Rothstein (23 page)

A-They came to arrange the fixing of the series.

Q-What did Attell say?

A-He asked me to go to Cincinnati to see the players. Bennett also wanted to see what kind of a deal he could make with them. I told him I would go and see.

Q-Did Bennett say anything about whom he represented?

A-Yes, he said he represented Rothstein and was handling the money for him. Bennett also wanted to go to Cincinnati to confer with the players.

Q-Was anything else said?

A-I asked Attell how it was that he had been able to get Rothstein in when I had failed?

Q-What did he say?

A-He said he had once saved Rothstein’s life and that the gambler was under obligations to him.

Q-At that time you were at the hotel was any mention made of money?

A-Yes, $100,000.

Q-In what way?

A-Bennett said Rothstein had agreed to go through with everything.

Q -Just what was said in reference to the $100,000?

A-They were to pay that to the players for the series.

Q-What was said?

A-Bennett said he would handle the money and that Attell would arrange for the betting.

Attell and Zelser were aboard for the ride. Burns and Maharg were about to be taken for one.

The World Series started in Cincinnati on Wednesday, October 1, 1919. Attell and Zelser set up shop in Room 708 of the city’s Sinton Hotel. Their assignment: bet as much on the Reds as possible. “He [Attell] had a gang of about twenty-five gamblers with him,” recalled Maharg. “He said they were all working for Rothstein. Their work was very raw. They stood in the lobby of the Sinton and buttonholed everybody who came in. They accepted bets right and left and it was nothing to see $1,000 bills wagered.”

Chicago Tribune reporter James Crusinberry saw it, too-Attell atop a chair in the lobby, hands full of thousanddollar bills, yelling he’d take any bet on the Sox. “I was amazed … ,” Crusinberry would recall. “I couldn’t understand it. I felt that something was wrong, almost unbelievably wrong.”

Yes, it was wrong. And so is the conventional picture that Abe Attell worked without A. R.‘s knowledge. Attell had hocked his wife’s ring in Chicago a week before. Now he commanded a platoon of gamblers with fists full of thousanddollar bills.

Where did he get the money?

To ask the question is to answer it.

But answering it, leads to another, harder one: Why did Arnold Rothstein empower Abe to act as his agent? He already had Evans and Sullivan on the case. Why work with two bums like Burns and Maharg?

Attell’s assignment wasn’t the fix. Arnold didn’t want more money pumped into the fix-but into bets. That’s where the money was. That’s why David Zelser was with A. R. at Aqueduct and why A. R. took pains to conceal Zelser’s identity. Rothstein didn’t want a flood of money coming out of New York, shifting the odds from the White Sox to the Reds. That would create suspicion, suspicion of him. No, he wanted most of the betting done by Midwesterners in the Midwest. Zelser would work with a coterie of St. Louis and Des Moines gamblers. But A. R. must have felt uneasy about trusting a veritable stranger like Zelser. So at the last minute he assigned Attell to oversee the operation. If Abe kept his other eye on Burns and Maharg, so much the better.

Yet there was something even more cunning about A. R.‘s actions: What if A. R. already had decided to stiff the players? What if Sullivan and Evans didn’t pay them the full amount? Then the Black Sox might jump ship, might play to win. But what if they saw even more money from a different source dangled before their eyes? What if they were promised $80,000 by one group of gamblers and $100,000 more by another? Who would risk walking away from that much? The other fellow’s greed was a wonderful thing, a marvelous tool for making money for yourself. It had already provided A. R. with several fortunes, and it could certainly work again with these rubes.

And if Burns and Maharg were caught? Back at the Astor Hotel, A. R. had already established his alibi. Very, very publicly, he had told Burns and Maharg he wanted no part of their scheme, no part of a World Series fix, no part of their fix. If caught, they would hang by themselves. Well, maybe not by themselves. The undertow might trap Abe Attell, but, if it did, it wouldn’t be the first time Arnold had left the Little Champ in the lurch.

It was a beautiful, subtle, multilayered and, above all, financially economical plan. What A. R. couldn’t foresee was how clumsily Attell, Zelser, Evans, and Sullivan would implement it-how much attention they’d draw to themselves, to the carloads of money they were betting, how much they’d shoot their mouths off.

Aggravating matters were the Midwestern gamblers Attell and Zelser employed to place bets. They talked and talked to the wrong people. The single most ignored aspect of the Black Sox case is the involvement of so many of these Midwesterners. What was a fellow from Des Moines like David Zelser doing with A. R. in New York? Why had Zelser concealed his identity from Burns and Maharg? Why were so many of these gamblers working for Attell, infesting hotel lobbies in Cincinnati and Chicago, waving thousanddollar gold notes, frantically betting every cent on the Reds?

