Pietrusza - Rothstein: the Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series

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Table of Contents

Praise for

ROTHSTEIN:

THE LIFE, TIMES, AND MURDER OF THE CRIMINAL GENIUS WHO FIXED THE 1919 WORLD SERIES

Pietrusza does a terrific job capturing Rothsteins colorful career and sheds new light on Rothsteins role in fixing the World Series, disputing the standard history.

New York Times Book Review

[A] lively biography... opening new dimensions, revising certain longaccepted conclusions, and posing and answering some hitherto-puzzling questions.

Louis D. Rubin, Jr., Charlotte Observer

[A] morsel worth chewing over.... Puts real flesh on the story of how the new machinery of mass entertainment... created and brought together the culture of celebrity, politics, big-time sports, stock market fortunes, and organized crime in the 1920s.

Warren Goldstein, Washington Post Book World

Impressively researched... Pietrusza writes with a staccato narrative typical of crime novels, which makes this work a breezy read, with a certain dash of entertainment.

Mark Conrad, New York Law Journal

Splendid... Pietruszas breezy narrative often leaves you shaking your head in disbelief at the wild times and outrageous characters of 1920s New York.

Jon Kalish, The Forward

True crime, evil doings, and monumental double-crossings by the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, and the Machine in a savory account of the legendary bad old days.

Kirkus Reviews

Recommended reading.

Bill Madden, New York Daily News

Strong investigative journalism... sweeps readers into the seedy world of Tammany Hall politics, violent mobsters, dirty cops and paid-off judges.

Publishers Weekly

Aided by newly discovered sources, Pietrusza dissects this greatest of sports crimes from Rothsteins vantage point.

USA Today Sports Weekly

David Pietrusza does what police investigators have been unable to do for more than 75 yearshe solves the crime and names the perp.

Tucson Citizen

Colorful and rich in gallows humor.

The Virginia Quarterly Review

Fascinating account of both a brilliant criminal mastermind and New York Citys truly Roaring Twenties.

Library Journal

Pietrusza masterfully handles tangled facts, the myriad double-crosses, and the swirling cast of characters surrounding the Black Sox Scandal.... This account challenges... Eliot Asinofs in Eight Men Outbut is so exhaustively researched that it seems likely to remain the definitive version of events... a compelling and corrective biography... an impressive feat.

brothersjudd.com

Also by DAVID PIETRUSZA

Teddy Ballgame: My Life in Pictures (with Ted Williams)

Judge and Jury: The Life and Times
of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis

The Roaring Twenties

Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia
of Major League Baseball (co-editor)

Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia (co-editor)

Lights On! The Wild Century-Long Saga of Night Baseball

Major Leagues

Baseballs Canadian American League

Minor Miracles: The Legend and Lure
of Minor League Baseball

To Cathy Karp
Who I look up to

Preface to the Paperback Edition

FROM SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE to Ian Fleming and beyond, fiction writers have striven to provide audiences with the ultimate in villainy.

But Martin Scorsese, the director who delivered to us such real life figures as Jake LaMotta and Henry Hill, the slightly fictionalized Sam Ace Rothstein (ne Frank Rosenthal), and even Howard Hughes, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, instinctively grasps that fact is indeed often stranger than fictionand thus far more interesting.

In HBOs Boardwalk Empire, the street-wise Mr. Scorsese has struck againand tendered to us, among others, one Arnold Rothstein.

Arnold Rothsteinfixer of the 1919 World Series.

Immediately prior to writing of Mr. Rothstein, I had chronicled baseball history, and quite naturally when people inquired as to why I had written about such a then obscurebut now once again quite notoriousfigure, they assumed I had done so because of his ill-fated connection to the National Pastime.

In point of fact, I had wanted to write of New York City in the 1920s, a mad, vibrant, prosperous, wonderful time and locale. I had always loved New York City. I had also loved the 1920s.

But I faced two seemingly insurmountable barriers. The first was this: What part of Gotham would I select? Wall Street? Broadway? The immigrant experience? Prohibition? Its Tammany-controlled political system? Sports?

The second was: Why should a publisher entrust a baseball writer to tell this story?

And then, at a library book sale I chanced upon a biography of New Yorks shamefully colorful Mayor James J. Walker.

It cost a buck.

I bought it. I read it. And in chapter after chapter an unlikely figure strode out of the shadows.

Arnold Rothstein.

This Rothstein fellow was involved in everything. No mere Series fixer was he. No mere mobster and dese-dem-and-dose racketeer.

No, here was the real Professor Moriarty, homegrown on American shores, and smack-dab in the time and place I had wished to chronicle.

So I wrote about him.

And in doing so the entire oyster of Americas wildest era opened up before me, showering me with unexpected pearls that made Rothstein a finalist for the Mystery Writers of Americas Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book of the Year.

And, dare I say it, how could a biography of Arnold Rothstein not be a commendable fact crime book? Was there a crime Arnold Rothstein did not commit or abet?

Bootlegging?

Check.

Rum-running?

Check.

Labor racketeering?

Check.

Fixing the World Series?

Check.

Fixing prize fights?

Check.

Fixing horse races?

Check.

Bribing cops and judges and politicians?

Check.

Narcotics?

Check.

Fencing stolen property?

Check.

Cheating at card games?

Check.

Loan sharking?

Check.

Murder?

Double check.

And was there ever a better supporting cast? Meyer Lansky. Lucky Luciano. Fanny Brice. Nicky Arnstein. Legs Diamond. Jimmy Walker. Fiorello LaGuardia. Shoeless Joe Jackson. Nick the Greek. Abe Attell. Peggy Hopkins Joyce. John The Little Napoleon McGraw. Bill The Great Mouthpiece Fallon. Titanic Thompson. Jack Dempsey. Gene Tunney. William Randolph Hearst. Marion Davies. Lepke Buchalter. Damon Runyon.

There is the outline of our tale, the merest outline.

Buckle your seatbelts and prepare for a wild ride.

You are about to meet the real Arnold Rothstein.

DAVID PIETRUSZA May 2011

The Players in Our Drama

NICKY ARNSTEINDebonair international con man. Multimillion-dollar bond thief. Wandering husband of Fanny Brice. Arnold Rothsteins admirer, partner, and fall guy.

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