See full list on history.com. The events of the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers, allegedly led by Arnold Rothstein, to throw the World Series games. The 1919 World Series was the last World Series to take place without a Commissioner of Baseball in place. Rothstein and the World Series. The first and last time the Cincinnati Reds won an honest World Series. They have represented the National League seven times in the past, but only. Arnold Rothstein Born in New York City in 1882, Arnold Rothstein was a businessman and kingpin of New York’s Jewish mob. He’s also legendary for trying to fix the 1919 World Series in what’s known as the Chicago Black Sox Scandal. The accusation against these men is that they intentionally lost the 1919 World Series game to the Cincinnati Reds in order to get a large payout from the famous New York gambler Arnold Rothstein. The two events are linked, as the players are actually acquitted of all charges in a public trial in 1921.

• Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Winner
• Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Facts
• Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Program
• Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series
• Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Game 6
• Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Stats

The name of gangster and gambler Arnold Rothstein is probably most familiar to Americans as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. F Scott Fitzgerald – who had met Rothstein – fictionalized him as Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish gambler from New York, who fixed the World Series – in The Great Gatsby. Damon Runyon – who had also met Rothstein – fictionalized him as Nathan Detroit. Runyon’s stories about the colorful, dapper proprietor of the “oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York” eventually became the basis for the Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls.” Most Americans don’t realize about the man known as “The Big Bankroll” and “The Big Brain” because Arnold Rothstein is the one man most responsible for the beginnings of the drug trade in America. Arnold Rothstein and drugs’ story is tied to how the Mafia gained great power in New York.

To be sure, there were illegal drugs in America long before Arnold Rothstein. But he is the man who most accurately recognized the potential for untold wealth to be gained by the importation and sale of narcotics.

Arnold Rothstein and Drugs – An Understanding

Arnold Rothstein had bankrolled a large part of the illegal liquor business in New York during Prohibition. Rothstein mostly chose to stay on the sideline and leave the operation of bootlegging to violent and legendary gangsters, including his protégés, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. While rival gangs massacred each other in New York streets, “The Big Bankroll” made an immense fortune by financing every aspect of bootlegging for every criminal organization and then playing all sides against one another. He would dispense advice, offer to finance, take percentages, and sell out any of his “friends” if a better financial deal came along. Arnold Rothstein believed that everyone was responsible for their own decisions and that public and private morality was simply none of his business. While he had many working acquaintances among the early New York Mafia, no one, in particular, wouldn’t have sold out for the right price.

Arnold Rothstein and Drugs – The Business of the Future

In “The Godfather,” the central basis for the feud between the Corleone family and the Tartaligia/Barzini families was over the question of whether organized crime should be in the business of selling drugs. That dispute did take place among some of the five families. The violent Castellammarese War of 1930 – 31 eventually opened the door to full involvement by the Mafia in drugs.

But before that, Arnold Rothstein had foreseen the future. He had correctly predicted that Prohibition would not last long. Arnold Rothstein took great pains to make as much money from Prohibition as possible. Liquor is difficult to sell illegally. It takes a large processing facility to create enough alcohol to be profitable. It needs a complicated transportation infrastructure to move it from its point of origin to the point of sale. Boats, trucks, docks, warehouses all cost a lot of money. Each of those physical locations needs protection from the police and corrupt judges. Buying off the cops and the judicial system called for a lot of cash upfront.

As local gangs began consolidating themselves into the Mafia, Arnold Rothstein was one of the few people who could envision what the organization needed to make it all work. And he was one of the few men with enough cash on hand to finance such a huge undertaking. He loaned the money to the mobsters who took the physical risk. While they were daily threatened with murder or arrest, Rothstein made money. However, the whole operation was so expensive that most bootleggers had a small profit margin. “The Big Brain” wanted more.

Arnold Rothstein and Drugs – America’s First Drug Lord

Anticipating America’s demand for drugs, Rothstein began setting up a businesslike, efficient, and profitable model for a major narcotic importations/sales business. He ignored the old “Mustache Pete” mafia-style in which only members of the same ethnic group could work together. Rothstein saw money as the common denominator and worked with Italian, Sicilian, Irish, and Jewish criminals. The only thing “The Big Bankroll” cared about was money. Personally, he neither drank nor smoked, drank lots of milk, and ate lots of fruit and he despised being around people using drugs. Nonetheless, he had no reservations about capitalizing on the drugs ruining the lives of the users. That was their choice, not his.

By the mid-1920s, his buyers had set up deals with heroin factories across Europe. Rothstein financed the purchase, transportation, and sale of drugs throughout the eastern United States. Profit margins were staggering, and yet he managed to keep his personal risk low.

“The Brain” spent time working out a deal with Captain Alfred Lowenstein, one of the richest men in Europe, to completely monopolize the drug trade. His partner died in a bizarre, mysterious “accident” that actually threatened several major European stock markets’ stability!

