Crime in Sports - #226 - The Boozy Murderer - The Willfulness of Ralph "Blackie" Schwamb

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

This week, we go back in time, for a story that wouldn't even be possible, today. He was born in 1926, lived through the depression by learning to gamble, at a young age. He joined the Navy for WWII, but only because his choice was the military, or jail. He ended up in military jail, though, due to his constant violence & disappearing. His wild lifestyle put him in business with both two bit hustlers & famous gangsters. This all results in a brutal murder, an amazing prison baseball league career, and even more crime! A wild, alcoholic roller coaster ride! Get in with 1940's Los Angeles gangsters, play very briefly in the major leagues, and never, ever learn your lesson with Ralph "Blackie" Schwamb!! Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!! Contact us on... twitter.com/[e-mail]/Crimeinsportsinstagram.com/smalltownmurder#  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It's streaming. You can say anything. It's an all-new season. Judy Justice. Only on Freebie. Hello and welcome to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo.

I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We are excited because we have a weird one today. Hope you enjoyed the last, it's been just a few months of just wild roller coaster. Last week was Michael Doakes and that was a crazy ass story that I don't even think, I didn't know that existed two months ago and then we found it and there it is.

So that's good. But this week we have a wild story. We're going to go back in time a little bit. Yeah. We got an old timey forties kind of story. Oh yeah. Oh man. All sorts of tales of prison and,

uh, why gangsters? This is a crazy ass story. One of the wildest stories, honestly, one of the craziest people we've ever done. I had no idea that this existed but now we do and that's only it's only good for us it's only going to be good for us so thank you guys so much for joining us if you haven't done it if you want to help the show please get on apple podcast that purple icon give us five stars

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five dollar or above level is going to get all the access to everything like that that you want and if you just want to be a nice person have good karma yeah and uh you know say hey there you go and get your name mispronounced by jimmy that'll happen also you can go over to paypal use our email address crime and sports at gmail.com make a one-time donation and with that said yeah let's get into this i can't wait let's do it we have like i said back in time a very weird one with ralph richard schwab oh blackie yeah this is his name he's very white oh boy yeah blackie schwab those are the the most lunatic men on earth a white guy named blackie i've met two yeah both of them are terrible men old time old guys yeah

it's an old timey thing. I remember old uncles being like, yeah, my friend Blackie. And I'm like, okay. And I've met the guy and I know he's very white. So I'm like, what are you talking about, Blackie? I don't know if that's a thing you call a tall guy shorty or a bald guy curly. I never asked, because I never wanted to talk to him very long, how the nicknames happened. They were just really bad guys.

Yeah, I would think they'd be like a real blonde guy called Blackie or something back in the 20s. I don't know. Obviously not now. They're both very gray. Yeah, we don't know. Damn it, it's too late. So, Blackie Schwamm is his name here.

He's born August 6th, 1926. Oh, my. Which is wild. Which reminds me, by the way, today is Italian Grandma's 92nd birthday. So happy birthday, Italian Grandma, who was apparently born two years after this guy. And she's still going. So we got. And surprise, he's not.

We'll find out how he met his demise. But she's outlived this man. So good for her. He's from Lancaster, California, originally. He's a Western guy, Western California guy, L.A. guy, which is, again, back in the day, you don't even think of L.A. existing. It did, obviously, but it's one of those things where you think of L.A. like it just happened, basically, from maybe the 60s on and not before but la existed

before historically it's not necessarily uh there's not a lot to it no it's pretty new it's new and that's that's the thing yeah that right away is a strange thing to think of la and there's a couple of things we'll talk about like when hollywood and vine was orange groves yeah this is when he was around oh when you know things that you consider now that are just ingrained, Hollywood did not even exist yet. Hollywood Boulevard wasn't paved. What, really? Yeah, like, that's what we're talking about.

L.A. was like an outpost, man. It had to be a dirt road at some point. Yeah, it was an outpost back then. It was just like, hey, some crazy people live out there on the West Coast. Like, way the hell off of everything. People forget Wyatt Earp died there. You know what I mean? That's what I mean.

It's crazy. But it was happening. And a lot of this book, book I have to say because there is not a lot of information available on this guy there just isn't he's just one of these guys I found thank god I have newspaper archives because I found you know newspaper accounts from the 40s and the 50s and things like that but otherwise besides these brief newspaper accounts there's not a lot to go on as far as personal life kind of in between the game and the arrests yeah and then one guy somehow because his dad played with a guy who knew him this author named eric stone who apparently usually writes about economics and things like that

decided to go talk to this guy and write a book on him called the wrong side of the wall the life of blackie schwamm the greatest prison baseball player of all time. Okay. So he wrote this book, and it's really the only place you'll ever find any backstory on this man. So if this didn't exist, this guy would be lost to history kind of completely. So it's pretty fascinating, honestly. Now, his dad's name is Chester, and his brother's name is Chester Jr. Oh, boy.

So right away with that and and blackie's gonna name his kid after himself too when he gets older it's cyclical his junior thing is cyclical it's a problem nobody stops it's like alcoholism it's passed down through the generations it's it's fucking miserable i'm telling you pride is a is an ugly thing pride is an ugly thing i like that an ugly thing. I like that. It's overrated. I like that. Skip that shit.

Way overrated. Run straight to shame. Yeah, shame. I've lived in shame my entire life, and I feel like it's the best way to go. It is. It really is. Right now, I'm full of shame. I don't know why, but I am.

So he comes from kind of a rough and rugged family here. His maternal grandmother, she was married like three times. This is in the 1800s when that was kind of rare. And also, she was kind of a chubbier woman. Because there's a picture of her. And she was very tough because she ran a bar in a mining camp in Montana. Holy hell. That's a tough woman a mining camp in Montana. Holy hell. That's a tough woman.

She served actual 49ers. Yeah, that's a tough lady, man. If you run a bar in a mining camp in Montana, like watch Deadwood. That's what a bar in a mining camp is. And Al Swearengin had to run that shit with an iron fist and a knife and a gun and Dan Doherty there to do his bidding. To keep people paying for their drinks i mean it was just to keep them from killing the prostitutes never mind paying for

their drinks from beating and you know beating your whatever just to make them do business at the games and everything else like it was wild business like civilized human being absolutely so for a woman to be running a bar up there you you got to be double tough. So that's pretty awesome. And his mother's name was Jeanette. Everybody called her Janet. And she grew up in the bar there. So his mother is also kind of aware of a more rugged lifestyle. But his mom's a little more genteel and not really.

She wanted no part of it. Yeah. Change this. Yeah. His mom is maybe the first lady in in the family too instead of like some families have this is the first one to go to college she's the first one who won't just on a whim break a beer bottle over the fucking break a whiskey bottle on the bar and and cut you with it she recognized there's an easier way of life exactly

and her easier way was getting married uh she married chester hinton is obviously blackie's dad here in detroit in 1921 now his dad was kind of a very tall by the way blackie's six foot five oh which back then was a fucking towering monster i mean you were like in in training camp in baseball the one year he came in there was 300 people and he was the tallest. Wow. So 6'5 didn't exist much back then. Right. It's hard to fit in a wagon like that. Nothing fits. Like, I'm 6'4".

Nothing fits me now. Right. And if I'm ever somewhere where there's older shit, I don't fit anywhere. It's the worst. Yeah. It's horrible. Like, go to Disneyland and ride the Little Nemo ride. Yeah.

That used to be the summer. That shit was made for people in the 50s who are not 6'4", because I can't fit in that thing i'm five eight and that thing's a nightmare for me it hurts it's miserable it's very miserable how you do it i was just oh god jesus wins it over every like time it bumped and go oh god because my knee would rack against the so bad so it must have been really bad for guys back then to be super tall but his dad was like a like a real like a well-dressed kind of a dapper kind of cat for back then which was kind of where ralph gets it from here because ralph it's his real name but that's where blackie gets it from classy detroit classy detroit exactly so they end up moving to los angeles and chester was a master builder and carpenter so he always had work especially in los angeles

because from this time until i don't know the fucking late 80s it was just an ongoing construction boom yeah but especially in the 30s and 40s and the 20s because there was tons of land right and it was cheap as shit and they were giving out permits basically for nothing because they wanted expansion so if you wanted a permit you wanted to build something they just there you go build it it didn't cost a lot to do that so you could really do a lot um uh janet was uh you know she was a plainer woman his mom but liked to wear like furs and shit like that like to be fancy from time to time but everybody said she was a good mother she She was sober, you know, not crazy or anything like that. She kept the household at an even keel.

And the father, from what I understand, wasn't any kind of like alcoholic lunatic either. So where Blackie came from here, I am not sure. His brother's a bit of a drinker, too, but nothing like this guy. Like, Blackie is fucking next level. He's crazy. He's just a lunatic. Like, people like this don't exist anymore they just don't if they do they're in jail like from the time they're 17 riding the bus on loop in uh new york yeah or they're riding their bicycle around phoenix with a meth backpack one of the two and no t-shirts when it's either 115 or 40 hours.

Either way, you need to cover yourself, sir. So the family always called him Rich and Richie. So he always goes by, whenever he signs anything, like a card, like, you know, if you give somebody a Christmas card, it's signed Richie. So he always goes by Richie to people who know him. And his name is Ralph. His first name is Ralph, but apparently he liked Richie to people who know him. And his name is Ralph. His first name is Ralph, but apparently he liked Richie, which is weird because his name is Dick Schwab then, which kind of sounds like a Dick Schwab, which is kind of like a, he's like a venereal tester. Yeah.

Or also just Dick Schwab. That sounds like Schmegma. But he goes by Richie and Rich, not even Rick. I don't know. I don't even know if a Rick existed back then. I don't know my guy's name rick in casablanca though maybe it's like 1940 my uncle's name was ricky and he was born in the 50s his actual name is well ricky yeah ricky henderson yeah he's and he's ricky there's a lot of ricky ricky ricardo that was popular his name was ricardo ricardo which is that's pretty shitty hilarious by the way

i'll name myself ricardo ricardo it's not like someone wrote it and cast him that's their show they had full control over right so it's weird that he would name himself ricardo ricardo that's all i'm saying so by the way in teen wolf i believe the father's name is howard howard as well so that's the yeah what the fuck you have they wrote that in the script you have a control over them no one said not doing that right i'm gonna call him edward or something right i don't know frank robert edward i make a fucking name that's not howard any of the other names that's just uh i don't know a little bit better howard not much better. Yeah, it's just not Howard. That's an awful name, too.

Which is great. So they had a house on the recently paved street. They lived at 1638 Southwest Moreland, which was kind of near a tram line that ran to Venice and everything like that. So a cool little place to grow up. The neighborhood was annexed by los angeles in the 1890s and up until the early 1920s it was a really wealthy area awesome this is where like a lot of these silent movie stars lived okay in this area and then it kind of early 20s came movie stars moved out and like it started becoming more like a blue collar ethnic neighborhood got it it's kind of like a giant a tiny pittsburgh okay with a bunch of like germans and what's this area called

italians uh this is i don't even know exactly right here um but it's it's off and by lancaster and got it or south of there so uh yeah there's a bunch of houses there like fatty arbuckle lived there oh people like that let's see about that awesome. You probably would have heard of out of this. So, yeah, it's to the north and a bit west of Hollywood is what they say here. So north and west. North and west. That would be just south of Malibu. Somewhere up there.

Yeah, I guess. That's nice. Yeah, nice. But I think this is not that far out. Okay. Fucking Malibu. That's way out there. So it's like in that inland area near like, fuck, it's probably near Manhattan Beach and all that stuff. Somewhere like that probably. Yeah.. So, so it's like in the, in that inland area near like,

fuck, it's probably near Manhattan beach and all that. Somewhere like that. Probably. Yeah. I can't place it. I bet it's real nice. So as in 1928, there was the intersection of Hollywood and vine was still orange groves there.

That's where like there was streets, but on the sides for orange groves, not, you know, prostitutes and people getting a fix, struggling comedians, you know, prostitutes. Yeah and people getting a fix struggling comedians you know prostitutes so same thing right so um yeah this was there was like horses all over the place and shit like that people would fight in the streets because like a car would cut off their horse so there'd be

fights in the dust clouds coming up in the middle of hollywood boulevard yeah as a horseman and a guy in a car fought each other in the street like hollywood boulevard yeah as a horseman and a guy in a car fought each other in the street like the original road rage awesome yeah that's fucking awesome i would love to see that and go you have any idea what's going to happen here right a hundred years from now this is crazy this is so different you have no clue so what kind is still the same it's but similar yeah that's the thing very similar but just it's you know it'll be it'll be more passive aggressive yeah rather than actual punching you'll sabotage someone's career and so many people that would wish there was access to orange trees yeah please

so many people would love it one orange please so the the neighborhood here was like german greek and italian kind of that was everybody there's kind of blue collar and um so chester senior worked all through the depression luckily for them because of the construction and uh and la was one of the few places where construction was booming during the depression so ralph said they always had uh blackie said they always had meat on the table and things like that and you know they did end up having to move to a less expensive area, though, to, you know, make it so they could survive and still have some quality of life here.

So they moved along. They moved to 69th Street near Vermont Avenue. And it had cheaper housing. And there was a lot of open spaces and a lot of strawberry fields and shit like that around. It's just super weird to hear this.

Forget that L.A. was founded on agriculture. That was a thing there. Yeah, that's all it was. lot of strawberry fields and shit like that around it's just super weird to hear this you forget that la was founded on agriculture that was a thing there yeah that's all it was and now it's all the way up in bakersfield i guess they push that shit way out get that to where it's hot you know a tree in your yard maybe but outside of that so uh ralph went to the 68th street grade school which was right by his house a guy named j Mew was a childhood friend of his, and he says that's how he got the name. He remembers how he got the name Blackie. He was with him when he got it.

Apparently, they went to see a Saturday matinee, and it was a Western, and all the bad guys wore black. Does this sound familiar? Yeah. It's the same thing as Pistola Pete over there. It's so weird. They all wore black, and Ralph thought that was pretty cool. He was like, I like all the black the black you know bad guys wearing black so he started wearing black jeans and black shirts oh and so all the other kids started nickname they started

calling blackie because it's we wore black all the time cash is a hack that's was it right there this is the fucking original guy so this is in the 30s he did this they just decided and so is pistol pete he's a hack too right so he has big giant fucking ears oh big car door i mean poor bastard wow and he's big you know what i mean six five and he's got like a long thin head and big fucking car door stick not not big like long not big like on his head like you know satellite dishes but they just stick out completely like uh you know like uh what are like you know satellite dishes but they just stick out completely like uh you know like uh what are those cartoons that have little ears oh shit i don't know damn i can't think of it but one of those things yeah because he looks i'm just making this little thing

around my head you're making like deer antlers it's kind of like on the side though like over here he uh so he would and a lot of people his whole family had big ears it was just like a trait and he got in a shitload of fights about his ears but he's six five and they're gonna stand i mean people see you coming above the crowd and those are there too yep that's horrible he got picked on a lot which made him fight a lot because he didn't want anybody talking about his ears leave me alone about my damn ears otherwise he's he's a smart guy yeah if not well you know what we'll call him crafty he's smart but he doesn't use it for anything good so we're gonna call him crafty or clever i believe would be a better way to put it he uses it there he had the measles and the mumps

as a kid had both of them this is pre-inoculation, so you just get them. Thank God I never had to deal with that. Right? Measles and mumps. Survived it and was fine and didn't stun his growth or anything like that. Mumps are just when your cheeks get really big. But what the fuck is measles? Is that marks and shit?

