Rothstein (24 page)

Cohan had very good information. Abe Attell had spied him dining with Nat Evans and surmised George M. was “about to be taken.” After Evans left, Attell warned Cohan about the fix. Cohan refrained from more wagering on the Series-and the word spread even faster.

The Herald and Examiner’s Hugh Fullerton wired every paper in his syndicate: ADVISE ALL NOT TO BET ON THIS SERIES. UGLY RUMORS FLOAT. In New York veteran gambler Honest John Kelly refused any bets on the Series. “Everyone knows Arnold Rothstein has fixed it,” Kelly commented matter-of-factly. Covering his tracks, A. R. now did what he often did: he bet against himself, bet against the Reds. After all, it propped up odds on the White Sox, and his public wagering on Cincinnati might prove very handy if events really went sour.

Attell and his gang were clearly not helping matters, but neither was Nat Evans. On the morning of the Series opener, Nat was in his room at the Sinton. Next door, local bookmaker Johnny Fay could clearly hear him on the phone, excitedly arguing with a man named “Arnold”arguing how to split their winnings, about holding out on bets.

Fay hadn’t been born yesterday. He handled some of the biggest bettors in the business-and he knew who Arnold had to be. Nonetheless, he went downstairs to ask the hotel operator.

It was indeed Arnold Rothstein.

Fay called New York bookmaker Maxie Blumenthal and told him the news. Now, not only did the smart money know that the Series was being fixed, they knew who was doing the fixing.

Game Two saw the Sox-and Lefty Williams-lose 4-2. Burns and Maharg again visited the Little Champ, now fully expecting $40,000. “I never saw so much money in my life,” Maharg recalled. “Stacks of bills were being counted on dressers and tables.” Burns thought the stacks were “four to five inches thick.”

Novelist Wilfred Sheed once wrote of the Little Champ, that he “was one those sublimely crooked characters … who wouldn’t take a quart of milk home to his mother without selling the cream first.” Neither Burns nor Maharg was Abe’s mother, so he had no hesitancy in stiffing them yet again. Egging him on was David Zelser, still posing as Curley Bennett. “To hell with them,” Zelser said contemptuously of Burns and Maharg. “What do we need them for!”

Bill Burns couldn’t believe Attell’s sheer effrontery and stupidity. He grabbed Attell, demanding to know how long the players would cooperate without seeing some cash.

The Little Champ conferred with Zelser and the Levi brothers. They knew the players would be getting money from Evans and Sullivan, so they weren’t too worried. But, why take chances? Attell reached under a mattress, took out a wad of currency, and counted out $10,000.

“That’s not enough!” Burns snorted.

“That’s it,” Attell responded. “That’s all they can have.”

“They won’t accept it Abe,” Burns pleaded. “For Chrissakes, there’s eight of them.”

“They’ll take it,” Attell responded coldly, adding A. R. had $300,000 down on the Reds. Then he assumed a conciliatory stance, promising that when the Series ended the players would “all get their money.” Burns and Maharg started to leave. They knew they weren’t going to win this one. “Wait a minute,” Attell called out. “Tell the ball players that they should win the third game. Much better for the odds, that way.”

When Burns and Maharg saw Gandil, the first baseman took the ten grand. He wasn’t happy, but he took it-and kept it for himself.

Game Three was in Chicago. By now everyone was doublecrossing everyone else. Gandil informed Burns and Maharg that the Sox would play to lose. The duo scraped together $12,000 to bet on the Reds. The enraged players then played Game Three to win-and did, defeating the Reds 3-0 behind Little Dickey Kerr.

Attell had not studied at the feet of the Great Brain for nothing. He sensed trouble-perhaps he had even heard something from Sullivan and Evans-and began betting on Chicago to win. After the game, gambler Harry Redmon saw Abe carrying a big metal box, about two feet long and a foot high through the swank Hotel Sherman. It was filled with cash. “If you see Zork,” he shouted, “tell him they haven’t left little Abe broke.”

But Burns and Maharg were wiped out. Attell lied, telling them he, too, suffered heavy losses. Then he added that Burns should order the Sox to lose Game Four. If they did, Attell would give them $20,000 of his own bankroll. “And they will get it too,” he emphasized. “If they lose the next game.”

Burns wanted to know why the players couldn’t be paid before Game Four-that might, after all, make them more cooperative. “I don’t trust them ballplayers anymore,” Attell responded.

By now Burns had no cash and less dignity. He brought Attell’s proposition to the Sox. They greeted it with the ridicule it deserved. “All right,” Sleepy Bill parried. “We’ll drop the whole business. But I want my share of the ten thousand I got you.”