Another time, Arnold Rothstein shot and killed several police officers who had tried to raid his operation. He was so powerful that he was acquitted despite overwhelming evidence. Eventually, the odds caught up with Rothstein. He was murdered by a fellow gambler who was never convicted. Arnold Rothstein never named who shot him.

Organized crime eventually and quickly outgrew Arnold Rothstein. The untold fortune made by gangs from the early 1920s through today through the sale of drugs is staggering. And it all stems from one source – Arnold Rothstein.

Jewish gangster Arnold 'the Brain' Rothstein built a criminal empire based on drug and alcohol trafficking before meeting a tragic — and surprisingly ironic — end.

Jack Benton/Getty ImagesArnold Rothstein, a.k.a. “the Brain” was allegedly the mind behind Black Sox baseball scandal of 1919.

While he may not be quite as well-known as the likes of Italian-American mobsters such as Carlo Gambino or Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Jewish mobster Arnold Rothstein was just as influential.

Dubbed “the Brain” for his clever schemes, Rothstein built a Jewish Mafia empire of gambling and drugs. He not only served as inspiration for the deadly Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, but was also immortalized in HBO’s acclaimed TV show Boardwalk Empire.

He’s even been credited with masterminding the 1919 fixing of the World Series in which some of the Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to throw the game to the Cincinnati Reds.

However, such is the case of many men who gain great power and wealth through crime, Rothstein’s meteoric rise was matched by his equally bloody — and mysterious — fall.

Arnold Rothstein: A Born Rebel

Arnold Rothstein entered the world in 1882 to a family of upstanding business elites. Indeed, his family’s reputation was comically contrary to the one he would make for himself. His generous father Abraham was nicknamed “Abe the Just” for his philanthropic ways and his older brother, Harry, had become a rabbi. But Rothstein himself chose an entirely alternate path.

While Rothstein’s father was himself a true American success story, working in New York City’s Garment District and steering clear of shady dealings until he became a successful businessman, young Arnold Rothstein gravitated towards the dangerous.

Sonny Black/Mafia WikiArnold Rothstein strikes a pose.

In his book, Rothstein, biographer David Pietrusza recalled how the elder Rothstein once woke up to find a young Arnold holding a knife over his sleeping brother.

Perhaps Rothstein intended to upend his father’s traditional ways or was deeply jealous of his older brother’s relationship with their father, but either way, he found himself descending into the unseemly.

Even as a child, Rothstein gambled. “I always gambled,” Rothstein once admitted, “I can’t remember when I didn’t. Maybe I gambled just to show my father he couldn’t tell me what to do, but I don’t think so. I think I gambled because I loved the excitement. When I gambled, nothing else mattered.”

Shirking Tradition

He began to consort with criminal types, many of whom were also Jewish by birth. He frequented illegal gambling dens, even pawning his dad’s jewelry to get cash. Rothstein tried in every way to shirk his father’s legacy and tradition.

Then, In 1907, Rothstein fell in love with a showgirl named Carolyn Green. Only half-Jewish — on her father’s side — Green was not considered a suitable match by Rothstein’s traditional parents.

To make matters worse, the showgirl refused to convert to Judaism as requested by Abraham Rothstein who then dramatically declared that he no longer had a second son, who was going to “violate” the rules of Judaism by marrying outside the faith.

L.R. Burleigh/United States Library of Congress’s Geography & Map DivisionA 19th-century map of Saratoga Springs where Rothstein wed Greene.

Two years later, Rothstein and Green wed anyway in Saratoga Springs, New York. Unsurprisingly, he was not the greatest husband in the world. In fact, he was downright awful.

He forbade Green from continuing her work in the theater while he was free to go out regularly to conduct his gambling-related business and maintain numerous affairs on the side.

Arnold Rothstein’s Descent Into The Underworld

What differentiated “the Brain” from other gamblers was his ability to make money from something seemingly based on luck. He began by using his intellect to make profits from playing craps and poker.

As his status in the Underworld grew, Rothstein added more criminal ventures into his resume, such as loan sharking.

By the early 1910s, Rothstein was beginning to rake in serious cash. As Robert Weldon Whalen noted in Murder, Inc., and the Moral Life, Rothstein soon opened his own casino in midtown Manhattan and became a millionaire by age 30.

Underwood & Underwood/Wikimedia CommonsThe eight White Sox players incriminated in the 1919 fixing scandal.

Visitors flocked to his establishment and he brought an entourage of gangsters to act as security wherever he went.

In the process, he mentored the next generation of business-minded mobsters that would continue his model of turning crime into a large-scale business, like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky had done.

Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Winner

“Rothstein had the most remarkable brain,” Lansky once admitted of his criminal associate, “He understood business instinctively and I’m sure that if he had been a legitimate financier he would have been just as rich as he became with his gambling and the other rackets he ran.”

Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Facts

The Black Sox Scandal

In 1919, Rothstein pulled off his most notorious scheme: the Black Sox Scandal. That fall, two titans of baseball — the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati — were facing off in the World Series, arguably the most popular sports event in the United States at that time.

Professional gamblers had offered a few White Sox players loads of cash if they threw the Series. The idea was simple: they’d bet against the Sox, then make a fortune when they lost on purpose.