When the fix was exposed, five of the Midwestern gamblers were indicted for conspiracy-Zelser and his two brothers-in-law, fellow Des Moines gamblers, Ben and Louis Levi, and St. Louis gamblers Carl T. Zork (Abe Attell’s former manager) and Ben Franklin. Yet we ignore them. They stand before us at virtually every stage of the action, yet remain invisible. Abe Attell should have employed New Yorkers in such a sensitive and lucrative assignment, men he knew and trusted. Instead he worked with Zork and Zelser and company. Why? How had these men materialized on such short order, in such prominent roles?

They were there all along. The scheme began in St. Louis in early 1919, with the forty-year-old Carl Zork, and the city’s “King of Gamblers,” thirty-six-yearold Henry “Kid” Becker. Zork and Becker, no strangers to fixing major-league ball games, plotted to fix the biggest games of all: the World Series.

Becker originally wanted to fix the 1918 Red Sox-Cubs World Series but didn’t have the cash. It might have proved the same in 1919. All talk. Not enough cash. Who would even be in the upcoming series? The defending world champion Red Sox? The National League champion Cubs? The White Sox? Ah, here were possibilities. The Sox hadn’t performed well in 1918, but the war was over, their players had returned, and they were once again a club with much talent and little conscience. One could do business with a bunch like that. The Giants? Even more promising. Hal Chase had returned to the club, after a stint in Cincinnati, and was always cooperative in such enterprises.

Kid Becker never put his plan in operation. In April 1919 someone shot him dead. Newspapers said it was a “highwayman.” Attorney Bill Fallon later claimed the assailant was a rival for the Kid’s girlfriendan embarrassing end for Henry Becker, husband and father.

But Carl Zork and his associates survived. By July 10, 1919, both the White Sox and Giants had reached first place. Becker’s old St. Louis crew revived the Kid’s grandiose plan. Their task was enor mous. Knowing crooked players was one thing. So was fixing regularseason games. But rigging a World Series was quite another. Fixing a World Series requires massive capital. Only one gambler had the necessary money and nerve: Arnold Rothstein, by now nationally known as the biggest, smartest, and best-connected gambler around.

We do not know how or when Becker’s old clique brought the plan to Rothstein. We probably never will. But he agreed to bankroll the operation. Most likely that is exactly how he saw it. He wasn’t fixing anything. He merely loaned funds to some enterprising gentlemen-and at very steep interest rates. If, in the bargain, A. R. knew about a “sure thing” and placed his own sizable wagers on the proposition, well, so much the better.

Back in Manhattan after providing Sullivan with the go-ahead, Rothstein proceeded with that investing, starting with Harry Sinclair. Sinclair had prospered considerably, having founded wildly successful Sinclair Oil in 1916. A. R. telephoned Harry, ostensibly about horse racing. Inevitably, talk turned to the upcoming Series. Before Sinclair knew it, he had $90,000 down on Chicago. More bets followed with another rich sucker, racing-stable owner Edward E. Smathers and, within a short time, A. R. had $270,000 on the Reds. Betting more might have roused suspicion.

That same night Rothstein had a visitor: Nick the Greek Dandolos. Nick had lost $250,000 (some said $600,000) to Rothstein the year before, and his luck was hardly better at the recent Saratoga meet. He needed money. Rothstein respected Dandolis and handed him $25,000. It was a loan, to be repaid … “or God help you if you don’t,” but A. R. had some advice for The Greek: Put it all on the Reds.

In Cincinnati, Bill Burns and Billy Maharg collided with reality. The first World Series game would be played on October 1. That morning they visited Attell and Zelser’s room, expecting the $100,000 they promised the Sox. Attell wouldn’t turn over a cent “saying [he] needed the money to make bets.” But Abe wasn’t entirely unreasonable. The 1919 Series was best-of-nine gamestaking five games to win it all. Attell would deliver $20,000 after each Chicago defeat. That seemed fair to Burns and Attell, and later when Burns talked with the players, even they thought it reasonable. (After all, they counted on even more from Sport Sullivan.) They would wait.