It's a glandular thing. Yeah, measles attacks all sorts of shit internally, too. I mean, a disease, right? Yeah, similar to chicken pox, I think. Fuck. So he had the spectrum of not the same obviously he also was the best throwing arm in the neighborhood as well had a great arm should be yeah uh he said that his friend of his said that uh they had a fort that he and blackie and some

other kids built they dug it into the dirt of a vacant lot next to a glass factory. One of the guys bet Ralph that he couldn't throw a rock and break one of the big panes of glass that was being taken out on factory trucks that they had just constructed to go to. So throw a rock and blast that thing on the truck? Yeah, but you can't do it. So he did it, they said,

from more than about 100 feet away. He threw a rock and shattered the thing. His friend said, quote, we all just stood there for a moment watching the glass rain down on the pavement. Then we ran like hell, laughing all the way. We didn't get caught. That's good. Jesus Christ. That's interesting.

That's horrifying. That's just, hey. Killed somebody. A little hoodlums, that's all. That's the fun ways to get in. That's fun 20s hoodlumism, though. No one got hurt. That's fine, I guess.

But that glass doesn't like... Oh, that's a plate glass. Glass has so much technology today. You throw a rock to it, and it just like... It doesn't even move. Right. It crumples,

the rock goes through it. It came down in guillotines like deadly, deadly glass. Take a leg off of somebody. Luckily, it was driving on a truck. But if anyone was near it god forbid jesus fucking explode it's wild so uh he drops out of school in the 10th grade he apparently took part in every sport he could do and was good at it all because he was big in

athletics so back then if you're the biggest most athletic guy you'll probably do pretty well he ends up quitting after he gets gets gets done with the 10th grade. I think that's enough of this, right? Pretty common. I got about enough here. He's a scholar back then. No shit. He gives the reason as wanting to enlist in the Navy, but we'll get to that.

He doesn't do that for a while because it's a mess here. He ended up skipping fifth grade, Blackie. Because he was smart? He was smart in elementary school. So they skipped him fifth grade, but then he dropped out. So I'd like to know how many kids skipped a grade and then dropped out. That's probably not many in the 10th grade anyway. His brother said he could be a good student when something interested him.

If he liked something, he would get good grades in it. But otherwise, he just didn't give a shit. And he liked to hang out with older kids. They said he was about average height until he turned about 12 and then he shot up a foot which is basically my story is i was never real tall and then in the eighth grade i grew a foot it was like oh in a summer yeah like wow where'd that come from still growing oh i was a i was in so much pain too that was bad grow a foot in three months i wish that shit hurts it hurts bad deal with it yeah let's slap it on you so after that he ended up now he was really good in all these sports his height really helped him out a lot so good for him

here uh later on too in his medical history in 1949 which is well into our story he does uh have a bout of gonorrhea that he is he fully recovers from as well this poor guy penicillin could have changed his life that's what i'm saying that's what i mean this guy just lived the wrong time yeah if he was born 30 years later his life would have been so much better when it comes to that he would have been in prison from the time he was 20 though because there's some shit that he gets in trouble for you're like how is that not 20 years in prison what are you what's going on back then back then yeah maybe these diseases are uh what kept him out of jail for a little bit you know maybe yeah that's possible it slowed him down for a minute yeah back then like i was super drunk was a legitimate legal

excuse like you could do something they'd be like well he was hammered like case dismissed i'm not even fucking around it happens to him it happens to him he gets things whereas now that's extra it was like well you were drunk too well that was dumb now it's negligence on top of the other shit shit that was an excuse back then oh well he was drunk who isn't drunk jesus flim bartles and james not him yeah he began drinking hard at 16 that's when he really which isn't abnormal a lot of people drink hard around anybody in wisconsin's like fucking late bloomer this guy is i guess huh what a pussy jesus parents must have really been on top of it yeah so uh he likes beer but drinks whiskey with a beer chaser that That's his favorite drink.

Yeah. Because it gets him good and shit-faced. He drinks, you know, he'll drink alone. He'll drink with people. He's sociable. Yeah. Or if he just needs to get shit-faced, he will. He says later on, about five whiskeys will get him feeling good.

Yeah. That's when he starts to feel good buzz. About five whiskeys. Fuck. He's like he's in Mad Men or something. Wow. He's like Don Dra in Mad Men or something. Wow. He's like Don Draper, this fucking guy. What is happening?

It's fucking baseball playing George Thorogood. That's wrecking it. Yeah. Going hard. All day. All day. Yeah. Five whiskeys to get you started?

To get you started. He's like, that's when I start to feel tipsy. Yeah. That's, well, one bourbon, one scotch, and oneotch and one beer that's three yeah he's like enough keep them coming and that's when he starts yeah right and another round and george what else do you have to say for yourself he says that he he tells a psychiatrist later that he's always cheerful and he thinks he's the life of the party when he's drinking but when he too much, he becomes either violent or sleepy. Yeah.

He basically fights and then passes out and then goes, I don't remember any of that shit. It's always his thing that he does. Never saves any money because he's always out carousing, drinking, buying fancy clothes, spending money on women, just doing shit like that. And he says that he was sexually promiscuous since about 13 wow so that's 1939 yeah we're talking that's when that's when uh uh wizard of oz came out right so think about in that era he was finding teenage girls to fuck him that's game yeah that's game or is it i would think it would be difficult back then. Well, yeah, hopefully it wasn't forced.

Who knows? But if it was at least consensual, I would think you've got to have some game to get Judy Garland to fuck you in 1939. Yeah, she had a long dress. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Right off the farm in Kansas. They cover it up. Yeah, it's going to be difficult.

Back when they were bragging that they had the shit in color. You know what I mean? Oh, that was a huge deal. That's what he was fucking then yeah that's when he started fucking as a child as a child go see the wizard of oz and then get some pussy unbelievable so at that time uh the william wrigley jr who owned wrigley and also wrigley field gum in the field yeah built wrigley field owned the c. He also owned the local minor league team, the Angels, there as well. Really? He owned them. Yeah. So he built... He also owned Catalina Island as well.

He owned Catalina Island. Owned Catalina... He purchased... In 1919 he purchased Santa Catalina Island. That's fucking unbelievable. Which is crazy to think about. People go there as like a day trip. It's like a city. Yeah. He owned the island.

Just bought it. That's how much money. That's how much gum people were chewing, apparently. Holy shit. People, what were you doing back then with the gum? Had some sore jaws. Holy fuck. Seriously.

What were they- To buy an island. How much gum was being- I don't think whoever is in charge of Bubblicious is buying shit. Not an island. Not an island. That's Catalina, for Christ's sake. Their profit margins are shit if they can't afford an island. I don't know what Catalina, if that meant anything to anybody back then,

or if it was just like that shitty island out there. Because it's 26 miles out. It's a distance, yeah. I don't know, but he did. Now, apparently the Angels were a Cubs farm team, and they're the only Pacific Coast League team to actually be connected to a major league team. All the rest were independents. So Wrigley built another Wrigley in South Central, L.A.

Oh, boy. He built Wrigley Field, too, for the Angels. Very similar? Same look? No, as small as a minor league stadium. It cost $1.1 million to build in 1925. Oh, my. And had seats for 22,457 fans so we're talking half the half the capacity of wrigley for a million dollars that's what you built yeah now that would be 1.1 billion dollars yeah you couldn't build the parking lot of that

place for a million dollars not in la no south central there so uh it was kind of a modern spanish style with a red tile roof and a white stucco facade does it still exist no it's in south no you know of a fucking 22 000 seat ballpark in south central california fucking la right now has anyone ever rapped about that hitting switches next to the ballpark i've never heard that shit i wondered if that's what the good word good your blimp was flying over by wrigley too i've never heard that shit before. I wondered if that's what the Goodyear blimp was flying over. Rolling by Wrigley 2. I've never heard Dr. Dre say that, ever. Ice Cube telling 20,000 people that Ice Cube's a pimp.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Even saw the lights outside Wrigley Field and they said Ice Cube's a pimp. Right. That's what he would have said. So, yeah, this was, at the time, a white neighborhood, a white working class neighborhood. Compton was white back then, as we'll talk about as well as you know everywhere kind of was really in la yeah so uh kind of world war ii is when more people started coming more mexican people started coming black people started coming because there was a lot of war jobs out there so uh in 1930s and his

friend said that him and uh they would take a street car or they'd ride their bikes to the uh to the ballpark they'd get there early to stand outside the left field fence waiting for baseballs that were hit out in batting practice which is really cool uh once i guess blackie got four balls in one day and he said we use those babies for about six months in our sandlot games awesome yeah back then a ball was expensive so if if you got one for free, hey, score. You got four of them. Yeah, you got four of them. So yeah, they would hang around

until the second or third inning, and yeah, that was kind of it. And sometimes they would get like, one of the gate guys would be like, come on in, they'd let the kids in for free because after the game started and all that, they'd be like, hey, we got seats, get in here. So they'd do that, they'd hang out

to see if they'd let them in, basically, and they'd be like yeah we got a few we got seats get in here so they'd do that they'd hang out to see if they'd let them in basically and they'd do that sort of shit he goes to high school in washington washington high school in la which i don't know if that still exists because from 1937 to 1956 um 14 players from that school made the major leagues is that right it was a huge major league you know. And then after that, no more. So I assume the high school had to have closed. You'd think so. It had to have. Now, the students, the ballplayers back then, nowadays, kind of high school athletes, they do crazy shit.

But they have to act like they're straight and narrow. Back then, they didn't even have to act like they were straight and narrow. They could be like, yeah, they're just the wild ball players. And everybody kind of was accepting of that. So, yeah, he would he get into trouble. It's when he was 12 or 13 for gambling and drinking and smoking. 12, 13 years old. He'd wander in drunk, you know, cigarette breath talking about I lost my ass at the

fucking tables today. It's wild. Making a bet. Yeah yeah he has a friend named ted gardner now ted gardner is gonna he's known him since grade school ted's from compton he is going to be kind of their their partners in crime from now and throughout throughout his whole life they're going to be partners in crime uh they used to basically i guess in those days pinball machines were like gambling right so they'd pay off in nickels so wait what pinball yeah you'd pay but it was like gambling yeah if you if you would win it was almost like a like a slot machine but that you had could skill wow if you were good at pinball you could win money it was like a gambling machine almost back then. So I guess they had

different versions of them. They had ones for kids and then they had ones for adults that would pay off in nickels. Sure. So he said rather, Blackie with Ted sometimes would break into malt shops

after hours through the skylights. Apparently there was a lot of skylights before the Second World War. In LA, everybody had skylights. Makes sense. And so he'd pop the glass off and lower himself down,

take the glass off the pinball machine. He'd tape the tilt mechanism into place so it wouldn't go off, prop it up so that it was flat, and he would run through 200 or 300 games to collect all the coins. So it was flat. So he could basically just make it do whatever he wanted. What a hustle. And manipulate it.

So he'd play all night and fucking clear all the nickels out of the thing and then take off. That was his game that he would do here. He'd go hang out with his friends and buy shit and take his friends out to dinner and shit like that. That's a long way to go to get nickels. Yeah, it would take a couple hours. A nickel is a lot back then, though. Break into the machine and then manipulate it to pay out. If you got five bucks, though, back then.

Holy shit. I mean, five bucks was like a hundred bucks, you know? It was a lot of money. At that point, it's not theft as much as it is working. It's working. He worked it hard. He's got to put eight hours in to get. He almost got to be impressed by it.

Well, you know. It's a lot of work for some nickels. Yeah. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Bing!

The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone.

OK, so, um. This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother.

That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door the emmy award-winning series returns how did i know that i have crystal ball in my head it's an all-new season it's streaming you can say anything judy justice only on freebie freebie taylor swift is soaring high her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun,

and then by going up against the biggest very famous manager, Scooter Braun. And then, by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show, Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. He says, quote, I was also the champion quarter logger of the neighborhood.

I could make $20 a day just tossing quarters. He'd play quarters. Okay. And he was really good at it. So he said that he was popular. Everybody said that a lot of the girls liked him because he was um you know he's a bigger guy right and he also he's around hustling he's kind of like any girl that likes the bad guy he's the bad guy and he's got like 30 in change in his pocket which is huge back then yeah i mean that's you can buy malts

till your heart's content at that shit jesus look Look at him, jingling down the street. The man who jingled loudest got the most ass back then, Jimmy. That's the way it worked. $10 in nickels and 20 in quarters? You were a stud back then. A stud. So he has a wealthy aunt as well, which is weird. I guess his father's brother is a vice president of jc penny as well with jc penny

corporation at that point so he would do his little peddly crimes and shit like that drops out of school like we said he's drinking um comes from everybody's drunk in his family long line of drunks uh apparently the there's a report a psychiatric report later that states his father and two maternal uncles quote drank alcohol to excess okay his father drank heavily much of the time and he was at home his older brother also has likes to drink um but the mother never drank okay so uh one evening he was four four years old yeah his parents had some friend of some friends over and Blackie knocked over two whole bottles of beer. And, yeah, so he said that,

knocked over meaning, or knocked back, not knocked over. He drank them. He drank them, two whole bottles at four. Oh, boy. So he says, quote, it became a feat, something my dad told over and over again. Told everybody. So he always heard, what a tolerance for booze my little son has.

So he always, that was the only thing that his dad ever said nice to him, I think, was that he had a good tolerance. So I don't know. He said one Friday night he was 16 and he was in the garage drinking beer with his father, as you do. Yeah. He told his father he's going to Tijuana for the weekend with his friend.

And his father said, no. Yeah. As you would tell your 16 year old that you can't do that. And he says, quote, I say I'm going. And he hit me. I knocked him down. Worst day of my life. I went to Tijuana and things were real chilly for about a week around the house.