But this was a case that only the uber-gambler himself could solve. Once “the Brain” gave his financial backing to his gambling underlings, the White Sox players agreed to lose the Series.

Rothstein himself bet $270,000 on the Reds to win and allegedly earned $350,000 in the process.

Chicago Daily News/ American Memory Collections/United States Library of Congress’s National Digital Library ProgramThe eight White Sox players put on trial for the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.

Unfortunately, it became apparent to everyone that the White Sox were playing so poorly that it almost seemed like they were trying to lose. Pressure mounted on the team to confess and by 1920, the players did admit to taking bribes.

Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Program

The eight White Sox players in question — dubbed the “Black Sox” for their tainted reputations — and their bribers were taken to trial. They never played a game of professional baseball ever again.

Despite this, no one was ever able to directly implicate Rothstein in the scandal. Ever intelligent in his schemes, Rothstein kept his hands so clean and vehemently denied any involvement in the scandal that he got off scot-free.

The Prohibition

While fixing the World Series earned Rothstein a good amount of money and infamy among mobsters, his real treasure trove came the following year.

Like many other gangsters, Rothstein saw the 1920 illegalization of alcohol, or the Prohibition, as an excellent opportunity to make money.

United States Bureau of Prisons/Wikimedia CommonsAl Capone, peer of Rothstein.

Rothstein became one of the first to get his hands into the illegal alcohol trafficking business, helping to import and ship booze all over the country. In particular, he organized the movement of liquor via the Hudson River and from Canada through the Great Lakes.

Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series

Along with Underworld kingpins like Al “Scarface” Capone and the aforementioned Lucky Luciano, Rothstein soon forged himself into one of the giants of the illegal alcohol trade.

One man crucial to Rothstein’s bootlegging empire was Waxey Gordon, also known as Irving Wexler. Waxler oversaw most of Rothstein’s bootlegging on the East Coast and was raking in millions every year.

If Waxey was making this much, we can only imagine how much Rothstein was bringing in from his illegal trade.

The First Modern Drug Lord

However, despite his seeming success as a bootlegger, Rothstein was not satisfied. His insatiable appetite for money eventually led him into the trade for another illegal substance – drugs.

He began purchasing heroin from Europe and selling it at a great profit throughout the States. He did something similar with cocaine.

In doing so, Rothstein became what many experts consider the first successful modern drug dealer, long before the age of such infamous drug lords as Pablo Escobar.

This trade proved to be even more lucrative than bootlegging and Rothstein became the kingpin of America’s drug trade.

By this point, some of the best-known mobsters of the era worked under his wing, including Frank Costello, Jack “Legs” Diamond, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and Dutch Schultz. Unfortunately for Rothstein, though, these great times were not to last.

An Inglorious Demise

NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesNew York Daily News front page for Nov. 5, 1928, Extra Edition, Headline: announces the death of Arnold Rothstein at the Park Central Hotel.

Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Game 6

Like for many American gangsters before and after him, Rothstein’s rapid rise was matched only by his violent end.

Arnold Rothstein And The 1919 World Series Stats

It all happened in October 1928 when Rothstein joined a poker game that lasted four days. In an ironic twist of fate, the master of fixing games got himself involved in what appeared to be a fixed poker game.

Allegedly, the game was rigged by the pair of gambler-mobsters Titanic Thompson and Nate Raymond and ended in Rothstein owing them some $300,000. Aware that he had been swindled, Rothstein refused to pay up.

Then on November 4, Rothstein went to a meeting at Manhattan’s Park Central Hotel after receiving a mysterious phone call. An hour or so after strolling into the hotel, he staggered out — mortally wounded by a .38 caliber revolver. Rothstein passed away in a hospital two days later.

Adhering to the mobster code, Rothstein refused to name his killer. The authorities thought it was George McManus, the man who organized the infamous poker game, but nobody was ever convicted of the killing.

Arnold Rothstein went on to receive a full Jewish burial despite avoiding his family’s faith for much of his life. His widow, Carolyn Green, later detailed her harrowing time with Rothstein in a tell-all memoir called Now I’ll Tell, released in 1934.

Arnold Rothstein In Popular Culture

Given his powerful position and interesting life, Rothstein has appeared in several works of popular culture. For one, he served as the inspiration for the character of Meyer Wolfsheim in the famous American novel The Great Gatsby.

However, today we know Rothstein best from his depiction in HBO’s hit TV series Boardwalk Empire, where he is played by actor Michael Stuhlbarg.

While Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano may have organized crime as we know it today, it was Arnold Rothstein who was among the first to treat his criminal schemes as meticulous business decisions. Indeed, “Rothstein is recognized as the pioneer big businessman of organized crime in the United States,” one biographer writes of him.

Enjoyed reading about the rise and fall of Arnold Rothstein? Then check out the mobster known as Billy Batts whose life was too gory even for Goodfellas. Then, read this fascinating story on Paul Vaior, a real-life Goodfellas godfather.