unfortunately, no U.S. reporter was present on the scene to verify this dramatic tale.

The games in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic were a bust; Dilbeck acknowledged that they had drawn only about 1,500 spectators. He said all six teams would play in Caracas before coming to the United States.

The league effectively disappeared for a month. When news stories resumed, they were worse than no stories. On May 23 the Associated Press reported that one Caracas hotel had refused to serve meals to Global players because of unpaid bills. “We’ve only been playing three weeks, we don’t even have nicknames and already we’re in trouble,” said James Purcell, manager of the New York club. “My boys have to eat.”33 (Dilbeck had rebranded the U.S. teams as New York and Los Angeles, which sounded more “major league” than Jersey City and Mobile.)

A United Press International reporter found 87 ballplayers stranded in Caracas with hotels threatening to throw them out in the street unless the league paid $90,000 that it owed. Paul May, a Global representative in Venezuela, said the funds were “held up by formalities at local banks.” A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy commented, “We haven’t seen any money yet.” Several players had filed a complaint with police charging breach of contract, and May had been briefly detained.34

“It is hard to describe the confusion that existed when we arrived in the Caribbean,” said Johnny Mize, who had already come home along with Slaughter. He revealed that the teams had played before mostly empty seats. “The men Dilbeck sent to Central and South America must have been on vacations. They didn’t do much, if anything, for the league. They painted a great picture for Dilbeck and kept wiring him for more money. I think he deserved better than that because he really put his heart into this thing.”35

Jack Corbett and Stu Miller had also jumped ship with the league owing them back pay. “The Global League was the most mixed-up affair I’ve ever seen,” the veteran executive Corbett remarked. “Dilbeck is quite a guy and I really like him, but he had no setup and talked a good game.” Miller, who had coached for only a few weeks before opening his eyes, said, “I was conned.” When a reporter called the normally loquacious Dilbeck, he hung up.36

Another reporter sought a comment from Happy Chandler. The figurehead commissioner didn’t know that the league had started its season. “I have heard very little from them in the last six months,” he said, adding that he had not been paid his reported $4,000-a-month salary.37

Within a week, league spokesman Jack White said almost all the players had been brought out of Venezuela. He said the league would continue its season in U.S. minor-league parks and accused the majors of sabotage because they refused to allow Global League games in their parks. “They’re fighting us in every conceivable way,” White complained. “They don’t want competition.”38

Not everyone had been rescued. Some U.S. players asked the embassy for emergency loans to get home.39 The Japanese were also left behind. When the league sent them plane tickets, Venezuelan authorities blocked them from leaving until their hotel bills were paid. At one point they made it as far as the airport but were ordered off the plane. The Japanese Embassy was said to be arranging their ransom.40

Dilbeck surfaced in June to announce that he had sold the Global League to the Los Angeles-based Baptist Foundation of America for $3 million. Foundation President T. Sherron Jackson said the league fit with the group’s philosophy of “clean bodies and clean minds.” Dilbeck’s no-smoking, no-drinking, no-cussing rules were apparently worth $3 million. He continued as president.41

While some Global League employees, such as Mize and Corbett, remained sold on the salesman, Dilbeck’s creditors were not so understanding. Hotels in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic filed lawsuits in U.S. courts demanding payment of past-due bills. So did a supplier of uniforms and equipment. The Japanese players showed up in Evansville in August, free at last and looking for their back pay. Several were suffering from vitamin deficiencies brought on by malnutrition.42

An Evansville semipro team announced that it would play an exhibition against the Japanese “Tokyo Dragons” on August 27.43 If the game was played, it was evidently the only Global League contest ever staged in the United States.

Dilbeck had also lost his International League team. The league seized the Louisville Colonels and sold the franchise to a local businessman, William A. Gardner, a nephew of Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey. The club was reportedly $160,000 in debt.44

The Baptist Foundation of America turned out to be a scam, not affiliated with the Baptist church. It later shut down after the U.S. attorney in Sacramento charged that it had run “a highly sophisticated and intricate international conspiracy to defraud the public of many millions of dollars.” The Rev. Dr. Jackson was sentenced to prison for conspiracy and mail fraud. Dilbeck said he was stuck with worthless stock in a company controlled by the foundation.45

After the Global League passed into history, Walter Dilbeck continued to seek the spotlight. He raised funds for the legal defense of American soldiers accused of massacring Vietnamese women and children at My Lai and spearheaded a Reagan for President drive in 1972, when Ronald Reagan was not a candidate.