But then they settled down and he didn't put any pressure on me anymore. That ended the discipline. It broke his heart. He hit me right in the chin and all it did was back me up a little. I hit him and flattened him. So I'm going to Tijuana. No, you're him so i'm going to you on it no you're not we're gonna fight about it one punch each and then he goes to tijuana and the father just said well i guess you're a man now i can't do anything about it yeah there you go so he said his father

never physically abused him just like spankings and shit but never like you know scared him or you know made him fear for his dad fear his dad or any of the hardcore beatings back then beatings are a sliding scale yeah everyone got hit but it was how you know is it abuse or is it you know right whatever spanking i went to tijuana in the 2000s james and it was oh god fucking prehistoric down there then yeah i can't imagine in the 20s imagine oh my it was you just went down there was probably i assume just to buy women and be debaucherous and wander the streets drinking tequila. You can beat them in there. They don't even mind. You get yourself four or five whores for like a dollar.

You can just beat them and do whatever you want to them. It's great down there. You're going to love it. $30 in nickels and quarters. He's a king down there. Shit. That's half of Tijuana at that point. That's stepping back in time, i'm sure of it so yeah he said that he's he he was a fighter always he's

always fighting and that continues forever now gene mock who played in the major leagues and managed for i think 25 years in the major leagues was a you know very famous guy here he played ball with blackie when they were teenagers in the sandlot which is wild here and he says quote when sober blackie was one great kid with alcohol he actually pursued daring and trouble yeah which is what he was it sounds sounds like everybody that's with alcohol he started to do crazy shit really strange so um apparently back then baseball was the most there was no second sport it was baseball and then a bunch of other shit that a few people play on the side football didn't really matter no one cared about professional football back then it was only a little bit of

college right basketball was not they didn't even have the nba yet so i mean that was this is america's pastime for this is it every kid wants to be a ball player that's just what they all want to do so much like in the movie the sandlot that was that was real these were sandlots all over la had shit just all these games going on it was it's like the ball courts in new york like basketball courts in new york right in the you know 70s and 80s and it was just te teaming with baseball talent just these kids were playing these sandlot games that were better than high school games the scouts would go to the sandlots not to the high schools because that's where the good games were right there's a sandlot

so uh yeah he started uh you know hanging around different playgrounds and different you know sandlots and being in all these different games he's playing games with gene mock like we said who was a you know a major league manager and player forever. So, yeah, they were playing everything, and he ended up, he played with the Rosabelle Plumbers, who were regularly in contention for the title of best Los Angeles semi-pro team. And he played with them. And he was playing with them.

He's found in 1943 at first. He's seen at first by a scout named pete peterson who howard howard pete peterson and ricardo ricardo all hang out too much too many so uh he that scout originally sees him and then he'll find him again later which is interesting he's height and his ears make him remember him who he is it's hard he's hard to miss that's satellite it's hard to miss that's it like oh shit i see something in there now he's already a gambler at that point right he says quote i always had an angle things were too easy for me it seemed whatever i decided to undertake i could make work and so he had a lot of confidence that he could just go do shit he's a hustler he's a hustler

that's it um and gambling was he was all about gambling by this point. He loved it. And we're talking 14 years old. He was gambler through and through. He loved doing his quarters, loved to win at that. Then he ends up in 1942 at 16. He runs away to Arizona with some friends. Now imagine what Arizona was.

Arizona sucks now. We're here. It's terrible. Imagine that in 1940 fucking too, what this Arizona was. Arizona sucks now. We're here. It's terrible. Imagine that in 1940 fucking two with this place. It's ugly. It's ugly. And later on, when he's playing minors in Arizona at one point, he comes down to Phoenix, takes the bus down from Globe to Phoenix.

And Phoenix back then was like a wild mining town. It wasn't a place where people move with their families. It was a metropolis. No, it was bars and whorehouses. Grand Avenue and Van Buren. That was it. It was Deadwood, basically. That was what it was back then.

It was all miners and shit, and that's what he loved. He's like, now we're talking gambling houses and cat houses. This is better here. So he runs away. They stop in Tucson, where one of them knew somebody, and they decide to break into some resort cabins in the nearby hills. This is their plan. He says, we didn't steal anything, just drank up the booze and ate some food. But he ends up getting caught when one of his mother's friends finds out and turns them

all in. Okay. Or one of his friend's mothers. I'm sorry. One of his mother's friends. All right. One of his friend's mothers that he did it with found out about it and turns them all in okay so or one of his friends mothers i'm sorry one of his mother's friends all right one of his friends mothers that he did it with found out about it and turned them all in so uh after two days in jail he ends up getting probation but the agreement is he'll get probation as long as he agrees to join the service on his 17th birthday which is what they did a lot back then yeah if you were a kind of a juvenile fuck

up they'd say you can either go to jail or you can go in the military yeah and guys would go in the military that was the arizona judicial system that was arizona wow they returned him to la after that i found this the fucked up part is i found this in the newspaper and didn't know if it was him it was just said ralph schwamm and it was under an arrest thing from an arizona newspaper from 1943 and it's the same fucking thing it's him it's the dates match up that's crazy uh he apparently he was uh his bond was 500 bucks so someone had to pay 500 bucks and then he could go and join the military basically so at some point in 1943 actually on his birthday in 1943 his 17th birthday he joins the navy okay

he in his mind he said he figured that it was less he was less likely to see action at sea than he would be on land boy oh boy which is that war it was everywhere apparently the battle of midway had taken place about a year before and he kind of thought that that whole thing was settling down in the pacific so it wasn't they fixed it he thinks yeah he was like that should be good now so i'll just join that and that way i won't end up you know so they put in san diego so well we'll find out here um chicago well he well he's there for a little while yeah i don't know if he's actually we'll think about it so he thinks the japanese are it's basically over and everything's going to be fine

yeah grace yeah so that's it grace is him joining the military to go fight in world war ii instead of go to jail instead of go to jail that's great so that tells you the kind of story we're talking about what's in store for you here so yeah his naval career his naval career the way in this book the way the guy puts it blackie he puts it like this blackie's own account of his naval career was heroic sad and illusory as the attack on los angeles so basically what he he's saying that his he had this like real heroic career he says that he was on a destroyer headed for the pacific front that was torpedoed and went down okay that's his story so he says he was on something that

stunk yeah he said he was one or one of the fewer than 20 people who survived on the whole ship oh yeah he said he was sent back to hawaii and was supposed to get leave to go home for 30 days days but instead he was reassigned to a ship that was headed back out in a day or two so uh the officer who delivered the news he said wasn't very nice about it so um he and a friend who was another guy who was in that ship that sunk what he said flipped a coin to see who of which one of them would punch the officer and blackie won he said that he saluted the flag turned around and decked the officer so he's arrested and dragged to naval prison for this because you're not allowed

to hit commanding officers there. That doesn't work. Generally frowned upon. Especially in wartimes. You know, they tend to want you to protect. And at Pearl Harbor? Yeah, in Hawaii.

You know, it didn't go over well. The place was just attacked. It didn't go over well. Maybe let's not fight with each other. Yeah, you're going back out. So that's what he said.

But his companion later on, a woman named Bea Franklin, who lived with him kind of through the last 20 years of his life said that, um, basically when he, when he gets to the brig in handcuffs, his big brother Chester is in charge of that. So he runs into Chester and without saying a word or removing the cuffs chester hauled him into a room and locked the door and beat him up oh that's awesome so him and his brother really never get along after this they're estranged for a few years and they'll hang out and drink once in a while and that's about it generally don't want to talk to a guy that beats you up in cuffs

that's the thing yeah i said he just beat the shit out of his brother so he's getting brutalized by his own brother which which is weird. Now, that's what he says. In actuality, the naval records say something a bit different. What do they say? They say September 1st, he went straight into training at the naval station in San Diego. His pay was 50 bucks a month. And he was an A.S., which was apprentice seaman.

It's the lowest rank you could get when you entered the Navy there at the time. He was 168 pounds, 6'5", 168. That's, yeah. Very, very thin. That's not good. Yeah, he had a tattoo of a ship on his right upper forearm. By the way, by the mid-60s, he's covered in tattoos. Really?

Which nobody was covered in tattoos back then. Those are scary people. Jail tattoos everywhere. Wow. tattoos really which nobody was covered in tattoos back then but he had scary people jail tattoos everywhere wow later on somebody like uh you know in the 1963 or something when nobody had tattoos he gets in like kind of a spat with a guy and the guy trying to punk him was like i've done time i'm not afraid of you and pulls up his sleeves and he's got a tattoo it's got like an anchor on his hand and he said a tattoo oh boy yeah and then he rolled up his sleeves and he's just fucking covered in tattoos you know he's like a biker but then yeah it's pretty goddamn funny so anyway he's um this is wild so he also has a tattoo of a bird on his

upper right arm so that's interesting yeah he uh three days after he gets there he completed gas mask gas gas mask instruction in the gas chamber and a large battery of physical and mental tests. Had signed a copy of the rules and regulations, submitted his form for life insurance and all that sort of thing. He'd been rated a, quote, swimmer third class. So he's good at this. Is that good? Third class? You don't want to be treated like a third class citizen. No, but is it like a third degree burn maybe it's better yeah third class first class swimmers suck a bunch of pussies

so the military were you know trying to get people in obviously this was churning out people we were in the middle of the war but it took a long time to train he's finally assigned to active duty with the squadron flight air wing 14 at san diego naval station on january 8th 44 i want to know so bad what those fucking numbers mean but i want to do zero research to do it and i don't want it to be tweeted at me because i'll never remember i just wish it was in my brain what the fuck is the 105th airborne division i wish i would have wish i would have learned that earlier what do those numbers mean so 101st is hot we have 101 airborne divisions apparently and why is the 101st the best one i don't know they after 100 did they decide to make a good one right like oh we should make one

more like they know what they're doing and make them the best those other hundred likes i think i'm jump out of planes and fly around in circles. That's it, yeah. Just checking engines, making sure that the fuel doesn't run out too quick. First infantry, everything's a hundred and something. Yeah, there's a lot of them. How many we got? A lot. I guess. I mean, it's a big army.

They're all over the world. Shitloads of people. It costs us a fucking fortune. There better be hundreds of them. For what the shit it costs, half of our fucking domestic budget, there better be thousands of whatever those are. Just thousands of them for what the shit it costs half of our fucking domestic budget there better be thousands of of whatever we those are just thousands of them yeah all over the place so his rank was upgraded to uh s2c which was semen second class oh geez and uh second class semen second class see my semen it's all right i mean i ain't gonna brag on it but second class

second class sounds like paul giamatti semen yeah now he would be like fourth class semen yeah you don't want that no no what genetically would you want out of him genetically that doesn't that might not pass genetically but all the physical traits were we want none of those short chubby bald bug-eyed funny voice how about no red hair shit fuck this is terrible third class semen semen third class get it out of here don't want it first class semen's like really top-notch semen like a pitch stuff like yeah like an olympic athlete semen you know secondclass semen is just your average semen. Just your average is going to make you a normal person.

Somebody that's really good at carpentry. Something. Yeah, so you could be good at one thing. But then third-class semen is like, nobody wants those jeans. Look at you. Put your shirt back on. Put it back on.

Second-class is like Vince Vaughn. Yeah, he's a second class and then third class team at least he's tall that's what i mean he's got something right there's nothing else going for him but he's tall right that's six fives big guy plays the same guy in every movie yeah so uh he's rated a 4.0 in conduct which is average average. 3.6 in seamanship. It's pretty good. He can bust it out on a whim. The Navy's got the worst names for things. 3.6 in mechanical ability and 3.6 in ability as leader of men.

So basically they were just average unless somebody really stood out as spectacular. They just get average marks. That's how it worked here. He began to get into trouble immediately. By February 1st, so January 8th he was like ready to go five weeks by february 1st he's declared a quote straggler uh-huh he'd been missing from base absent without leave since 7 30 in the morning on january 29th he finally came back on february 6th So he's gone for over a week. And in court for this on March 9th, he pled guilty and was sentenced to 20 days of confinement and docked $36 in pay. That's court-martialed, right? That's pretty much court-martialed.

Yeah. So they let him out on April 3rd and assigned him to the USS Prince William, which was a small aircraft carrier that had been launched. It was a pretty new ship. The ship had been going between San Diego and the Pacific Islands for a little while. So April 4th, he reports for duty. And one day after he on April 4th, which was one day after he reported for duty, the Prince William goes out to sea. It's a short trip to get some planes and supplies out to other ships. By April 12th, he was back in San Diego and was transferred to a different ship, which was another aircraft carrier, that was scheduled to go right into the middle of the fighting in the Pacific. Oh, Jesus.

The USS San Jacinto. And that is going right into battle, right in the middle of it, too. One of the pilots on that ship was george hw bush really uh 41st president no shit yeah he was one of the navy pilots on that ship wow so he was supposed to be on the same ship as him um there um so um now they left san diego headed for the fighting at seven in the morning on the 14th and he wasn't there blackie didn't show up he went awol an hour later after he missed the ship he was declared a deserter with the notation intentions unknown oh we don't know what he's up to a couple hours later

he woke up oh no he had a hangover in a cheap motel. He got shit drunk because he knew he was leaving. Shit drunk and overslept. That's awesome. Yep. He was like, fuck. But he said, you know, it was good fun. He was bored on the boat. He didn't like it. He just was tired of the boat.

So he caught a train back to L.A. And just said, I'll just go back home. A week later, the shore patrol caught up with him and put him in handcuffs and brought him back to a military base in San Pedro. And he was brought up before a court martial, which was a step up from deck court, which was the first one he got you. Whatever. He pleaded guilty. Not a whole lot else you can do. You weren't on the boat.

And then you were in L.A. when you're supposed to be in the middle of Pacific. So kind of hard to say you didn't do that. So, yeah, he pleads guilty to to uh this shit here he's docked 27 per month for five months and sentenced to 30 days of solitary confinement at terminal island naval prison oh my god yeah he got bread and water with a full food ration every third day so yeah that's awful that's a bad stuff oh my god that's bad shit it's probably damp and awful and that's the penalty for not showing up yeah apparently and you still have to show up right then when you're done with that they let him out of there on june 30th and restored him to full duty the next day that's how bad they needed guys yeah

fuck it get him if we can use him as a body it doesn't matter we'll we'll deal with him for a while so uh he uh ends up uh going to san pedro for reassignment at 11 30 on the night of july 10th a couple of marine guards found him just outside the fence of the base lights had been out a half hour earlier so they arrested him and threw him in the brig because he's about to leave he's about to do something right so he'd been absent without leave for only 30 minutes but he again brought up before a court marshal sentenced to pay another loss of 2380 per month for six months and another 30 days in solitary it's half your pay that's yeah that's i mean he can't be making too much back then so he's fighting for free at this point so yeah he said that he was he was doing that he uh he hated the whole thing basically he hated everything yeah he knew the rules but he just said that he didn't care

basically just didn't really give a shit he found that cigarettes and matches were hard to come by in the jail so he found cigarettes but he had to uh figure out how to light them basically and when he did he was cited on july 28th for possession of contraband and endangering the lives of prisoners by inserting a graphite pencil into the light socket to create sparks to light cigarettes holy shit and that worked he would get sparks and he'd light a cigarette off of it he's like making the a pencil like a number two pencil smolder in the light short out and shoot sparks out and he's using that to fuck he's trying to spark how much do you want a cigarette that's wild man that's dangerous as well so uh yeah they added uh 20 days to his

confinement and took another 36 out of his pay now he's in the hole i think now he's like he's gonna have a lien he owes yeah he owes there so i have a payday loan to pay his fucking service oh shit on september 8th he was released and once again sent to san pedro to await another assignment and uh two days later around 11 30 at night again he takes off again right vanishes um yeah he basically was drunk wandering around and shore patrol nabbed him again and hanging out at one of the bars he hangs out at and this time he is recommended for a general court martial which is a serious thing apparently and he was super uncooperative in jail while awaiting trial he received warnings for his conduct minor infractions removing like things from his uniform that he's not supposed to just

being a prick yeah not doing what he's supposed to which is probably how i would have reacted to honestly but i get it so on october 3rd he's found guilty of absence from station without and duty without leave and he's demoted to the ranking of apprentice seaman and sentenced to two years. You, sir, may fuck off two years in Terminal Island prison for the remainder of his service. What the fuck? Two years. And then he's gone at the end of it. He's going to be dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Holy shit.

