Summer Reading

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

"Hoopla!" (Black Sox, told in the first person by Buck Weaver) and "Bang the Drum Slowly" a very funny book...about a dying catcher.

Say it ain't so, Joe," and "Eight Men Out" are good, but Asinof's sequel, "Bleeding Between the Lines" about how Susskind tried ever which way but loose to get the rights to make a movie out of Asinof's book is great, for the additional conversations he had with players and gamblers--especially Abe Attell (DIRECT QUOTE:

" It was Cicotte begun the bl*w j*b (confessed) to the Grand Jury. I was in New York at the time, and believe me, A.R.* was doing the shakes (frightened) too. So we have this meeting at his place on Riverside Drive and the Big Mouthpiece is there. (William J.) Fallon, doncha know, and Sport Sullivan from Boston. And Fallon says to
us: "There's so much jabber in the rags (newspapers) about the dirty cereal(World Series), maybe this McCoyle (Maclay Hoyne, Cook County D.A.) is gonna extradite and I don't wanna see A.R. or you guys go to Chicago, I wanna see you guys skip town alla you, as far as you can
go"And A.R. says: "Here's a coupla bills to keep you loose. Champ, you go to Canada, and cover yourself up, and Sully, go to Mexico. Me,
I'm going all the way to Europe." So I grab the first train to Montreal like he says and like I know I'm a sucker to go 'cause A.R. is a worm of the top floor, even his best pals say he's so slimy he gives worms a bad rep, doncha know. So when I read in the rags up in Montreal that he didn't go to Europe at all, he crawled to Chicago
with the Mouthpiece and squealed to the Grand Jury
that he had nothing to do with the fix, he even told 'em that he didn't even bet on it, that it was ME who put the cereal in the bag..."

Asinof continues..."His pride and his pleasure were satisfied with his oft-repeated dictum: "Without me, pally, you wouldn't have a
book."

"I did not dissuade him of this slant, though a more accurate impression might be: "Without you, Champ, we wouldn't have had the scandal..."


*Arnold Rothstein