Three years later he announced that the disgraced former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew had joined his company as a rainmaker to bring in Arab investors for real estate projects. Dilbeck said the two had met at Frank Sinatra’s house. He boasted that he was paying Agnew $100,000 a year plus profit participation that would make the crooked politician a multimillionaire. After the publicity stirred a backlash, Agnew canceled the contract, saying with a straight face that Dilbeck had exploited him “at the expense of my integrity.”46

Dilbeck’s past reared up to bite him in 1976. A federal grand jury in Indianapolis indicted him on five counts of income tax evasion in the years 1968 through 1972. He blamed his dispute with the IRS on losses from the Global League, but investigators charged that he had done worse than stiff a few hotels and ballplayers. They accused him of “using other people’s credit and securing loans in other people’s names” while dodging taxes on at least $2.3 million in unreported income. In a plea bargain with prosecutors, he admitted guilt to a single count.47

Since prosecutors made no sentencing recommendation, the huckster faced up to three years in prison. U.S. District Judge William Steckler said Dilbeck’s wife, Dorothy, had written to him describing her husband as “a flamboyant person, high living, money coming in very easy and going out very easy.” The judge said Dilbeck’s victims included his own sister, who was out $125,000, and two people who had died of heart attacks after learning of their losses. Then Judge Steckler shocked courtroom spectators by sentencing Dilbeck to just 60 days confinement. He justified leniency because of the defendant’s war record and poor health; doctors said he had diabetes and high blood pressure.48

The caress on the wrist smelled so bad that Indianapolis News reporter David Rohn began investigating. He discovered that the wife of Indiana Senator Vance Hartke had visited the judge privately in chambers to urge him to go easy on Dilbeck, who had been a big contributor to the senator’s failed presidential campaign. Rohn said the prosecutors cut a deal because their case relied largely on evidence that was “unsubstantiated or hearsay,” and a conviction was no sure thing if it had gone before a jury. Courthouse sources believed Judge Steckler was regretting the light sentence.49

After serving his time, Dilbeck found God. He and Dorothy knocked on doors to spread the gospel on behalf of the Baptist church. When he was no longer able to pound the pavement, he preached to passersby outside a supermarket.50 He filed for bankruptcy in 1984, listing debts of $1.3 million and assets of $8,300. He told the court he had lost $3.5 million on his baseball venture.51 That was the epitaph of the Global League.

Walter Dilbeck died of heart and kidney disease at 72 on May 30, 1991. He was a man of grand ambition and little scruple. The movie of his life has not yet been made.

WARREN CORBETT of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, is the author of “The Wizard of Waxahachie: Paul Richards and the End of Baseball as We Knew It” and a contributor to SABR’s BioProject.

 

Additional Source

McKenna, Brian. “The Global League.” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/global-league.

 

Photo Credit

Chicago Daily News, November 8, 1966.

 

Notes

1 Associated Press, “World Wide Baseball: That’s Global League,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 22, 1966: 7.

2 “ The Third What?” Sports Illustrated, November 26, 1966, https://www.si.com/vault/1966/11/21/609976/scorecard, accessed July 21, 2019.

3 Bill Fleischman, “Capt. Dilbeck Sees Good Ship Global Sink in Red Ink,” The Sporting News (hereafter TSN), June 28, 1969: 25.

4 “The Third What?”

5 Lloyd Shearer, “Spiro Agnew — He’s Becoming a Multimillionaire in Real Estate,” Parade, January 19, 1975: 5.

6 Associated Press, “Global League Seeks College Players,” Baltimore Evening Sun, January 17, 1967: B9.

7 “Global, As In a Long Way from Anywhere,” Dallas Morning News, February 24, 1967: 2.

8 C.C. Johnson Spink, “We Believe,” The Sporting News, March 25, 1967: 14.

9 Earl Ruby, “‘Private Dilbeck’ to send Colonels to the majors?” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 19, 1967: B9.

10 Ron Coons, “High Finish Means Cash for Kasko,” Louisville Courier-Journal, December 13, 1967: B10.

11 “Big Time?” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 21, 1968: C12.

12 Al Dunning, “All in the Game,” Evansville (Indiana) Press, July 3, 1967: 17.

13 Coons, “Louisville Starts Move for Third Major League,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 14, 1968: C8.