That's a far cry from getting punched in the mouth. See ya. Yeah, he is punching his brother. Whatever he did. This is too much. This is unbelievable. He punched punched his commanding officer but that was a long time ago so i mean later on though because they need sailors so bad his sentence gets reduced this is like a week later to 15 months of confinement with the possibility of being restored to full duty in eight months if he behaved himself. That's how bad they needed people.

So, yeah, the dishonorable discharge was also softened to bad conduct discharge, which is a little less bad. Is it? It is. It's apparently there's a ranking system. Both of them sound shitty. One is a third-class seaman. That's all we know.

Bad is apparently second-class seaman. Do you still get a military burial you can't right i don't know apparently this is like not so bad the other one's like jesus dishonorable what did you do piece of shit yeah jesus so on october 16th 1944 he is transferred to the naval disciplinary barracks on terminal island in los angeles harbor and um that's how it goes here and then the naval the naval uh the chief of navy personnel cuts another month off the initial part of his sentence so he could be out in seven months if he's a good prisoner but do you think he's a good prisoner no no and what's the fucking

motivation to go to war right that's my motivation right if i'm really good they'll send me to the fucking pacific ocean to get torpedoed that sounds great if i'm really good i can go fight in a war that they're going to talk about for several years to come oh jesus christ it's a big one yeah it's yeah the big one the big one that's what i hear i mean who knows what's going to happen in the future but right now it's pretty fucking big so on december 5th while in prison here he's cited for a violation of prison regulations and thrown into solitary confinement again on december 22nd while being transferred somewhere he escapes so he escapes military jail this is he's this is wonderful he really hates the military that he's by the way

he's barely 18 years old yeah he is this is a story of a guy this is a child still this is still he hasn't even played baseball yet this is crime in sports he's a baseball player right we haven't gotten to now he hasn't thrown a ball all he's thrown is a rock and a play glass window so far this is fucking insane this is awesome it's crazy so he went home for christmas that's why he escaped and he basically said he got drunk for a week and stayed drunk all the way through new year's eve should have just done time in tucson man would have been easier right apparently apparently a little bit well he would have got drafted anyway so he would have been drafted either way he's still going in so yeah this way he got to pick where he went is what

his so that's why he did it so he turns himself in at eight in the evening on new year's day basically starting to sober up a little bit. Goes, turns himself in. 1945. The next day, he woke up and was so angry that he was there that he ripped his prison uniform to shreds. They came in. He was sitting in his underwear, and everything was in tatters on the floor. He tore it apart.

That earned him five days of solitary again for destruction of government property. And basically, he ends up the whole time he's there. He has zero good time. He none. None. He has like reverse good time from all his infractions. So the best. Finally, basically, it sunk in that he said he realized that he needed to cooperate for a little while just so he can get

the fuck out of here he wants out so he figured the only way he's going to get out is to cooperate so he he starts to chill out a little bit on june 1st 45 he's transferred to the prison at great lakes national training center in chicago two months and 16 days of his good conduct allowance is restored as well so he's doing well then um basically the hirohito emperor hirohito surrenders right japan surrenders and they kick him immediately out of the navy they're like all right we don't fucking need these people anymore we don't need jerk offs like this one anymore right anyone on the margins at that point they just booted done so he was given a bad conduct discharge uh civilian clothing quote not to exceed 30 value and $25 in cash and kicked to the fucking curb out of the military prison.

That was that. So, yeah, he listed carpenters a helper as his occupation on his discharge papers. And but his job profession, his job preference as professional baseball player. So the Navy gave him a bus ride back to la so yeah that's how it worked and uh he says basically quote i got drunk missed a ship hit an officer and did two years that's his whole that's his whole explanation that first thing that was just an infraction yeah he said that was that that terminated my navy career i was very bitter it was the biggest point in me deciding that life was unfair and was going against me i decided it

was never going to happen again unless i caused it what what going against me you did you caused all this yeah you joined the navy yeah one of the things in the military that you know the reason i didn't join the military is i'm bad at following directions yeah so if you're not good at people telling you what to do the military may not be for you right it just might not be that's one of the things you have to be good at is you have to be cool with that right some people are and some people aren't you also got to be cool with uh everything you know you just gotta go along to get along yeah and if you join up during world war ii you have to expect you might actually go to combat at some point. They're going to make you do some shit.

Yeah, that's the way it works there. I'm so glad I didn't go. Geez, I would have been bad at it. It's so close. I would have ruined it. They don't need me. I would have just been a hindrance until they kicked me out. That would all it would have been.

I would have been like Rick Bowe. I'll never forget hiding from that guy. The recruiter kept coming over. They kept calling me. Oh, my God the recruiter kept coming over they kept calling me oh my god why did they dare they came he came to my apartment so i just was like yeah cool that sounds great there's an education involved so i went took all the tests and stuff oh and then the day for sign up or for like swearing i just didn't show up and the guy kept coming to my house until and i kept like i'd hear a knock and i'd my blinds would be open and i'd see him walk by and he's

like looking through the blinds and stuff and eventually i just stopped answering you kind of deserve that for filling out paperwork i did a lot of yeah i went through a lot i said hello to the guy in gym class and he found out my name and fucking my phone number and was calling my house every five fucking minutes and then finally my dad goes look man i'm gonna be honest with you you're barking off the wrong tree this kid ain't joining the fucking marines if you know him you'd know he ain't joining the marines and you don't want him there if he did yeah that's enough of that then my lease was up and i never saw him again there you go he had to run at least he didn't track you down no imagine that if he moved it's like following the u-hauls he knows he's waving yeah help with that couch

i got some friends that could help you no so uh yeah so anyway he's he's in la now and um he lives with his parents for a few months he's no choice only like 19 years old so his father helps him get a job with a glass company. I don't know if it's the same one that he broke the windowpane on or not. But I have no, no clue. But it's forty five dollars a week. That's decent money. That was decent money back then, but not enough money for him. He didn't want to do that.

After a couple of weeks, he either quits or gets fired. He doesn't remember. Who knows? He probably stopped showing up. I'd imagine he got drunk and didn't show up anymore. So there's less penalty for this. Yeah. He won't get in trouble at all they're gonna do his fire mate's it uh his parents were pissed off at him though for it so basically it's a very tense um around his house and everything like that his father's and his mother both work his father there's some tension around

the house for other reasons though his father chester was working at northrop aviation and he had a little issue where there's a woman named edith who's his secretary and he impregnates edith oh no not great uh especially in the 40s this was considered now it's scandalous back then it was like oh my god and it's his secretary it's cliche. It's very cliche. Jesus. So anyway, his wife, Janet, ends up divorcing him for this, Blackie's mom, after 25 years of marriage. Edith was super young, too. Edith was only like three years older than Blackie. Oh, my God. So that really pissed off Janet.

Oh, boy. He got his 22-year-old secretary pregnant at 50. That's not going over well at home at all. That's ugly. Even in the 40s, that'll get you kicked out of your house. Well, today they'll get you an abortion and some hush money. Either that or very, very expensive legal proceedings on all sides. Back then, it was, that'll at least get you a divorce here.

The problem here, though, least get you a divorce here. So the problem here though, Ralph or the father was fine with it. The father Chester said he wanted to marry Edith as soon as the divorce was through. Problem was Edith is also married. Oh no. No, this is very, very scandalous, man. Holy, oh boy.

This is wild. So anyway. 22 year old, oh, she's got to go home and tell her 20 something year old husband. Got knocked up by my 50 year old boss. He's 50. Yeah. Just smells, the kid's going to come out smelling like aqua velvet. I hope you're okay with that.

I hope that's all right with you. Jesus. Because that's what's happening. Oh my. So she's married. Obviously this is a giant scandal. Let's let Blackie tell it here. Blackie says, quote, she was a stone fox.

He told me the whole scam, ran it down to me, talking about his dad. Never even mentioned it to my brother. We were in a bar across the street from Northrop, and in walks this guy just looking around the room. My dad's back was to him, and i was just staring at him and he didn't go he didn't go sit at the bar or nothing he just stood there he was about six feet 190 pounds i asked my dad you know that guy my dad turned around and he says yes that's edith's husband i say i can't help you and he says okay So he got up and the guy took him out in the parking lot and beat the shit out of him. But that's the last that ever happened.

But that's the last that ever happened over that. He gave Edith a divorce. I didn't cause that problem. I had no business getting in that. My dad always said it was worth it. They were together until he died. So he had to take an ass kicking. But he ended up getting to hang on to his 20.

He got the girl in the end how awesome is that black he's like dad he's bigger than me i got nothing for you i just said like that's on you like i can't that's i think it was that's you fucked his wife so that's i can't be like i'll fight you like no you he you owe him this like if you bang a guy's wife you then, if he wants to fight you, you got to give him that. It's all in the game, baby.

That's all in the game. That's like getting kneecapped by Omar's shotgun. You guys, it's all in the game, you know? It is what it is. Oh, that's fantastic. That's exactly what it is.

Like, man, that is all in the game. Your pimp game, you know, it's strong, but... You got a hot girl. If that's what you got to pay to get her, i said it was worth it sounds like half off at nordstrom's babe go get it worth it

man at least they stay imagine if she like left him a month later that would have at least they stayed together that's awful my jaw's still sore she's walking walking. And Blackie says, quote, none of that stuff changed my attitude about life or made me a worse or better person. Okay. Except the military didn't change your outlook. I pissed him off. That's crazy. Pissed him off. That's nuts.

This pissed him off because of the whole situation. So everything just kind of makes him a little more angry. So his parents are getting divorced and he's going to get married. He marries a young lady named Nell. Okay. She is Nellie Ann. She's a 17-year-old at the time that he marries her. Her occupation is a domestic listed on there.

Nothing. I do nothing. Yeah. Domestic. Right. Well, yeah, that's what that meant back then. She had to stay at home. Yeah.

So horrible. Which back then they had like nine kids. Right. That's a lot. It's something. That's something. I don't know if her occupation was domestic, so I don't know if that was,

because back then they used to list housewife. I don't know if that meant she's a housekeeper for other people. Oh, that's a great point. That's what they would call a domestic back then. A maid, yeah. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia.

But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from SmartList Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you've learned that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout,

How the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, anyway, basically, Nell's birth certificate says child known as Nellie A. Eason and cites an affidavit from her stepfather. Apparently, she was adopted by her stepfather because her father took off on her at some point and her and her siblings. So anyway, she meets Ralph or she meets Blackie through Blackie's mom.

Really? She works with Blackie's mom somewhere. They work at the same place. She meets Blackie through Blackie's mom. Really? She works with Blackie's mom somewhere. They work at the same place. And so she says, my son's a nice, tall, handsome guy. You should meet him. Yeah. And that's how it comes.

Shit soldier. Shit soldier's ears are insane. What's worse, having big ears or cauliflower ear? Oh, man. Cauliflower, because at least you did something for that to earn that. There's a story behind that. You're not going to you know my cauliflower ears that person can probably fight yeah they've been not making fun of it they've had a forearm grinding into the side of their head enough to do a lot so they'll probably fuck you up right you know but not big ears my optometrist has

cauliflower ear and he's like he he's like checking my eyes. He goes, just look over my ear. And I want to, you really think I've missed that thing? I'm looking right at it, man. The funniest are like adults. Have a look at my ear. Okay. Like you had to tell me.

Over there. Now, is he, is this from something older? Is he like one of these guys who got like 45 years old and is like, I'm going to join a jujitsu gym. And then you have no, you're a doctor. you're clearly not an athletic person but you're walking around with a fucking cauliflower ear he's in his late 20s there's no way i'm asking okay all right i'm afraid i'll probably just kick your ass yeah i just beat you up yeah you want to get beat up by your optometrist i've clearly been wrestling very close to very tough men for at least 10 years.

Something. You got more questions? Anything else you want to know, bitch? You don't look like you're in very good shape, sir. No. So Nell comes from a traditional family, and she liked that his family was traditional besides the divorces and all that sort of thing. But her sister, Nell's sister, said, quote, the men brought home the bacon and the women

cooked it. And that's what she liked about the whole thing. So sometime in about 45, Blackie ends up sending her a photo of him in his military uniform, which is not in the military anymore. And so anyway, it's inscribed, to Nellie, the most wonderful girl in the world, all my love, Rich. Like I said, he signs everything Rich. And so she thought he was cute cute she thought he was cute she thought he was you know marriage worthy i guess so they're they're married by a minister in march 8th 1946 uh which is six months after he's released from naval prison uh they're both 19 at the time. His occupation is listed as a carpenter, and he lives with his parents near New Hampshire Avenue near 82nd Street. So he needs work, though.

Obviously. So that's the thing. Now he's got a young wife. She expects him to bring bacon home for her to cook, so he needs to go out and have some goddamn job. But what he likes to do is he likes to hang out and carouse a lot. Because in Hollywood back then, you could just go out, and it was the Wild West. Not a lot of people lived there. If you went out to a bar in Hollywood, there'd be five movie stars there.

That's just the way it was. Fatty Arbuckle will walk in here. There was nowhere else to go. It wasn't like now where there's all sorts of private things and clubs. You can pay a fucking bartender to come that's what i mean now that back then you went to whatever the bars were and you went to where the shows were because they had all these shows every night and the show girls and all that sort of shit it was a lot of also moving into here this was the era when all the gangsters started coming here as well yeah mickey cohen bugsy seagull

all these people started hanging out and using LA as their, it was wide open space. It was like Florida in the 70s for the gangsters. It was very regal. That's what it was. So yeah, he's, you know,

so he's got this. He likes to go out. Nell is homesick. She's from Minnesota. She's homesick. Now she knows that Ralph is always out drinking and fighting and carousing

and you know fucking women right at first she was excited to have like this husband and be in Los Angeles she's a small town girl who thought an escape from that was to get married because that's what people did back then and post-world war ii this yeah and this is a guy that was in the military this is like yeah it's like Pearl Harbor the movie yeah you come you collect a bride, you get married and you move to the suburbs. That's kind of what people did back then. It'll be awesome. That's well, go do something. Go be boring.

