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| The Infamous Mr. Rothstein |
The Infamous Mr. Rothstein
The real story of Arnold Rothstein, the criminal genius behind
the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
by David Pietrusza
Let us now praise infamous men.
October is upon us. The World Series awaits, an event so American
and so sacred that only the most despicable of miscreants, a Bud
Selig or a Donald Fehr, might dare risk its harm.
. . . Bud Selig.
. . . Donald Fehr.
. . . or Arnold Rothstein.
I do not mean to praise Messrs. Selig or Fehr. I have my limits. But I
do wish to give some credit to Mr. Rothstein.
Eighty-six years ago, New York gambler Arnold Rothstein played a
role in fixing the Chicago White Sox's last World Series appearance.
That is fairly well known. In September 1919, two very small-time
gamblers, Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, thought they could
entice certain less-scrupulous members of the Chicago White Sox to
throw the upcoming World Series. They did not, however, possess
the necessary cash. The pair approached A.R. They wanted him to
finance the operation. He loudly, rudely, and publicly refused.
Rothstein's pal, former featherweight champion Abe Attell, however,
saw promise in Burns and Maharg's simple yet ambitious scheme.
Attell informed them that A.R. had changed his mind, and they should
proceed. Attell was lying, but they didn't know that.
Gambler Joseph "Sport" Sullivan then ventured down from Boston.
He too wanted to fix the Series. He too knew which players could be
bought. A.R. reconsidered. He knew Sullivan. He trusted him. He
gave him the cash.
The Black Sox—Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chick Gandil, Swede
Risberg, Happy Felsch, the lot of them—proceeded to lose the
World Series to Cincinnati.
When the scandal broke, Rothstein went to Chicago, and with the
support of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey's attorney,
bamboozled the investigating grand jury. Chicago grand juries are
easy to bamboozle. He walked away scot-free. Eventually, so did
everybody else.
That is the story in the books and in the movies.
It does not do Mr. Rothstein justice.
Today we forget just how big Arnold Rothstein was. In fact, he was
the original "Mr. Big." When he died (of lead poisoning) in 1928, few
paid much attention to the fact that he had dared to fix a World
Series. That was simply among the least dishonest, the least lucrative,
of his varied enterprises. Gambling. Loan Sharking. Fencing Stolen
Goods. Wall Street Swindling. Rumrunning. Labor Racketeering.
Drug Smuggling. Rothstein was big in all these occupations, and each
generated more income than fixing some postseason baseball
exhibition.
Yet fixing a World Series remained a big deal. "It never occurred to
me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million
people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe," wrote
F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.
It occurred to Arnold Rothstein. And it occurred to him very early on.
A.R. played a far greater role in the scandal than he has henceforth
received credit for. A new examination of the evidence reveals:
Abe Attell did not refuse to tender the Black Sox any appreciable
amount of cash merely because he was greedy, arrogant, and
shortsighted. He may indeed have been all of those things, but he
acted as he did, because he knew the players were already on the
take, getting Rothstein's cash from Sport Sullivan and another
Rothstein associate, Nat Evans. Attell's outlays would only be
superfluous—a waste of A.R.'s money.
Charles Comiskey had little influence over the grand jury. His hated
enemy, American League president Ban Johnson, did. It was Johnson
who worked to cover-up Rothstein's role in the affair. Johnson's
motive: he needed support from Rothstein's shady business associate,
New York Giants owner Charles Stoneham to stave off efforts to
create a new baseball commissionership. A.R. double-crossed him.
Rothstein, in turn, protected Abe Attell from prosecution. The
obvious question: If the two had not worked together in the fix, why
would A.R. bother?
Confusing?
You bet. Or rather, Arnold Rothstein bet—at least $270,000 on the
Cincinnati Reds.
In 1961 a newspaper columnist asked Abe Attell if the World Series
could still be fixed. "Not a chance, the Little Champ responded. "that
kind of cheating died when they buried Arnold Rothstein."
David Pietrusza is the award-winning author of Rothstein: The Life,
Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World
Series (Basic Books).
The real story of Arnold Rothstein, the criminal genius behind
the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
by David Pietrusza
Let us now praise infamous men.
October is upon us. The World Series awaits, an event so American
and so sacred that only the most despicable of miscreants, a Bud
Selig or a Donald Fehr, might dare risk its harm.
. . . Bud Selig.
. . . Donald Fehr.
. . . or Arnold Rothstein.
I do not mean to praise Messrs. Selig or Fehr. I have my limits. But I
do wish to give some credit to Mr. Rothstein.
Eighty-six years ago, New York gambler Arnold Rothstein played a
role in fixing the Chicago White Sox's last World Series appearance.