14 Coons, “Louisville To Have 2 Baseball Teams?” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 30, 1968: B7.

15 Fleischman, “Dilbeck Enthuses Over Global Loop; Is He Just Dreamer or Big Dealer?” TSN, September 8, 1968: 15.

16 Dave Kindred, “Global League Set … and Stanky Isn’t Scoffing,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 26, 1968: B5.

17 Kindred, “Global League Set.”

18 David Reed, “Chandler ‘Happy’ To Be Commissioner of New Global Baseball League,” Lexington (Kentucky) Herald, October 29, 1968: 10.

19 Fred Girard, “Global Loop Stirring World of Unrest in Minors,” TSN, November 23, 1968: 41.

20 Girard, “Global Loop.”

21 Robert Reed, Colt .45s, a Six-Gun Salute (Houston: Lone Star Books, 1999), 34.

22 Bob Addie, Washington Post News Service, “Stars Sought; Lack of TV Threatens Plan,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), March 5, 1969: 27.

23 Associated Press, “Robinson Reveals Global Offer,” Columbia (South Carolina) Gazette, April 28, 1969: 4-D; “Fregosi Says He Nixed $500,000 Global Offer,” TSN, March 29, 1969: 30; Associated Press, “Aaron Says Global Offer $500,000,” Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, June 15, 1969: E-6.

24 Sandy Grady, “When Howard Hughes Tried to Raid Majors,” TSN, May 10, 1969: 10

25 “Story Linking Hughes Video Net to Global League Called ‘Ridiculous,’” TSN, May 17, 1969: 22.

26 Addie, “Stars Sought.”

27 “Global Loop Condition Is Claimed OK,” Muncie (Indiana) Star Press, March 7, 1969: 22.

28 United Press International, “Five Global League Teams Begin Workouts in Florida,” Evansville Press, April 4, 1969: 15; Jimmy Mann, “The Global League Story” St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, April 22-23, 1969.

29 UPI, “Five Global League Teams.”

30 Frank Luksa, “Bragan Between Jobs in Global League,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, June 15, 1969: 27.

31 United Press International, “Global League Opens Play Next Thursday,” Jasper (Indiana) Herald, April 18, 1969: 10.

32 Dunning, “Global League games a riot in Venezuela,” Evansville Press, May 1, 1969: 26.

33 Associated Press, “Global Players Hungry,” Evansville Courier and Press, May 23, 1969: 23.

34 United Press International, “Global League Farce Still Running Rampant,” Lexington Herald, May 27, 1969:10.

35 Fleischman, “Capt. Dilbeck.”

36 Fleischman, “Capt. Dilbeck.”

37 David Reed, “Who’s on First?” Lexington Herald, June 4, 1969: 10.

38 David Reed, “Who’s on First?”

39 “Ball players Dilbeck hired asking loans,” Evansville Press, June 12, 1969: 1.

40 Associated Press, “Japan Set to Bail Out Club,” Evansville Courier and Press, August 1, 1969: 18.

41 “Dilbeck Sells Global League for $3 Million,” Evansville Press, June 18, 1969: 29; Associated Press, “Baptist Faith Gets Test in Global League,” Lexington Herald, June 19, 1969: 26.

42 Associated Press, “Where’s Dilbeck?” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 13, 1969: B8.

43 “Mattingly Benefit Game Set Tonight,” Evansville Press, August 27, 1969: 30.

44 Mike Kallay, “Louisville Businessman Buys Colonels Franchise,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 21, 1969: 1.

45 Associated Press, “Phony Religious Group Indicted for Big Frauds,” Tacoma (Washington) News Tribune, April 18, 1973: B-5; “Ex-LaVerne minister receives prison sentence,” Pomona (California) Progress-Bulletin, April 19, 1976: 1.

46 Shearer, “Spiro Agnew”; Associated Press, “‘Victim’ Spiro drops partner,” Chicago Tribune, February 8, 1975: 3.

47 “Dilbeck’s Dealings Revealed,” Indianapolis News, December 2, 1976: 28.

48 “Dilbeck Gets 60 Days for Tax Fraud,” Indianapolis News, February 7, 1977: 3.

49 David Rohn, “Steckler Dismayed at Dilbeck Term?” Indianapolis News, February 17, 1977: 21.

50 Dave DeWitt, “Flamboyant local businessman Walter Dilbeck dies at age 72,” Evansville Courier and Press, May 31, 1991: 5.

51 Associated Press, “Walter J. Dilbeck Jr., 72, World War II Hero,” Lafayette (Indiana) Journal and Courier, May 31, 1991: 18.