Hitman struck out with bet against Red Sox ace
By Howie Carr
Monday, April 25, 2011 - By 1962, even the Boston Red Sox [team stats] had integrated. They had two black players — infielder Pumpsie Green and a promising young pitcher named Earl Wilson, who roomed together in an apartment in the Back Bay. Like most of their white Red Sox teammates, they liked to drink. Wilson especially enjoyed the nightlife, which, for black high-rollers in Boston in 1962, was largely centered at Basin Street South.
One Saturday night — June 25, 1962 — Earl Wilson rolled into Basin Street, looking for a party. Separated from his wife, Johnny was swilling his drink of choice, champagne. He had nothing better to do, so he invited Wilson over to his table.
After closing, Martorano rounded up some of the chorus-line dancers, as well as plenty of champagne, hard liquor and marijuana. Everyone then headed over to Wilson’s apartment in Back Bay, where the party continued all night, into Sunday morning.
Around 11 the next morning, with most of the women and assorted hangers-on asleep or passed out around the apartment, a bleary-eyed Earl Wilson walked unsteadily up to the couch where Johnny was dozing off.
“Johnny,” he said, “can you give me a ride to the ballpark?”
“What?” Johnny said.
“I gotta get to the park,” Wilson said. “I’m pitching today.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, man, I gotta go.”
Johnny and Wilson made their way unsteadily downstairs, into Johnny’s car. During the short drive to Kenmore Square, Wilson nodded off a couple of times, but awoke long enough to give Johnny directions to the green door in Fenway’s center-field wall that served as the players’ entrance. With the street still deserted, Johnny stopped the car. Earl Wilson opened the door, tried to get out, and tumbled face first into the gutter. Johnny helped him to his feet, leaned him up against the green door and rang the bell. Then he ran back to his car. He didn’t want to have to answer any questions about the condition of the Sox’s starting pitcher. He stepped on the gas, keeping his eye on the rearview mirror as the door opened and Earl Wilson fell inside.
Was it a crime in Boston to get a starting pitcher for the Red Sox drunk the night before his next turn in the rotation?
Johnny drove back to his own apartment, slowly sobering up during the ride, and realizing his opportunity. This was exactly the kind of “inside information” he’d always heard so much about in the stands at Braves Field and Fenway Park [map] with his father.
Now, if only he could take advantage of it. Back at his own apartment, he began calling every bookie he knew, getting as much money down on the Los Angeles Angels as he could. The Angels’ starter was Bo Belinsky, another party animal who’d already thrown a no-hitter earlier in the year.
“I was in for everything,” Martorano said. “When you’re 21, 22, you can’t get that much money up, but I put everything down I could against Wilson. I figured it was guaranteed.”
But Wilson threw a no-hitter. He was the first black pitcher in the American League to throw a no-hitter, and he also hit a home run — only the third pitcher ever to do that while tossing a no-hitter. Wilson outpitched Belinsky, 2-0.
“That night I’m sitting in the club, wondering what I’m going to do to come up with all the money I owe every bookie in town. I had already told everybody in the club they’re not getting paid this week. And in walks Earl Wilson. He says to me, ‘This is the best day of my life, and it started right here, last night. Johnny, I owe it all to you!’ Then he ordered champagne for the house.”
Johnny said nothing to him that night, but a year or so later, on another late evening at the club, Martorano finally confessed to Wilson what he’d done, betting against him on the day he pitched his no-hitter.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Johnny?” Wilson said, smiling broadly. “I’d have thrown the game for you.”
From Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano: Whitey Bulger’s Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld by Howie Carr. Copyright © 2011 by the author and reprinted by permission of Forge Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. |