Anyway, go sit out there and be fucking boring for the next. The dream of a three bedroom house and the sedan in the driveway and the chain link. Very excited. Very exciting here. So, yeah, they thought she convinced him then she didn't want to stay here anymore she thought if she moved him out of the city he would calm down yeah it's the city that's causing this so she convinced him that logging was a good business wow logging oh imagine being talked into that how hard is she gonna say how good how well did she suck dick to talk a person into logging

to talk a man who doesn't like hard labor it's not like he's a guy who does hard labor anyway he doesn't care for it he won't show up at the glass factory the military couldn't keep him straight no and you're like how about logging and he's like i'll give it a shot and she actually was like all right he was like all right i guess we'll log then so apparently she convinced him of this by her family had connections into this and she told him look if we do this for 10 15 years we're going to be rich okay so let's just do it so um yeah she said that it was a better in her mind it was a better place to raise kids right in a small town uh they moved to white horse in modoc county, which is the far northeast woods and mountains of California.

Oh, Jesus. Way the fuck up there and out there. So yeah. Damn near Idaho. Yeah. All the way up there. Exactly. By the Oregon border.

So Ralph fucking hates, hates it. He's a city guy. He grew up in LA. He likes to go drink at the bars on Hollywood Boulevard. He's just not a guy who wants to sit in the woods. This isn't California. I'm freezing. Yeah. It's cold. There's no beach Hollywood Boulevard. He's just not a guy who wants to sit in the woods. This isn't California. I'm freezing. Yeah, it's cold.

There's no beach. This sucks. It's raining. He says, quote, Nell wanted me to work in the woods. There wasn't a neon sign within 50 miles. I got so tired of scamming those loggers' pay and then having to fight them. It was hard work. I couldn't handle it. What?

He's a gambler, and he's a card shark. He's been doing this since he was 13 and these guys are rubes right so he goes in there and fucking hustles them with cards with quarters with all this shit takes all their pay and then he has to fight these guys because they're drunk loggers and broke and broke now and angry so then he has to fight them so go back home with no bacon no nothing though he's got all your bacon right so he said quote i made a couple of phone calls and the browns said they'd sign me that is the st louis browns uh yes wait what st louis browns he made a couple of how do you yeah he doesn't even play baseball but he knew that scout it's a long story

so he said my wife didn't want anything to do with it she hated baseball she wanted me to stay up there i told her forget that so she served me an ultimatum either baseball or me i came down to la and signed with the browns uh yeah pete peterson who ran the team in gardenia uh asked jack fournier the browns head scout to take a look at blackie because he remembered him and uh the guy's report fournier's report was quote he's a screwball but he can pitch he's a screwball, but he can pitch. He's a crazy fuck. So he ends up and recommends signing him to the Browns. That's how easy.

Imagine that now. Wow. Now you have to play from the time you're five. And there's like all these different leagues and different like camps you have to go to to know people. And it's like so back then you could I hear he can throw and they just sign him. He'd have to have a disability and then tweet at them and have that shit go viral for them to give him a chance in a youtube video of him on standing on one leg getting a 400 foot home run or something that got a million retweets sign him for a one-day contract for 100 bucks publicity yeah this was

they were looking for and every every major league team had like 15 minor league teams back then yeah now there's like two or three then it was 15 or 20 every town in america had a baseball team so they needed players to fill these teams and the browns were the worst team in the majors by far yeah they were the biggest shithole organization so they didn't get the good players so they had to go sign what they could he signed his contract on the fender of a car oh boy that's old school yeah um yeah so while he's doing this he's in la and uh he really likes mickey cohen a lot he likes his style mickey cohen is a gangster famous gangster uh he liked reading about him he'd see him out sometimes he liked that he wore expensive suits and he had always had like three beautiful

women with him and he hung out with movie stars, and he was living a glamorous life, making all the money he wanted. Outwardly. Yeah. Well, glamorous, definitely. So Blackie looked at that, and he was like, well, Jesus, I would like to have that. What can I do here? So he does know a friend of his who kind of is in that sphere of knows some half-assed

gangsters, and that's ted gardner his grade school pal wow that he grew up with and he hooks him up with mickey cohen kind of around a roundabout way here now mickey cohen had a couple of brothers named joe and freddie seka running the neighborhood for them the seka brothers they were like his his captains kind of they ran the shit underneath him uh they were uh uh so anyway they would do all this shit uh cohen says that he had a run-in with fred sika which is the same thing as having a run-in with me and the sikas had been with mickey when uh they robbed jack it was this famous thing they robbed jack dragna who was another gangster his betting parlor

and then they shot at mickey Mickey Cohen and cut his face up. And it was like a big broken glass cut his face up. He survived it. And he went out that night, like all fancy suit with some cuts on his face. Like, hey, here I am. Wow. It was like a big famous thing. Yeah, it was a big famous thing in the newspapers back then.

So in the fall of 1945, Blackie is introduced to Mickey Cohen. And they chat for a little while. And Mickey said, I know a couple of guys that might be able to use you. A young, big guy like you who's willing to fucking throw his weight around. Who's a lunatic. Who's a lunatic. They might be able to use you. It's the Seeker Brothers.

They're the ones who do the kind of meat and potatoes collecting and loan sharking and shit like that. So he said they could use a tall guy who's good with his fists and likes money and doesn't really have any morals. Perfect. You're perfect for us. So they hire him as a leg breaker. Basically, he's Rocky in the beginning of Rocky. He's a musk guy. Going around collecting debts for bookies and loan sharks.

And if people don't have the money, he beats the shit out of them. That's his game. Easy peasy. And he gets paid well for it he's doing he's doing pretty well um yeah he's he's doing fine um uh he uh there's all sorts of his old neighborhoods and everything around here like south central where wrigley field was hollywood park racetrack there's tons of nightclubs gambling parlors brothels all sorts of shit so grimy la the underbelly yeah he's got tons of work yeah and breaking legs here he says quote they didn't care if you worked as a carpenter or if you were a pool shark if you owe some money friday night you

better have it i had run-ins with a couple of movie stars happily so i kicked their ass and got the money but uh but they were in big like 35 or 40 thousand dollars and they deserved it back then that was like you know a million dollars yeah half a million dollars i'd like to know who they were i know i would too that'd be great oh shit i never got any satisfaction from hitting a working man for a couple hundred bucks but he's causing it i didn't cause it to get worked up i'd eat four or five whites not egg whites amphetamine tablets oh boy he'd take a bunch of speed messed up to go beat these people up all jacked up on speed yep and start drinking black coffee oh my imagine this guy fucking ears twitching yeah

coming at you he said i could be in a blind rage by the time i got to where i was going i always hated four flushers and welchers. I pay the pay dependent on how far you wanted to go, how bad they wanted them and how much you had to hurt them. I was in it for money, clothes, lunch at the Derby or Lucia's dinner at the Zephyr room. Every day you'd pat your pocket. I've still got that habit. When I wake up in the morning, I put my pants on. First thing I do is pat my pocket to see if I've got any money in there.

It was a wonderful it was wonderful at the time. The high was fantastic when you woke up in the morning and hit your pocket and hey, you've got it. So, yeah, he's putting pants on with money already and with money already in him. That's it. Just I got I got something there. So he's hanging out. He's breaking legs. He's drinking.

He's carousing. Now he's fighting constantly because he's really has no fear he does it for a living uh he's a big tipper so he's popular with the waitresses popular with the bartenders and you know all that sort of shit so he's really making himself you know a main player on in the in the scene here uh yeah he's got all this money and he spends money he doesn doesn't care. He spends money like a gangster. That's what he wants to be. So he's still signed for baseball, mind you, while he's doing this.

So another way that this happened here when he was younger, Saturday afternoons, they'd go to the park, the Manchester playground. He'd hang out with his friends. Apparently, there was a supervisor at the park that remembered when he first met Ralph. He said, we were having problems with someone breaking into the cars of the ballplayers.

One day, I noticed this big guy sitting up in the stands with a couple of other crumb bums drinking and smoking. You weren't supposed to drink alcohol in a city park. Everyone was just giving these guys a wide berth. I figured the worst they could do was shoot me, so I went up to the big guy. I always take the big guy out first. So I tell him to put away the bottle, and I ask him if he knows anything about cars being broken into. I told him the ballplayers didn't have the time or money

to put up with that kind of crap. He just laughed. He said, though, later on, his friends left, and Blackie went to talk to this guy, and he said he was actually a nice guy at that point. And Blackie started talking about could he join one of the semi-pro teams that play at the park. And so that's how he got into it.

And that's how he ended up being seen by Pete Peterson and all that sort of shit. The manager of the park there said, quote, I found out he was an awfully nice kid. He came from a pretty good background, was intelligent, and had good manners. Oh, he was a renegade and all that. But when I was working with him, he was quiet and polite. After a few days, I told him he had the chance to make something of himself in baseball,

but he had to steer clear of those bums he was hanging around with. He didn't listen. We finished at the park and he'd walk out the gate and go right back to those guys. So with the Browns, he says, uh, at one point here,

this is how Pete Peterson found him. Quote, so they were getting their butts kicked and I started complaining. This was a minor league team. I had about six or seven beers by then and I was yelling that I could do better than that. The guy who was running the club was a Browns bird dog, which is an unpaid scout. He gets paid by the people he finds named Pete Peterson. He came up and told me, shut up or show him. I took my coat and tie off and went out there and walked six and struck out 11.

After that, I played for him some, and they got the big scouts out from St. Louis after me. That's awesome. That would never happen nowadays. Can you imagine? Take my coat and tie off and come down there and strike out 11 and get signed by a team. Sitting in the stands heckling. Get the fuck out of here. That is fucking fucking wild they gave a heckler a chance yeah that's what it was and he said quote he had on just jeans and a t-shirt he threw a couple and then cut loose and christ that

ball just exploded i said wait a fucking minute here and went back to put my chest protector mask and shin guards on that's the the catcher i went back to the bullpen and this guy is just laughing at me i tell him okay i'm ready for you now you big motherfucker go ahead and throw it he said man could he throw that ball i had no idea who the hell he was turns out he was blackie schwamm and he had just signed with the browns nobody knew who this guy was he just came out of nowhere he might as well have been from the moon so yeah he got a signing bonus of six hundred dollars he said i wasn't shopping around i didn't know that i could play well yeah he uh he said from the moon. So yeah, he got a signing bonus of $600. He said, I wasn't shopping around. I didn't know that I could play.

Well, he, he said, quote, I didn't know that this scout for Cleveland, Johnny Angel was really bird dogging me. He was a, he's a little unobtrusive guy who never sat in the first row or anything.

Never talked to the manager. He confirmed two days after I signed with the Browns that Cleveland was going to give me $37,500. So he blew it basically is what he's saying. I should have waited. I would have signed with a better team that signed me for a fortune. And in 1948, they won the World Series. Oh, damn it.

The Browns were awful. So he said it would have been a million percent different if I had waited and signed with Cleveland. They had a good ball team. No doubt it would have taken me a lot longer to break in, but I would have. I was a lousy gangster, but I was a great pitcher. Now, January 1947,

he's arrested. On suspicion of burglary, but that's only why they're only holding him on that, because he's a suspect in something much bigger than this. The burglary circumstances were unclear, and he was drunk enough uh that it you know ends up being that it was an honest mistake he was known to kind of enter the

wrong room sometimes and shit because he was so drunk anyway the charges were dropped quote due to his high state of inebriation because rather than you're so drunk you wandered into the wrong place that's extra bad they went well i mean he was drunk anybody that could happen anybody i pissed in my laundry hamper last night my wife is furious you know like that's how everybody was drunk so they're like i get it that's what i mean it was so that's wild but in actuality the arrest instead had something to do with the black dahlia murder oh shit uh yes it was the last that was like the last two weeks that would have been going on sometime between 10 p.m on friday january 10th when she was last seen and on 10 30 a.m uh wednesday january 15th when her body was discovered

this was elizabeth short we know the black dahlia thing here uh tied up tortured throat slit the whole deal uh sectioned sectioned. We're getting to that part. Yeah. Her body was carefully cut in half at the waist. Blood drained from both halves. All this type of shit. Died the hair bright red. Yeah.

Yeah. It's fucking insane. Wait. They dyed the hair bright red? Died the hair bright red. Yeah. And then scrubbed the corpse clean. And then carved a big smile in the face.

And then dumped it in there. Oh, boy. The police were under intense pressure to solve this, obviously, because it carved a big smile in the face dumped it in there so boy the police were under intense pressure to solve this obviously because it was a big deal one of the prime suspects in the case was a very tall six foot five thin strong man with dark hair it was blackie wearing a brown shirt wearing a brown shirt and throwing the ball super fucking hard they thought it was him at first he was one of the suspects wow they didn't say his name but that wasn't that was the description of blackie that just put that in rather than his name blackie was one of the five suspects for black dahlia turns out he was just shit-faced and wandered into the wrong place yeah and they thought it

was the guy who killed her just trying to like break into something so instead and the black dahlia murders and his name's blackie like they've got a lot of connections absolutely so they let him go when they figured out he was just a drunk but that he was one of the main suspects though which is pretty interesting they still unsolved it right nope still unsolved he said uh this is him uh baseball was another door to things i liked to the bright lights the girls are the same if you play in a d league or an a league just come out about 11 o'clock at night after you've showered and everything and take your pick of the town bells just take your pick it's easier to get a tab at a local restaurant or get a suit at the local shops oh i'll pay you when i can can we put it in the paper that you bought your suit here why certainly so he loved it that's the 90s

equivalent of when you're a star they let you just kiss yeah they let you do things to them well it's it's the equivalent of um can i can i have that for free and i'll fucking post it on my instagram because i'm an influencer this is that bullshit swear to god i would punch someone in the throat if they fucking asked me for anything because they're an influencer i go i'll influence the way you breathe motherfucker by punching in your adam's apple how'd you influence the way i pay my bills by buying this from me fucking ridiculous so uh anyway he uh he showed up for a game shit-faced drunk at one point uh he was so wasted that he was barred he was barred from entering the ballpark oh boy they wouldn't even let him in so uh that made him pissed off

so what he did was there was a flagpole out behind the center field fence. So he climbed his way up the flagpole, perched himself up there and hurled abuse at the players, umpires and fans from up there. He climbed a flagpole and heckled people and heckled everybody. And so finally, the police had to come drag him down and throw him in jail. He was suspended there you imagine oh my god pull at your job and just heckle your co-workers you pussy why are you watching these pussies play you fucking nice call ump you blind motherfucker picture him up there just screaming so he's in the texas league arizona texas League at one point playing for Globe,

and Billy Martin was on the team. Really? The famous Yankee manager, player, and shit starter extraordinaire. He played for Globe. Oh, yeah. He played there, too. So apparently there was a giant fight. A big Billy Martin caused a melee, which is what Billy Martin does. He did it at the Copacabana famously.