Eddie Cicotte didn’t mind. He already had his $10,000 from Sullivan. As a signal to gamblers that the fix was on in the first inning of the first game, Cicotte plunked Cincinnati leadoff batter Morrie Rath in the back. In the fourth inning, he surrendered five runs, on the way to a 9-1 Reds victory. It wasn’t a particularly subtle performance, and rumors reached firestorm status. But Eddie had performed as promised, and Arnold Rothstein plunged another $85,000 on the Reds.

Burns and Maharg returned to the Sinton at 9:30 that evening for the first $20,000. Attell stiffed them. “The money is all out on bets,” he snapped. “The players will have to wait.” Burns and Maharg gave the bad news to Chick Gandil, promising they’d deliver some cash by morning. Morning came. No money arrived. Gandil and Lefty Williams, Game Two’s starting pitcher, went for a walk and found Attell, Burns, and Maharg. Attell still wouldn’t pay. Instead, he produced a telegram dated the previous night. It read:

ABE ATTELL, SINTON HOTEL, CINCINNATI. AM WIRING YOU TWENTY GRAND AND WAIVING IDENTIFICATION, A. R.

Even the dumbest ballplayer knew who A. R. was. But Gandil wasn’t there to read; he was there to collect. Still, Attell put him off. Not until tomorrow, he promised. Gandil’s unhappiness grew. After the Little Champ departed, Burns tried pacifying Chick, promising a Texas oil lease as collateral. Maharg thought Burns was a fool: Why should Bill risk his own assets to protect Rothstein or Attell?

Burns, Maharg, and Gandil decided to do little detective work. At the local Western Union office they inquired about A. R.‘s telegram to Attell. The clerk found no record of it. The trio was stunned. Was everything a lie? Would they ever get their money?

The clerk made a mistake. The telegram had, in fact, been sent from New York. But Burns, Maharg, and Gandil didn’t know that, and suspicion became panic.

Some say the telegram had not been sent by A. R.-that it was a hoax, sent on Attell’s orders by David Zelser to fool Burns, Maharg, and the players into thinking they would be paid. This scenario is more likely: A. R. actually did send the telegram himself-or he may not have. It really didn’t matter. After all A. R. was too busy and too important to bother sending telegrams. The Big Bankroll could order any number of flunkies to run to a telegraph office for him. More importantly, why assume the telegram referred to bribe money? It meant what it said: A. R. was sending Abe twenty grand-twenty grand for bets on the Reds.

White Sox management also had a bad night. After Game One, Chicago manager Kid Gleason found himself in the Sinton lobby along with Cicotte and Risberg. The Sox had just been humiliated, but Cicotte and Risberg grinned and laughed as if they hadn’t a care. Gleason already harbored suspicions. This scene pushed him over the edge. “You two think you can kid me?” he screamed. “You busher, Risberg! You think I don’t know what you’re doing out there? Cicotte, you sonavabitch. Anybody who says he can’t see what you’re doing out there is either blind, stupid, or a goddam[n] liar.”

Gleason realized the horrible truth of what he’d blurted out. He froze. Chicago Herald and Examiner sportswriter Hugh Fullerton came up from behind and quietly led him away. But Gleason wasn’t through. He told Chicago owner Charles Comiskey. What he said wasn’t news to The Noble Roman. Comiskey already knew plenty. Mont Tennes had not only warned club secretary Harry Grabiner of suspicious frenzied, pro-Red betting, but informed Comiskey that Gandil, Risberg, and Felsch had also thrown late regularseason games for St. Louis gambler Joe Pesch. At three that morning, Gleason and Comiskey rapped on the door of American League President Byron “Ban” Johnson’s hotel room. It wasn’t easy for Comiskey. He and Johnson had founded the league together, had once been the closest of friends. But that was years ago. Now they hated each other.

Comiskey stood in the hotel corridor. He needed Johnson’s help. His team had turned rotten, betraying him, selling out the league and jeopardizing baseball itself. Johnson was too big a fool, too small a man, to listen. “That is the whelp of a beaten cur!” he sneered as he dismissed his enemy.

By now rumors were sweeping the country. The World Series was fixed. Even before the Series started, Risberg had received a call from Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle, demanding to know what was up. In the Sinton lobby, United News Wire sportswriter Westbrook Pegler accosted George M. Cohan. Pegler wanted Cohan to compose a song about the Series for his syndicate. Pegler flattered Cohan that anyone writing “Over There” in forty-five minutes wouldn’t need more than fifteen minutes for a song chronicling the Fall Classic. “Cohan laughed,” Pegler recounted, “and said the series was beneath his artistic notice. After all the war had not been a frameup.”