SCREAMER

THE FORGOTTEN VOICE OF THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS

PAY DAY AT SARATOGA

Art Rooney’s ability to handicap horses was already a legend in 1936.  Pari-mutual betting had not yet arrived in the U.S., so bookmakers were licensed by the track.  Often, if a bookmaker knew that a bet was coming from Art, the bookie would fade into the woodwork.  Even at the track after pari-mutual came into vogue, Art would seldom place his own bet.  He was a known winner.  His appearance at a window had produced betting by eavesdroppers on horses he chose.  He did not always win, but he won more than he lost, and the eavesdroppers would spoil the odds on his winners.

Art got to the point of having different friends place bets for him and collect his winnings.  In Chicago, I once collected $13,000 for him after he parlayed winners in three consecutive races. The cashier, who I had gone to three times in a row, thought I was the greatest handicapper he had ever seen.  Of course, Art had someone else place the bet so that no one outside the circle of friends knew the source of the bet.

When I came to know him, Art’s bets were placed at the $50 window just before the window shut.  If the mule placed a bet on Art’s choice at the same time, he would be chastised - the only time a friend could undo that tie to Art.  If we were going to bet, it had to be before Art, and if we were placing a bet for Art, he wanted to know our choice, before we took his bet to the window.

According to legend told by a writer for a racing journal, the saga started on July 25, 1936 and ended the next day.  The writer tallied what he could from the bookmakers and assessed their damages at around $113,000. Art’s story begins earlier, and the tally maybe even higher.

While never disclosing the amount of his winnings, Art once elaborated to me that he had gone to Harrisburg for a Plumbers Union dinner for his friend Charley Anderson, International Vice President. From Harrisburg, a crew consisting of Art, Buck Crouse, a middleweight fighter, and Harry Earl, drove to the Empire City Race Track and got there just in time for the first race on Saturday. Art relates that he bet $20 with a bookmaker in the grandstand and came away with $800 (40-1).

The crew then moved to the clubhouse for the second race, but Art sought out the bookie in the Grandstand to give him a chance to get even.  After his third or fourth win for the day, the bookie was bust. On that Saturday, Art had won about $27,000.

After the races, the crew headed for Joe Madden’s restaurant where the football crowd was hanging out.  On Sunday, Buck and Art went with Madden in Madden’s beat up Chevy to Saratoga.  The car broke down 3 or 4 times and the radiator kept boiling over navigating the hills of upstate New York.

Monday was opening day at Saratoga.  Some horses had been killed that weekend by lightning strikes and ensuing fire.  His buddy and one of his son’s future father-in-law, Tim Mara, New York Giants owner, had given Art his handicap figures for opening day, but Art did not rely on them. “Sometimes I’d see something the charts had not recorded, like a change in jockey or post position and I’d apply my own judgment.

I was betting with Peter Blong who was working number one bookie’s, Frank Ericson’s, ring that day.  After I tagged him for three of three, he said ‘That’s enough.’  I’m sure that Ericson would have gone the distance. I had to go to books that had small limits, that was probably another lucky break, because I missed on race four.  I came close to parlaying the entire card of seven or eight races.

“[Legendary sports columnist] Bill Corum was sitting with us and saw what I was doing and wrote a column about me breaking the Books.  He did it to needle George Preston Marshall, owner of the then Boston Redskins, who would beat us out that year for the championship. Marshall was a reformed horse-player who knew more about horses than any of us.  He was also dead set against anybody in the League betting on anything.

“After Corum wrote the story, it got bigger and bigger with each retelling. It got so bad that the Hearst organization assigned a spy writer to shadow me at the track.  He told me he liked the assignment (probably made more in a day than Hearst paid him in a year by playing my card).  It’s one of the reasons I do not like placing my own bets, today.

“Anyway, to keep the folks at Hearst happy, he would embellish. They did not want him following a flash in the pan who was basically a loser.  So, even on the days that I lost, and there were many in that season, he would have me winning.  I really don’t know my final winnings for the summer run, but it was enough to pay the players on contract and Joe Bach a decent salary.  I did send [Father] Dan [Art’s older brother] some money for his China mission, but nowhere near the amount I’ve read about.  In those days $100,000 would have bought China.”

Piecing together what Art allowed to be told ($27,000 at Empire City on Saturday, July 23rd) with what the contemporary racing journal writer pieced together from his Monday near parlay at Saratoga, I calculate the beginnings of the winnings for just those two days. The following is a summary of that author’s tally. (The original citation is lost.)

”Monday, July 25, 1936, after an electric storm nearly destroyed the run for Saratoga, another storm blew in from Pittsburgh.  Taking $2,000, Pittsburgh Phil (Art’s nom de race track) put it on the nose of Taken.  The payoff was $12,000. How did he know to play this philly?  Art said that two horses that died had blocked Taken on its prior two starts and Taken finished third.  It had been a winner in four of the eight prior meetings and second in two others.  The horse was a money horse with good bloodlines.  Tim Mara selection was one of the dead horses.”

The writer continued, ”The second race was a Steeplechase. Phil’s pick, Little Marty, the favorite at 11-5, brought his winnings to $34,000, a nice day’s pay for anyone but a professional gambler. He was on a streak. In race number 3, Phil picked a 10-1 shot, Dressy, wagering $5,000 (their money).  Dressy won, paying $50,000 and making Phil [Art] persona non grata among the legal bookies.  The top bookmaker, Frank Ericson was not at Empire that day.  He would always cover what anyone wagered.  Art was now ahead $84,000.

”With only books with limits available for race four, Phil could bet only $10,000 that he lost on Spillway who finished third.  Art went with the favorite in race 5 placing $15,000 and coming away with $21,000 at 7 to 5 odds.  Not as sure of his pick, Art went with only $3,000 on the winner, Quick-Quick, a 6-1 shot.  His winnings were now a net of $113,000.

”Quel Jeu, a favorite in race 7 at 2-1, was his choice increasing his winnings to $131,000 on a $9,000 bet.  Phil returned to the track the next day and netted another $17,000, losing on a steeplechase where his horse, leading by ten lengths, threw the rider with one jump remaining.  He had $10,000 on that horse with a potential win of $100,000 on the 10-1 shot.  Was there skullduggery?

The Hearst reporter continued the legend. My own conjecture is that Art used his winnings at the track until they ran out.  This is when he sold the team to Thompson. Considering what he paid for players and a coach in 1936, his magnanimous contract with White in 1938, I estimate his winnings at about $150,000 for the season at Saratoga, and a day at Empire City. We will probably never know the exact amount. I’m not sure that even Art does.

The luck of the Irish permitted Art to provide contracts for his players for the 1936 season, hire some real talent including coach Joe Bach, one of the seven mules in front of the immortal four horsemen of Notre Dame, and come close to winning the NFL championship, the first of several trips to the altar as a bridesmaid.