Well, he also did it on a field in Globe at one point. So bad that both teams and the fans got into it, and it was a monstrous brawl. The police had to come and shoot tear gas bombs in the infield to disperse everybody. In the 40s in Globe. In the 40s in Globe. And then they had to, once that all dispersed, they continued the game, which is fucking amazing. So that's when he came down to phoenix and you know did all that but he was in jail so he didn't get to be there black he said

he was pissed he didn't get involved in that god damn it because he was in it was in jail um so anyway he gets in a lot of fights there's one time he always tells stories of his fights even the ones he lost and one particular time he says that he was uh this he was telling this to the supervisor of the manchester playground there and the guy recalls it as saying quote ralph is in a bar drinking he gets pushed from behind and turns around and it's his little old guy so he turns back to the bar and then it happens again this time ralph turns around ready to throw a punch and all of a sudden he's on the floor so So he jumps up, and down he goes again. This happens a couple more times before Ralph just decides he better stay on the deck. Yeah.

Who is this old guy? He said the bartender's laughing, and finally says to Ralph, that's Fidel Labarra, the world champ. Right. He's a boxer. He's a world champion boxer. He'd been a flyweight champion in 1927. He was only 42 at this point, point too so he wasn't an old man

he's only five foot three though oh and you know fucking weighs 140 pounds but he's a professional boxer he knows where the button is so uh he did and he said dropping guys six foot five at the bar he said black he told that story wherever he could because he thought it was the funniest thing in the world he'd tell people quote, quote, I'm not so tough. I got knocked out by a little old man who weighed 120 pounds. So which that's I mean, he's not a little old man. He's 42 and he's the heavyweight. He was the flyweight champ of the world.

So maybe not quite so little. Anyway, so spring training, he's going to be playing in South Dakota. But spring training is in Arkansas for the Browns. But he's going to be in the minor league team in South Dakota he so uh yeah they they end up showing up there um they're going to pay him 250 a month a month but that's enough to get an apartment and he's got a four-month-old son named what yep junior rich yeah rich oh he calls him rich but his name is Ralph Jr. so they said you know that's enough money to get an apartment in South Dakota where you're going to live.

And he said, nope, left him in L.A. Don't need her here. That really puts a cramp in my style. I'm trying to get pussy. Yeah. He said he told Nellie might be moving around from team to team and would certainly be on the road much of the time and that they'd be better off staying put where she had family and friends nearby.

It'll be no fun for you watching me fuck all these people. Not all but he really didn't want to cramp the style and with that said let's get let's let blackie tell something here let's get in their old in their own old timey words quote baseball was just another of the things i liked and uh what'd he say here um oh shit i'm sorry this was um this is not a quote from him we're gonna have to do that another time old timey words coming up so i just screwed that up completely so in arkansas i was like wait that's not i had it on the wrong thing arkansas he says uh spring training was held at an old naval air training station on the edge of town the playing fields were laid out between abandoned runways and war veterans shared

the creaky old wooden barracks with ballplayers. It's weird. Brown's minor league pitching coach was known for working his players hard. Every day he'd run them through the very soft plowed dirt on the fields nearby

and some of them dropped from exhaustion. Holy shit. You're pitching. You don't need to be in that kind of shape to pitch. What are we doing here? It's wild. They said that Blackie was like the least experienced guy in training camp. He's played barely like some sandlot ball.

He doesn't remember. He doesn't remember the last time he played. He was the tallest, though, out of 300 people. They said he didn't even know how to put his uniform on. He didn't know what it was. He'd always played ball in jeans and T-shirts, so he didn't know how to put the uniform on he didn't know what it was he played he'd always played ball in jeans and t-shirts so he didn't know how to put the uniform on he was especially confused by the uh the stirrups the sanitaries they call them stirrups to go inside he didn't know how you did that like so he had to get a guy to help him like what the fuck is this thing how do i do that which is uh super weird

now they said that uh royce uh severs who was an outfielder there he said that you got a number when you arrived that this was your number like prison and every day after breakfast you'd go go over to the big board to find out where you were supposed to work out that day or if you'd been cut from the team or you know shit like that or if you're going to play in a scrimmage that night an exhibition he remembers uh as a lot of it it was just a pain in the ass he said blackie was known for being something of a cult of a cut up one time he looked up the chimney of a fireplace turned around grinning and told us all that he'd see us on the 25th you gotta go just a weird guy yeah just a weird son of a bitch uh he he just partied in Arkansas, basically. Around there, he found some honky tonks, found some shit like that he could hang out at, and he did.

And liquor stores and brothels and everything else. He was just a man about town right away. Now, he said that they wanted him to be, somebody tried to get him to throw like underhand, which is weird. And he didn't want to throw like sidearm. So he plays for globe miami he has a 415 era for them a 162 era for aberdeen which is pretty good here the aberdeen pheasants of the northern league yeah which is right it's uh it's south dakota oh so apparently this was chinese ring neck pheasant up there that's why everything's pheasant and uh that's like all there was there to eat even he said like no he said they had everything

you ate pickled pheasant like they pheasant in every fucking way yeah yeah it was it was rough um and also it was kind of it was boring up there for him he kind of had a hard time he had a hard time long bus trips up there through the fucking bumpy roads and it was cold up there and he just he just didn't like it basically what's the reward after that long bus ride more pheasant more pheasant yay so he just hated it man so september 47 um he had gotten he had gotten uh um he'd gotten suspended and they reinstate him at that point his coach said that he didn't care much for his alcoholic excesses, Blackies. He said he had a nasty habit of disappearing for all the days in between games in which he'd appeared. He was supposed to pitch every fourth game.

He'd just not show up. Take off for three days. Yeah. And the games he'd show up for, he'd show up scruffy and hungover. So the manager told him he's good enough to make it to the majors, but if he was that, but not if he was a bad influence on the team, they're not going to take him. They said if he doesn't

straighten up, they're going to get rid of him no matter how well he pitches. It doesn't matter. He ends up pitching down there. He's still a bad influence. They still keep him around. His minor league managers can't cut anybody. No, they don't have the fucking power to do that they don't even they don't know who's going to be on their team today they don't make the roster they just don't do shit told what to do no not if it's

a major league team's minor league team yeah they'll they move guys around and you just go what do i have today right i better put that out on the field so um yeah they were shit fields too and he just uh he hated it and at one point on one of these shit fields, you know, bumpy divots and shit like that. He was working out, took a wrong step and fucked up the ligaments in his ankle. Oh, no. So he was put on the disabled list and was out for two months. And that was after he came back from being suspended. So it was bad here.

So it was bad here. So he scouts had been comparing him to like big time pitchers in the major leagues because he can throw like a son of a bitch. He's really has an amazing fastball. He's natural overhand, sometimes a little three quartery. But, you know, it's pretty good here. So he said sometime during his stay in Aberdeen, he met a woman named Pat and fell for. Oh, yeah. They started an affair. Not secretive at all.

No. Just walk around with her. Yeah. They'd been, it's normal for ballplayers to have affairs back then. Sure. And even like when we did Mel Hall. Yeah. They all had different rooms for different ones.

That's how it worked. Yeah, it is. Even married women. That happens. But the problem was it was a small town and pat was in high school oh no what she's a senior and is just 16 years old and she had two older brothers that were very protective of her so and he's in his 20s he's in his 20s and he's a fucking you know this guy's not a reputable guy here. Bit of a loser. Yeah. So anyway, finally, the manager begged the team to the Browns to take this pitcher and bring him anywhere else but here.

That's when they ended. He ended up in Globe, Miami, playing there. So Blackie said, quote, The league was the burial ground for all the luscious who couldn't make it. I got on the train and went home after a while being with Miami Globe or whatever the fuck it was. So, yeah, this is ridiculous, man. Finally, by the way, there's a little anecdote here because he's going to make it to the majors eventually here. 1948, he gets in Yankee Stadium and he's going to pitch in Yankee Stadium. So they check.

The announcer says, what's the guy's first name? I don't know this guy. What's his first name? And so nobody knew. They didn't know his first name. So finally, they called down to the Browns bench and said, hey, what's the player who's coming in? What do I call him? And the manager said, quote, just call him Dizzy.

That's what we call him. So they announced him as Dizzy Schwamm pitching for the browns and he fucking hated it yeah so dizzy was what you call a dumb guy back then dizzy dean was like a crazy weirdo so uh he hated that shit he didn't like being called dizzy and he didn't like when he made fun of his ears anything else was fine and they announced him as that they announced him as that in yankee stadium yeah not just announced him as that over at the DMV. Yankee Stadium. So, crazy. His debut in the majors was July 25th, 1948. This has to be our latest ever going into sports here.

And he only pitches here for one year. His debut, he pitched 6.1 innings, 7 hits, 3 strikeouts, no walks and 2 earned runs. Promising. That's called a quality start right there stadium no that was versus washington they sucked so it was the browns and washington's two shit teams so 1948 the browns are 59 and 94 and they suck uh yeah they really really suck um the they he's not well loved on the team no we'll we'll put it that way. A guy named Chuck Stevens, who's the first baseman.

Uh, he said that Blackie was quote spooky. I don't know what that means. I guess I'd consider him a street kid. And I think everybody else on the club felt the same way. I don't think anybody warmed up to him. There was just something different that everybody backed off. This guy listened to a different drummer.

We didn't trust him. You're not going to volunteer for cancer. Jesus. Wow. Okay. He hates him. You're not going to volunteer for cancer. Jesus. Wow. Okay. He hates him. Well, he goes on. He created his own problems.

He said he wasn't ready. He shouldn't have been there. You have to get along, especially as a rookie. Instead, he seemed to go out of his way to stir up trouble, to break the rules. A lot of the older guys resented him. Frankly, he was a cancer on that team. Wow. He's spooky.

And then every sentence after that is like trying to lead you to how much of a piece of shit really is the last one nobody signs up for cancer nobody signs up for this idiot another guy named ned garver said quote he'd be out all night he wouldn't come in until we'd be up in the morning i don't know too many guys who abused themselves like he did uh fred sanford in taking a break from his junk business right he had a little something here that he was going to do he said the thing that bothered me the most about ralph was that he just couldn't relax and be one of the guys he acted like a tough guy but when players started to get on him and razz him the usual

stuff you hear as a player he couldn't handle it we'd call him things like ears or dumbo he had big ears and ball players being being ballplayers picked on that. And he's wearing a hat. And he's wearing a hat making it worse. Accentuate your ears. Put a hat on it. Put a big hat on it. He said, it's not very clever, but it's something that you just have to laugh off.

He didn't like being called blackie or dizzy either. So then he'd run up to general manager and owner Bill DeWitt's office and rat on us. Now, you don't do that. Now, you do that, and you're going to have problems with your teammates. He drove just about everyone crazy. So, yeah. Then Joe Schultz, who's the future manager of the Seattle Pilots in their only season of existence. He's all in that Ball Four book.

They talk about him. He says, quote, the Browns screwed him up. That happened a lot back then. Nowadays, a guy like that would be worth the mint. He would get the right kind of coaching and they'd ship him off to rehab, get him a personal head doctor or whatever it takes. Back then, they were just like, I don't know, show up. Not so drunk, please. That was it.

So, yeah, he said that when they were Jesus Christ, the Browns here, he says, a teammate says of his usually on the way to Burbank, I'd have to stop the car a couple of times for him to puke. A lovely way to spend the morning. I was just a glorified babysitter. It pissed me off because I was trying to establish myself with the Browns. And I sure as hell didn't need any for anyone to think I was some sort of pal of this guy. He says he was scary. One morning I picked him up and he's actually where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there. And I figure this is going to be okay.

So we're motoring along, and we stop at a traffic light, and there's a gas station just opening for business. Ralph says, you know, we could knock that place off in about 30 seconds and get back on the road and get to Burbank, and nobody would ever catch us. For Christ's sake, I'm thinking, is this guy kidding? I'm not so sure that he was. He was casing the joint. For this, i signed with the browns they're on their way to their professional baseball job you know we could

we could rob that place you just robbed that place yeah he said that yeah we could he said that he just lived a different kind of lifestyle what the fuck he remembers going into the locker room and standing next to ralph at a urinal He looked down and was horrified to see that Ralph was pissing blood. Oh, good Lord. He said, quote, that scared me to death. I was just a farm boy from Ohio. I had never seen anything like that before. That's just his lifestyle.

That right there is a good place to take your grandmother's advice and mind your own fucking business. Fucking bonkers. Don't look at that. Why is he looking at it, James? Just glance. I guess bright red in a white urine. Whoa, hey, what's that about here? Is that piss?

Is that blood? What is that? Yeah, he is goddamn terrible this year. He goes one and eight. It's not good. It's a bad year for the Browns here. Also, he hits 300, though, so that's something. He's a good hitter.

That's awesome. He's a really good hitter. A lot of times pitchers were good hitters once in a while back then but he was a damn fine hitter and the major in the minors one time was shortstop got hurt and he filled in a shortstop he's like i'll try it i'll do it i can hit so uh cleveland indians win the world series in 1948 like we said right um that he could have been on 1949 here uh comes along january 1949 okay that season's over basically oh boy um this is interesting he uh uh picture a car pulling up to a motel next to a gas station on the corner of figueroa and the imperial highway

okay such a busy place now now back then quote it was no more than a dozen tiny run-down wood shack rooms strung along a driveway with a small two-room office just three or four feet back from the curb okay so it's like a little hotel bungalow type thing so it didn't look like anybody important or big would stay there or anybody with any money uh but blackie ends up trying to rob the place basically it's a guy named edwin cohen he's the desk clerk blackie pulled out a luger and pointed at this guy and told him to empty out the cash drawer and hand it over to him uh you know there and also throw your watch in there while you're at it so the guy uh they ended up pocketing nine dollars from the cash drawer.

So there's a small bedroom behind the office. Blackie ends up marching this Cohen into it, telling him to lie face down on the bed. He told his partner to watch the clerk and not let him get up. So this guy, his partner, put his neck, his foot on the guy on Cohen's neck. And Blackie searched the rest of the room he found 30 and a woman's ring in the bedside drawer and um yeah so one of the two guys we don't find out who kicked this edwin cohen in the head before they got out of there so uh they ended up running out of gas a few miles away okay um yeah they ended up they tried to take a street car but people were

knew that he did this shit. He his partner ended up getting home very late and his wife was angry at him. So he gave her nine dollars and told her that he'd been setting up pins in a bowling alley all night for nine dollars and she didn't believe him. Ralph sold the watch and ring to a neighbor and the police placed traced Blackie through the ring and arrested him on September 15th for this of the year. Later on, they search his apartment. They found the gun. They found his fucking partner there. They were charged with not only that one, also the El Capitan Hotel a few days before and a liquor store on Central Avenue.