That is fairly well known. In September 1919, two very small-time
gamblers, Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, thought they could
entice certain less-scrupulous members of the Chicago White Sox to
throw the upcoming World Series. They did not, however, possess
the necessary cash. The pair approached A.R. They wanted him to
finance the operation. He loudly, rudely, and publicly refused.
Rothstein's pal, former featherweight champion Abe Attell, however,
saw promise in Burns and Maharg's simple yet ambitious scheme.
Attell informed them that A.R. had changed his mind, and they should
proceed. Attell was lying, but they didn't know that.
Gambler Joseph "Sport" Sullivan then ventured down from Boston.
He too wanted to fix the Series. He too knew which players could be
bought. A.R. reconsidered. He knew Sullivan. He trusted him. He
gave him the cash.
The Black Sox—Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chick Gandil, Swede
Risberg, Happy Felsch, the lot of them—proceeded to lose the
World Series to Cincinnati.
When the scandal broke, Rothstein went to Chicago, and with the
support of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey's attorney,
bamboozled the investigating grand jury. Chicago grand juries are
easy to bamboozle. He walked away scot-free. Eventually, so did
everybody else.
That is the story in the books and in the movies.
It does not do Mr. Rothstein justice.
Today we forget just how big Arnold Rothstein was. In fact, he was
the original "Mr. Big." When he died (of lead poisoning) in 1928, few
paid much attention to the fact that he had dared to fix a World
Series. That was simply among the least dishonest, the least lucrative,
of his varied enterprises. Gambling. Loan Sharking. Fencing Stolen
Goods. Wall Street Swindling. Rumrunning. Labor Racketeering.
Drug Smuggling. Rothstein was big in all these occupations, and each
generated more income than fixing some postseason baseball
exhibition.
Yet fixing a World Series remained a big deal. "It never occurred to
me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million
people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe," wrote
F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.
It occurred to Arnold Rothstein. And it occurred to him very early on.
A.R. played a far greater role in the scandal than he has henceforth
received credit for. A new examination of the evidence reveals:
- Rothstein did not become part of the conspiracy after it had
been hatched in Boston in September 1919—or after he met
with Burns and Maharg. He had already set it in motion no
later than that August. Former Chicago Cubs owner Charles
Weeghman testified to that before the grand jury. - Rothstein did not refuse to work with Burns and Maharg
because he thought fixing a World Series was impossible, he
refused because he and his agent Sport Sullivan were already
working on a fix and didn't want them in the way. - Abe Attell was not operating separately from Rothstein in
pursuing his end of the caper. He took orders from Rothstein
every step of the way. In fact, Rothstein had a direct phone
line to Attell in Cincinnati. - Abe Attell was broke and hocking his wife's jewelry less than
a week before the Series started. The day the Series opened
he was supervising a cadre of Midwestern gamblers betting
thousand-dollar bills on Cincinnati. From where had Attell's
men and capital money so quickly materialized? To ask the
question is to answer it. - Rothstein brought Attell into the conspiracy, primarily not to fix
the series (since he already had Sport Sullivan working on that)
but simply to oversee those Midwestern gamblers in laying
down bets—and to deflect blame to Burns and Maharg if
anything went wrong. - And from where had those Midwestern gamblers come?
They'd been there with Rothstein all along. In fact, they had
plotted to fix the 1918 World Series.
Abe Attell did not refuse to tender the Black Sox any appreciable
amount of cash merely because he was greedy, arrogant, and
shortsighted. He may indeed have been all of those things, but he
acted as he did, because he knew the players were already on the
take, getting Rothstein's cash from Sport Sullivan and another
Rothstein associate, Nat Evans. Attell's outlays would only be
superfluous—a waste of A.R.'s money.
Charles Comiskey had little influence over the grand jury. His hated
enemy, American League president Ban Johnson, did. It was Johnson
who worked to cover-up Rothstein's role in the affair. Johnson's
motive: he needed support from Rothstein's shady business associate,
New York Giants owner Charles Stoneham to stave off efforts to
create a new baseball commissionership. A.R. double-crossed him.
Rothstein, in turn, protected Abe Attell from prosecution. The
obvious question: If the two had not worked together in the fix, why
would A.R. bother?
Confusing?
You bet. Or rather, Arnold Rothstein bet—at least $270,000 on the
Cincinnati Reds.
In 1961 a newspaper columnist asked Abe Attell if the World Series
could still be fixed. "Not a chance, the Little Champ responded. "that
kind of cheating died when they buried Arnold Rothstein."
David Pietrusza is the award-winning author of Rothstein: The Life,
Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World
Series (Basic Books).
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