By now Gandil knew that Burns was powerless. “Sorry, Bill,” he grinned. “It’s all out on bets.”

His teammates exploded in laughter. A humiliated Burns threatened to expose the whole rotten deal. “I’ll get my share or I’ll tell everything,” he sputtered. The Sox wouldn’t budge. He and Maharg got good and drunk and slunk away from what began as the opportunity of a lifetime. “I had to hock my diamond pin to get back to Philadelphia,” Maharg remembered bitterly.

The Black Sox were ready to walk away from the fix. The double crossers were tired of being doublecrossed and would now play to win.

What Burns and Maharg didn’t know is how nervous Chicago’s Game Three win made their fellow conspirators. Attell and Zelser may have seemed unflappable, but even before Game Three they still had parted with ten grand more than they ever intended to. After Game Three, their underlings, Carl Zork and Ben Franklin, were panic-stricken. They met with two friends from St. Louis, gamblers Joe Redmon and Joe Pesch, at Chicago’s Morrison Hotel, begging for $5,000 toward a $20,000 payment to the players. Redmon and Pesch turned them down.

Unlike Burns and Maharg, Rothstein and Sport Sullivan weren’t betting on individual games, but rather on the Series as a whole. Just after midnight on the morning of Saturday, October 4, A. R. and Sullivan conferred at Rothstein’s offices. They weren’t worried about Chicago’s Game Three victory. But when Sullivan reached the lobby at the Ansonia Hotel, around 1:00 A.M., gambler Pete Manlis, yet another associate of Rothstein, greeted him. Manlis wanted to bet on the Sox. Suddenly Sullivan was worried. Did Manlis know something he didn’t?

Just after 9:00 A.M., Sullivan phoned Chick Gandil. Gandil and his teammates were fed up. They’d received a measly $10,000 from Sullivan-and not a dime since the Series began. Now they’d play to win. Sullivan knew this could result not only in his financial ruin, but in death at the hands of A. R.‘s henchmen. He promised Gandil $20,000 immediately and another $20,000 before Game Five. He had no intention of making the second payment, but Gandil needn’t know that.

Before Game Four a messenger delivered twenty one-thousanddollar notes to Gandil. Five thousand each would go to Jackson, Felsch, Williams, and Risberg. Ed Cicotte already had $10,000-so he could damn well wait before receiving more. Buck Weaver and Fred McMullin wouldn’t get anything. True, Buck had sat in on meetings to plan the fix, but he was doing nothing to further the plot. McMullin hadn’t earned anything either, sitting on the bench. He might get something-but not now.

Even without more money, Cicotte lost Game Four 2-0. It was a good loss, fairly subtle, and more artistic than his first defeat. Rain washed out play on Sunday, October 5. There was no game-and no additional money. Play resumed on Monday-but the money deliveries didn’t. Yet the now-trusting Black Sox still threw Game Five, as Lefty Williams and his teammates collapsed in the sixth inning, losing 5-0 to Reds righthander Hod Eller.

But still no more money came. The Black Sox realized they had been had once again. Well, if money can’t be made dishonestly, one could always try earning it honestly-for the winner’s share of the Series. The Sox won Game Six 5-4 in twelve innings behind Dickie Kerr. With Cicotte finally on the level, they captured Game Seven 4-1. Now Chicago trailed Cincinnati by a mere 4-3 margin. If the Sox took the next two games, they would not only be world champions, but how better to cover the tracks of throwing a World Series than by winning a World Series?

There was another factor. Mont Tennes was hearing rumors that a group of gamblers who had lost heavily on the Sox-and who stood to lose more if the Sox ultimately lost the Series-were about to take the law into their own hands: They’d bribe key Reds players to lose. Reds manager Pat “Whiskey Face” Moran heard the same stories and confronted pitcher Hod Eller: “Had any gamblers approached you, Hod?”

“Yep,” Eller replied laconically. A gent on the elevator had offered him five one-thousand-dollar bills. Hod told him if he didn’t get lost “real quick he wouldn’t know what hit him.” Moran told Eller he could still pitch-but he was keeping an eye on him.

A. R. now became nervous and summoned Sport Sullivan to his home. He didn’t shout, didn’t sweat, but made it clear that things were too close for comfort. The Series should not go nine games.

Sullivan realized two things. Despite Rothstein’s pleasant demeanor, he had no choice. The Series had to end with Game Eight. And, Sport knew that merely offering the Sox more money might not necessarily work. Why should they trust him? Why should he trust them? Perhaps other gamblers were working to ensure a Cincinnati loss.