They'd also robbed just a few dollars from each, by the way. Yeah, El Capitan. Is that where the studio is on Hollywood Boulevard now? I think probably, yeah. Jimmy Kimmel Studio. Yeah, yeah. I think over by there. Yeah, they robbed that.

Got a few dollars out of it. Holy shit. At gunpoint. So they set bail at $2,500. The district attorney wanted $5,000, but they ended up getting $2,500, which was more money than they could scrape together, so he sat in jail for a week. And his

wife thought that maybe sitting in jail for a week would be good for him. He could dry out for a week. If he sobered up, yeah, but he insisted that she get him out. So she pawned some belongings and some of Blackie's old neighborhood baseball buddies chipped in and they raised $250 for the bail bondsman. And that's how that worked.

Yeah. He said, quote, I was getting so paranoid by then I do anything for a dollar. I wasn't even looking for work. Not honest work. He's looking for whatever. So he got another gun because he's going to need that. And he decides, I mean i mean fuck i'm almost you know i got a major league career going on here things are going well i mean i'm married i got a

kid named after me obviously i'm an up-and-comer yeah i'm 20 he's like 22 years old unbelievable he seems like he's 50 in the story right he's 22 he's been in and out of jail for the last five years yeah every nfl player we've talked about they're not even in the nfl yet at this point they're still in college this guy and he says you know what i need to do i'm gonna get another gun and i'm gonna go and i'm sure there's motels gas stations liquor stores private card games he goes on a robbery robbery spree bottom of the rung stop everything yeah crackhead shit basically nine dollars at a time he took all the jobs he could get from cohen and the sika brothers as well um he just fucking did havoc just anything he can he's breaking legs he's sticking up liquor stores he's crazy and he

doesn't have a car so most of the crimes he's committed are like new jack when he fucking took his bike to rob that they're just shit around his. He's the only six foot five guy with big goofy ears in the whole goddamn neighborhood. So it's not hard to find him. Living like DMX. Yeah. Well, while this is going on, he played baseball that year. He did rob that shit. They didn't arrest him until September.

Unbelievable. In the summer, he played baseball. He played with the Little Rock Travelers of the Tigers organization in AA. On that team, by the way, was a guy named Duke Doolittle. Just a wild name. He played for 15 years and never made it past AA. Duked it?

Yeah, Duke Doolittle. Oh, the poor bastard. That's just weird, guys. He did little. Do very little. He's cut but signed by the Sherbrooke Athletics of the Independent League.

September of 1949, like we said, is when he's arrested for the motel robbery and is released on bond so october 12th 1949 he's hanging out with ted gardner yeah who's his buddy and a piece of shit and yeah he's a piece of shit he's an underground piece of shit he's hanging out with him um or they're not hanging out but his buddy is hanging out at a at like a gambling house basically like a you know open to the public right cushy swanky gambling house not some basement got it so uh there's a guy named dr donald buge okay he's a doctor and uh he takes wednesdays off usually he's got a general practice

in long beach and uh yeah him and his wife violet ons would go, you know, they'd go out to the races or they go to a card club or they'd go out to dinner and get some drinks. They're not like they don't bet thousands of dollars, but they like putting a couple bucks down. Sure. You know, just fun for them. Well, through. And there's a doctor.

He can afford it. So who cares? He's a 44 year old guy known as a very friendly guy. Happy guy. Everybody likes Dr. Buge. Now, he has a very good practice, too. And he likes to he tips.

Well, he's known as a big tipper. He's known as a guy who's got money and, you know, isn't afraid to spread it around. So, yeah, he'd been married to his wife for 11 years. They had no children. And he graduated from Northwestern University in 1929. And then he ended up being in the service, doing the Naval Medical Corps. Living a legit dream. Oh, yeah.

He was the lieutenant commander there. Lieutenant commander of the Naval Medical Corps. He did really well. Once he got out, he's got a nice thriving practice. And, you know, hanging out with his wife. Living in Long Beach. He was living a great life. Just a great life.

So they went to the races that day they had a good day at the races they won some money uh they won about they came out about 40 bucks ahead awesome which back then's a good good take that's you can go out and hang out all night on that so uh they're making their way home to long beach when they passed the normandy card club and violets felt like playing some poker okay we're up 40 bucks who cares let's go you know whatever so he said yeah sounds like good sounds a good time he didn't want to play cards but he Violet felt like playing some poker. Like, hey, we're up 40 bucks. Who cares? Let's go, you know, whatever. So he said, yeah, sounds like good. Sounds like a good time. He didn't want to play cards, but he felt like going in there.

And he was like, man, we'll all hang out, have some cocktails. It's a swanky little environment. Maybe we'll see some movie stars. Why not? So, yeah, and it's a poker palace, they call it. So anyway, they're there. Ted and Joyce Gardner are also there. Joyce is Ted's wife.

She's 24. She's a redhead considered very hot. And all of his friends, Ted's friends, tell Ted that he should keep an eye on her because she looks at every guy in the place and even the showgirls. So she wants to fuck everybody. I'd watch out for her. So they have kids. Anyway, they decided to stop for a drink and in the place when they saw Dr. Buge walk in.

OK, now they had known each other somehow, maybe through card places or something. But they started talking, Ted and the doctor. And they and, you know And that sort of shit. So Ted noticed that the doctor had been drinking. And basically, the doctor liked to gamble. And he knows he had money on him and that sort of thing. Ted's wife, Joyce, said about the doctor, he was such a pleasant man, laughing and buying drinks. He seemed so happy.

So after a couple drinks, ted asked the doctor to come along with them to meet a friend yeah come meet a friend of mine um so he says sure the doctor goes along with him uh he goes and tells his wife i'll be back soon he said quote i just met a nice young married couple and i'm gonna go have a drink with them talking to them so she said great she's playing cards so she doesn't give a shit what he does i'm gambling go away honey fuck you so just lost it's all because of you fucking leave she was up eight bucks and didn't want to leave her game literally eight bucks can't blame her so uh basically ted and joyce got in their car and they waited the doctor got into the front seat uh it was only a 10 minute drive uh to where they went to another place to meet ralph this is where

they meet blackie okay Four of them ordered drinks while the doctor talked with the wife, Joyce, and either Ted or Blackie took, Ted took Blackie aside, I'm sorry, to tell him that the doctor had money. And Blackie asked if Ted thought that, does he really think he's got money? And he goes, yeah, he's definitely got money.

He's a fucking mark. We should stick him up or, you know, we could like tell him that he owes debt to a bookie or something and jack him up that way but we can get some money out of this guy so anyway that's what they're that's the plan so they have another drink they watch a little bit of tv 1949 tv and then blackie and ted suggested they go somewhere else or you know something like that so what ends up happening is they get in the car blackie gets into the back seat of ted's car and he lays down he's very drunk so you know he's laying down here joyce is in the middle the three of them are in the front seat blackie's laying down in the back

he's six five he's six five so uh ted stops the car under a large oak tree at the corner of a vacant lot at 120 fourth street and menlo avenue Avenue. This was apparently like a make-out point. This was like where Kenickie fingered Rizzo up there in the hill, you know, where they park and shit. That's what this was. So there's nothing out there, really, at this point, basically. It's just there's oil fields in the distance that have been kind of taken away, and now they're going to build houses there.

So developers are starting that thing. So Blackie pops his head up from the backseat and told Ted to pull over. He told the doctor to get out of the car and he refused the doctor. So Blackie got out, opened the front passenger door and dragged him out of the car. It's a lot bigger than the doctor and 20 years younger than him. So at this point, Ralph, Ted joyce all have about the same story up till that point but then later things start to uh you know unravel here this is blackie's version of it he says ted's wife got all the trouble started this doctor was fooling around with her

in the front seat i was laying down in the back seat drunk and ted's telling him hey man knock that shit off so i tell him stop the car i tell the doctor get out and i pull him out and shoved him up against a tree and knocked him down joyce ran down the street screaming and i ran after her when i came back i got her in the car the doctor was laying face up and i remember clearly that when i hit him he fell down spread eagled flat on his face i remember that clearly but when i came back with Joyce, he was laying face up, all spread out with his pockets inside out and his coat pulled open.

Ted rolled him and had done a number on him, either kicking him or punching him. His face was a mess. I didn't think anything about it except to get out of there. So that's his story. Later, when he talks to the author, he has a few different versions of it.

Joyce said said completely different that we were having fun and uh he said she uh blackie and the doctor started fighting and ted ted said that he cracked the doctor a couple of times to help out the doctor went down and quote blackie put the boots to him that's what he says so um she says that's what she says that's what ted says after that it was her and then Ted also. According to Ted, Blackie then said, let's get out of here. And Ted said, should we turn the lights off so the doctor doesn't see the license plate number? And Blackie said, quote, I don't think he will.

I gave him some good ones. So I would say he was given some good ones because his body was found there the next morning. He died. Wow. Yeah, the guy died he was reported missing shortly after that and uh people saw him lying on the side of the road he was just on the side of the road hands and shoes hands and shoes man that's it so he uh was beaten um it's fucking awful so the autopsy reveals that he died as a result of aspirated hemorrhage blood from his shattered jaw and nose clogged his windpipe and he drowned in it basically

in his sleep so they had a funeral for him and everything like that he's got no kids but stepdaughter and shit like that and lots of family so Miss Joyce Gardner here she basically things get tracked down through the cops and who knows who the fuck they bribed or beat to get stories out of them back then.

But a mailman recognized the description of them. And because Joyce has bright red hair, it's very it stands out. So the postman recognized the description of Ted and Joyce and called the police and said that might be them in this house over here on my route so basically the police showed up they denied it uh the couple the gardeners denied it but the police noticed that his knuckles were all scraped up yeah and he looked like he'd just been in a fight so the detectives told him to uh you know we're going to talk to you a little more and then they search in there and and they hadn't washed their clothes yet. And they found a shirt with blood all over it. That turned out to be the doctor's. And they found the doctor's wallet in a dumpster out back.

Hard to argue with these facts. Yeah. So they took her into custody. They take him into custody. They arrest Ted. Blackie's still on the run, though. Yeah. The whole thing, though, turns that uh they were just robbing

him there was no if there was a pass that wasn't why they killed him they just wanted to rob him and take his money they thought he had money and they accidentally murdered him they just beat him too hard and he died that's how it worked here what the fuck um that's it so they they they went in there they found him they found the wallet um they end up uh both the gardeners confess to the whole thing and then they got to find blackie here um joyce was really the one who cracked it joyce gave it up first well yeah and then they went to ted with all the facts and he was like okay fine fine um so a witness who saw the whole thing said that uh uh basically that blackie and the doctor started fighting and he then ted hit the

guy and that's how it works that's what ted told this guy so um they get arrested blackie and ted and they're in their cells in different jails and they're blaming each other obviously ralph says here blackie says quote we were both pretty drunk and we got the idea of robbing him the doctor who i thought was an insurance man didn't resist and ted slugged him with his fists first and the doctor fell to the ground and then he said he never even hit him and that's what he said to the press afterwards i didn't even hit him then 40 years later he said he beat the shit out of him and then he has a lot of different different stories for this then he says later on quote i never meant to kill the guy i never even meant to rob him i was

drunken out of work and when blackie suggested we clip him for his purse it sounded like a pretty good idea yeah um so teddy gardner here he's uh he's going to jail they he said that they were very high you know how much money they got from him uh 40 bucks 53 that's not enough. $25 for one and $28 for the other. It's ugly. $28. Well, actually, Blackie got $28 in cash. Teddy got $25 and the wallet, which they assumed was worth $3.

That's the way they did it. And he threw it away anyway. And he threw it in the fucking dumpster, which was, he could have thrown it in one knot behind his house, maybe. Hey, if you're going to dispose of shit to cover up a murder, don't do it around your house. Especially not in your dumpster. Stupid, yeah. hey if you're gonna dispose of shit to cover up a murder don't do it around your house especially not in your dumpster stupid yeah go to an apartment complex across the city and throw it out where no one ever behind your house find a strip mall plausible fucking deniability jesus christ my god so um yeah they they they basically go back and forth blaming each other more like

teddy story is that it was mostly blackie blackie story is it's mostly teddy so that's kind of how they they did it now ted says that quote blackie and the doctor started fighting and he said that when they left the doctor was alive they did not kill him everybody says doctor was alive and breathing when we left so we figured he'd had enough and we left and he'd be fine but obviously he's not right um for this uh they're arrested for first degree murder and they could get the gas chamber for this wow we could get our first gas chambered crime and sports person here um that's fucking crazy the gas chamber it is crazy but not as crazy as the sales jimmy the sales head on down to if you happen to be around in 1949 head on down to c.e williams at sixth and franklin and you can we give eagle stamps

i don't know what that is um let's see there's a whole hand holding up eagle stamps our christmas present for our customers three instead of the usual one triple savings on any purchase in our store holy shit like coupons i guess men's slipper specials four dollars and 45 cents oh oh boy uh women's princess comfort special some shoe five bucks not bad amazon prices here's one if you're thinking of a television christmas remember even santa claus in months. That's the name of the store. Or you can get 1949 televisions. Let's see this. The 154 square inch model.

What is it? It's like 15 by 4. A hundred and what the fuck is that? I don't fucking know. 12 by 12 is 144? I don't know what the hell it is. It's 94 square. But that one is, let's's see here i have to do the

inflation calculator that tv is 299 dollars and 50 cents in 1949 that's ridiculous i have to look up what that is that is 3 270 nowadays that is so expensive for a tiny little TV. You can get a 63-square-inch TV even, too. That's only $169. What is that? I don't know. That's smaller than 9x9. It's so...

Back then, it was just that little thing in the middle. And this was the 40s. Right. People didn't have... This was a big deal. Only wealthy people had TVs. TVs were in bars back then. 49. Very few people had them in their TVs were in like bars back then, 49,

very few people had them in their homes and the screen rolled and the screen rolled. And there was only a couple of like cities where that had shows. Right. If you lived in a rural area, you just couldn't get anything. So, um,

this was, they say one knob picture control, UHF adaptable months, tuner built in all channel antenna. I savor black picture tube. It's a black and white TV. That's what it is. Gross.

October 15th, 1949. Now, that's, it was October 12th was when that happened. By the 15th, he's arrested and going away for murder. Three days. The sports section has an article called Player Suspended for breaking training or murder.

Right. You can pick. It says, Ralph Schwamm, a right-handed pitcher, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He spent most of his time in spring training, medical treatment. After winning two games, he again broke spring training and was suspended. He's been placed on the voluntarily retired list. They don't mention he's been arrested for murder. Right.

