The gangster, the gamble and the horse that paid off
Arnold Rothstein was one of the most celebrated gangsters in 20th century America, forever linked to baseball’s Black Sox scandal, the 1919 Chicago White Sox fix of the World Series. The great writer Damon Runyon, a friend of Rothstein‘s, modeled the character Nathan Detroit in “Guys and Dolls” after Rothstein. F. Scott Fitzgerald created a Rothstein figure, Meyer Wolfsheim, in “The Great Gatsby.” Rothstein was given a legendary shoutout in the film “The Godfather Part II” wh