Finally it came to him. Money might not work-but force could. Lefty Williams would start Game Eight. A call went to Chicago, to man named “Harry E” who knew how to handle things.

For a mere $500 in advance, this gentleman would contact Lefty Williams and in no uncertain terms indicate that Lefty should notwould not-survive his first inning on the mound. If he did, he would not survive … period.

Around 7:30 on the evening before Game Eight, Williams and his wife were returning from dinner when a man wearing a derby hat and smoking a cigar approached them. He desired a word with the lefthander-alone.

His message was straightforward. Pitch to lose, pitch to lose big in the first inning, or bad things would happen. Bad things to Williams. Bad things to his wife.

Lefty Williams got the message. So did his teammates.

When Hugh Fullerton entered Comiskey Park for Game Eight, a gambler friend provided him with some friendly advice: Bet heavy on the Reds because they are going to have “the biggest first inning you ever saw.”

In the press box itself, the gambling fraternity moved about at will, not bothering to keep their voices down. New York sportswriter Fred Leib overheard three men talking. They were worried the Sox might still pull the Series out. Then a fourth gambler entered and reassured his comrades cheerfully: “Everything is okay, boysnothing to worry about. It’s all in the bag. Williams will pitch and it will be all over in the first inning.”

He was right. The Reds scored five times in the first inning, coasting to a 10-5 win. The Series was over, and Arnold Rothstein was even richer than before it had begun.

THE WHISPERS ABOUT A FIX grew into shouts.

The day after the Series ended, former Cubs owner Charles Weeghman walked into the barbershop at Chicago’s LaSalle Hotel. There was gambler Mont Tennes, who asked if Wheeghman remembered what Tennes predicted in Saratoga that August:-The Series would be fixed. Weeghman did, and Tennes inquired what he now thought. Weeghman didn’t know what to say, which didn’t faze Tennes. He had more information: Seven players were involved-Cicotte, Williams, Felsch, Jackson, Gandil, Risberg, and McMullin.

Despite being among the very first tipped off to the plot, Tennes still couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Sometimes even the hardest characters have their illusions. “Tennes did not believe that a big series could be framed,” Weeghman explained. “He told me so. Even with the information he had he went out and backed the White Sox to win. I have been told he lost $30,000 on the series … it is common gossip around the loop that his losses reached that amount.”

Charles Comiskey offered $20,000 to anyone proving the rumors true. St. Louis Browns second baseman Joe Gedeon tried collecting, fingering Swede Risberg, Ben Franklin, Joe Pesch, and the Levi brothers. Comiskey, his Harvard-educated team attorney, Alfred S. Austrian, and his bright young team secretary Harry Grabiner, listened to Gedeon’s story-and told him to go away. It was bad enough that Comiskey’s team had been cheated out of the world championship, if the plot were exposed now, he would be harmed even more. The guilty would be banned from baseball and the Sox stripped of their core talent. The Sox would plummet in the standings. Comiskey’s great ballpark would stand empty.

Gambler Carl Redmon stepped forward, implicating Attell, Burns, Maharg, and the usual assortment of St. Louis gamblers. Comiskey had Kid Gleason interview Redmon, then ignored his story.

Swede Risberg packed his loot into a big black satchel and headed home to California. He wouldn’t be returning to the Sox. Something told him it might be best to stay away. Hal Chase and Heinie Zimmerman didn’t rejoin the Giants. John McGraw knew about their fixing. He didn’t say anything publicly, but told the two they weren’t welcome back.

In Chicago Hugh Fullerton had his own theories, yet neither his own paper, the Tribune, nor the syndicate for his national column would print them. Finally, in December 1919, Herbert Bayard Swope’s New York World published Fullerton’s expose. “Is Big League Baseball Being Run for Gamblers, with Ballplayers in the Deal?” Even Fullerton didn’t dare reveal which players were involved, but he fingered many gamblers: Attell, Burns, Zork, Mont Tennes, the Levi brothers, Joe Pesch-and last, but not least, Arnold Rothstein:

There is in New York a gambler named Rothstein who is much feared and much accused. His name has been used in connection with almost every big thieving, crooked deal on the race track, and he is openly named in this baseball scandal. There has been no legal proof advanced against him beyond the fact that he is the only man in the entire crowd who had money enough to handle such a deal. At least $200,000 was used in actual cash, and no one concerned could command that much money excepting Rothstein, who is either the vilest crook or the most abused man in America.