Not even a mention of it so at his trial in december 1949 which is fucking interesting uh they had the owner of the nightclub who testified he saw blackie and gardner with the doctor on that fatal evening uh he said that uh gardner introduced him to the doctor a short time before that uh miss gardner obviously joyce testifies and she testifies quote after a couple drinks we all got into the car and drove out to the 124th street and menlo suddenly blackie grabbed the doctor's arm and pulled him out of the car i begged ted not to do anything i said ted darling please i begged ted not to do anything and he said ah get away from me, you stupid broad. Right.

Gave me the back of his hand. He had to get out of the car and walk all the way around. You know what I mean? Son of a bitch. My God. She says, quote, then I got hysterical and jumped out of the car, which was just the term you used if a woman was upset back. She's hysterical.

Someone slap that lady. She raised her voice. She needs someone backhander. Help that woman with the back of your hand, please. Either slap her or hand her a dildo. Fuck, one of the two. I really don't know what happened, she says. So other people know what happened.

And the Terry, or Terry, Teddy testifies against him as well and says, you know, it was all him. He put the boots to him and all that kind of shit. Witness Joyce also says that she overheard Blackie asking Ted if the doctor had any money and heard Ted say, I don't know, but we'll find out. So that was like a planning of a robbery, which is bad. That's a bad last. That's the last good. It's the last thing I said before my hand blew up. I don't know, but I'll find out. I literally said that.

My sister said, what is it? I don't know, but I'll find out. And then my hand blew up. And then you found out, really? It's not a good thing to say. I don't know, but I'll let the doctor tell me later when I'm fucking cauterizing my goddamn fucking open wound. Never say that phrase. It's always bad.

It is. So she says that, quote, Schwamm said, stop here. This is good enough. And then Teddy says later on when he testifies, my wife asked me why I was stopping, but I didn't answer. The doctor said, what's this? And Blackie opened the door and shoved the doctor out and followed him out of the car. So, yeah, the thing with the wife didn't. That's only in Blackie's statement to the press after he gets arrested.

It never fucking comes up again. As a guy that's riding in a car with two dudes you barely know and a chick. Are you going to really try to finger? That's what I mean. One of the guy's wives. That's crazy. Especially if they're like kind of like shady characters. And this guy's six five and he's behind me.

And you're a 44 year old doctor. Right. Like, I don't care how drunk you are. Put my finger on this woman? No. Yeah. So Teddy admits, he says, when they got out of the car, they appeared to be fighting. So I got out and struck the doctor twice to help Blackie.

So he says, that's all. I wasn't trying to kill him. I was just trying to help him in the middle of this fight. And then, like we said, wife ran down the street. Joyce runs around fucking screaming and going. Blackie testifies. He says, never hit that guy. I never kicked him.

I never touched him except to roll his body over and take his wallet. Then Ted and I divided the money. I was drunk. I didn't know what it was all about. Ted said to me, this guy is an insurance man, so he's got lots of money on him. Let's get him. I said, okay, and we did. said to me this guy is an insurance man so he's got lots of money on him so let's get him i said okay and we did gardner hit him five or six times but i never got out of the car till it was all

over so yeah no um he says that uh when i saw the doctor lying on the ground groaning all that went through my mind was to take his wallet and go get more drinks so that's what he said i was so drunk i don't even know what was going on um tested highly intoxicated very little memory of what happened wow alcohol was the meth of its day i had no idea i just needed another fix i needed something and i just i was pushing toward it but that was an excuse you can't use that as an excuse no that'll be like i said an extra right oh and you did it for meth well that's an extra thing this can't even handle your booze? Now it's back then. They're like, you know, it could happen to anybody.

Yeah. I mean, I've been that fucking hammered. So, man, Blackie also said that Gardner couldn't have inflicted this beating suffered by the doctor and added that somebody else must have gotten to him after we left. So he says we left him alive. He was fine. Right. We drove away. Then someone else saw a man lying on the side of the road says, we left him alive. He was fine. Right. We drove away.

Then someone else saw a man lying on the side of the road, stopped and finished him off. Stopped and said, I'm going to kick this. Hey, there's a guy to kick. Let's kick this guy. He looks unconscious. Let's kick him a whole bunch maybe. What do you think? Some random guy that just finishes people off.

He just shows up and he's like, yes. And he gets back in his car and drives away. He's got like eight fatalities in his life. He just shows up and he's like, yes. And he gets back in his car and drives away. He's got like eight fatalities in his life. He just drives around. Finish him. That's his job. He knows when someone's in their fucking dying breath. The guy with his pockets out.

Sucks the soul out of him. Jackets open. Raidens out there just eating people alive. That's it. Alive. Fucking taking their souls down yeah scorpions out there just yanking skulls off of people it's it's fucking interesting so that's his story and he's sticking to it right so december 21st 1949 is the verdict the jury

deliberates for an hour and a half and they come back with a guilty verdict of murder in the first degree and that is also ted is also going to get be guilty of murder he pleads guilty to murder and then testifies against blackie oh that's shitty that's how that were joyce released nothing she was hysterical yeah she's hysterical back then you could do you could be a woman in the middle of a murder and they would just be like, well, I mean, she's abroad. What's she supposed to do? You weren't even getting it. Nowadays, she's life in prison right with them.

Accomplice to the whole thing. She's right there with them. What would they do to a man? They would imagine what they would have done to her. Oh, forget about it. Jesus. I'll tell you what. They would have lifted her shirt up and showed her bra to the public.

That's what would have happened. Bad thing, see? Show everybody her girdle. We'd have told everybody things about her, ruin her reputation. That would have showed her. Said she really, you should have seen her back when she was younger. Right. Oh, and the boys came home from the service, I tell you.

That was the original revenge porn. Just saying she did shit. Yeah, she's a, she sucked my dick. My boyfriend's back. Right. That song is. The original revenge porn. Well, kind of.

That song, I believe that song is, okay, I fucked this guy. Right. Probably not cool. Right. My boyfriend's going to be super pissed. So, he said I fucked him, but I didn't. He's spreading rumors about me. He's going to kick your fucking ass for spreading rumors about me.

I think this guy's going to get home. He's like, where is this son of a bitch? She was fucking him. I'm sure of it. And that's fine, but admit it. Don't get this guy's ass kicked. Don't get his feet up. Yeah.

Get his tires slit and his face punched. That's what it was. Because you gave him some? What the fuck? That was in the 1960s. She couldn't admit in the song that yeah i sucked a dick and it was fine but you know dude got mad at me for it so so that happens when you leave town yeah all those songs were either i want to get laid or that girl's a whore that's every song every song look at like dion's whole catalog run around sue she's a whore let me warn you about this skank

in case you ever come across her it's what the fucking song is or any song that's about a girl was about some girl that somebody got to fuck and then you want to fuck everybody else yeah or that they want to fuck real bad like and she wants to fuck somebody else and she wants to obviously fuck somebody else but not now because i can dance yeah i got a guitar that's the other third of the songs from the 50s and 60s i get a guitar and i get to fuck everybody else now here's the way this works the jury here back then they can either uh give no recommendation in sentencing just be guilty or not guilty or they can somebody else they can give a recommendation of life not guilty or they can somebody else they can give a recommendation of life imprisonment or they can have no recommendation which would leave him

open for the judge sentencing him to the gas chamber got it so if they want to kill somebody that's no recommendation if they don't they give a recommendation of life imprisonment and that way if they give a recommendation of life then the judge is not allowed to sentence him to the gas chamber that's the way the law was so christmas eve december 24th 1949 uh he is sentenced and uh they dismiss a robbery charge against them uh because he's convicted of that the judge here so boy let's see here he gives him you sir may fuck off life sentence times two. Oh, boy. Because it's for the robbery and the murder of the robbery while the murder happened. The aggravator.

The aggravator. And five years to life also on one to run concurrently with another sentence of five years to life, which he receives from the robbery conviction. So two life sentences basically is what he ends up with the robbery conviction. So two life sentences basically is what he ends up with. Holy shit. Yeah. He's going to Alcatraz. Well, we'll talk about that.

He's going to San Quentin first. Alcatraz wants him bad. Really? For their team. Hilarious. They want him for their baseball team. Prisons are recruiting him. Oh my God.

That's how fucking good he is when he goes to prison. So he doesn't know what the fuck to do here. He's obviously shit out of luck fucked yeah sitting there yeah fuck you gotta never gonna no yeah i mean they're taking him out he's goes out to the to go to the jail right taking him from the courthouse since that last breath of fresh air and he's like oh this sucks yeah this sucks and he's upset and

then he hears some dogs barking he's like like, what's that? I love dogs. He turns around. It's Bobby Colorado, animal trainer from Fredericksburg, Texas. And he says, how is you come to arrive here? What the fuck is wrong with you? You're throwing a fucking ball all over the place. Look at me. I'm not an athlete.

I'm going to tell you right now. I'm good with these dogs. You know, I've got some business acumen, if you know what I'm talking about, but I don't use that no more. But the problem is, what I could never do is throw a fucking ball. You know what I would do to throw a fucking ball? Like you throw it. What are you doing?

I could have used you. Oh, you're knocking guys. I could have either thrown a ball or back in another life, you might have been friends. You know what I'm talking about? I might have been able to use you. But for now you're fucking up you need to get yourself

a nice fucking dog stay home at night you pet its fucking head it feels good like a velvet on top it's beautiful you pet the dog you don't go out

and fucking kill doctors call the ball for the dog get the fuck out of here get in the backyard you throw it all the way across they bring it back it's the greatest fucking feeling ever

they never hit a home run off you you're gonna love it poof in a cloud of dog shit all right and marinara sauce he's gone and black he's very confused here so um yeah apparently leaving the uh leaving the place the uh nell somebody said merry christmas to her his wife had leaving court and. And she said, gosh, is that the thing to say at a time like this? And then she said, well, in spite of things like this, we have to go on living, you know. So that was that. That's a woman that was fed up.

She was fed up anyway. Well, I'm done. Now, Gardner, they talk to him, and he just says, quote, I only hope my wife will wait for me. I have news for you, bud. She doesn't wait for him and uh neither does nell because nell ends up remarrying pretty quickly as well they get a divorce in jail and uh that's that so he ends up in prison in prison he goes to san quentin where he plays baseball yeah and prison teams and prison athletics were a big deal back then we're gonna do a bonus episode one of these days on just about prison teams and prison athletics were a big deal back then. We're going to do a bonus episode one of these days on prison teams and prison sports and shit like that.

That'll be fun. It'll be fucking crazy. So maybe we'll do that next bonus episode. I want to know what all of them did. So do I. So San Quentin, October 17th, 1951, he throws a no-hitter at San Quentin. Which, I mean...

These are dudes that... They're career criminals. Yeah, they're not ballplayers. I mean, they still played ball, but not at a fucking level like Joe DiMaggio serving a life sentence. Yeah, he he apparently wrote the Browns and said, quote, would you please send me my unconditional unconditional release as it looks like I shall be away from baseball for some time. And the Browns did. They didn't have to say please. We were already in the middle of it. They placed him on the voluntarily retired list

and that was that. He does amazingly in prison which is great. They said that he's a far better pitcher in prison than he was in the big leagues. And not just he's doing better like he has more control and shit like that. Yeah's older okay it never takes people a few years to get control of a super crazy fastball uh quote he's picked up a good change of pace a good change

up and he isn't half as wild as he used to be so he's just got more time to work it and he does not out drinking every night he's actually working on it coming up the next day working on it more right rather than getting shit-faced and waking up and stumbling to the park uh he also pitches for repressa and tay uh tay a chappy prisons i don't know i've never heard of those before they might not be around anymore in october of 55 pitching for repressa his stats at that point in the middle of the season for them was 3 and 0 with a 1.03 era 40 strikeouts eight walks leads the league in everything and has a 400 batting average that's great he's just wrecking shit that year in 55 he's 11 and 0 with a 0.75 era 232 strikeouts and 26

walks he would have so many millions of dollars holy shit in 143 innings so he's averaging almost two strikeouts an inning and averaging basically 10 strikeouts to every walk which is obscene and unheard of it's awesome that's fucking nuts he's also getting in a shitload of trouble because he's a moron uh he starts making you know he starts drinking homebrew that he made he's gambling yeah he's in jail, too. He hustles like crazy. He hustles. He's looking for something. He gets transferred out of his office clerk job.

And he says, quote, I worked in the ice house, and next door was the butcher shop. We kept food for the officers and the mess, and I was stealing meat from the butcher shop and cutting it up. I had made a knife to cut my meat with. It was never inside the grounds. It was hidden way up in the louvers you had to climb up on a compressor to get it somebody snitched me off so he gets in trouble for having a knife and all the other people they talked to were like he's full of shit that was a fucking he had a he used to hustle people all the time and they'd want to fuck him up so he needed to arm himself to keep people from stabbing him that That's how it worked.

He wasn't cutting his knee. I'm sure that was a secondary thing, but it's also to keep from getting stabbed, getting ventilated by somebody. So 1956, he had a 1.08 earn-run average, hit over 400. 1957, he leads the prison league in RBI and ERA. So doing pretty well. 1959, he sends a letter to Baseball Digest. And it's to a public, I want to be in baseball again. Oh, boy.

And he says, it's titled, I serve my time. Now I want to pitch again. Oh, no, you haven't. Yeah. More than he's because he's trying to get parole over here, here too because he's up for parole after like 10 years or nine years so he says quote i to begin with i was convicted of first degree murder in december 1949 in los angeles and sentenced to life in prison i've now served eight years nine months and three weeks and will be eligible for parole in january 1959 i've been a member of special counseling

groups for the past 18 months and i honestly feel like i have a fine insight into my problem fine insight baseball wise i played for eight seasons in the institution san quentin fulsome and now teia chippy i have been named the most valuable player in six different leagues and have been independent armed forces and have beaten independent armed forces teams made up from many ball players from the professional ranks. I am now 32 years of age as of last August, and I know I've lost something off my fastball, but I feel like I'm a much better pitcher now than I was in the majors in

1948. Two years ago at Folsom, I pitched a no hitter against a team managed by Woody held striking him out three times. My overall pitching record for the last eight seasons is 131 wins, 35 losses, 240 walks, 1,565 strikeouts, and a 180 earned run average. Pretty goddamn good. Yeah, but he's pitching against cons. Yeah, he said during the eight seasons, I played almost a third of the games at shortstop and have led three different leagues in hitting. So one of the days he wasn't pitching, he was playing shortstop that he would allow no man on parole to play

organized ball. However, I kept writing him, and after his decision on the Ed Bushi case, he told me that if I had legitimate offers from professional clubs, he would take my reentry under further consideration. I'm sure now he will rule in my favor. I was declared a free agent in June 1955. In 1957 and 1958, at the time of my appearance before the parole board the Sacramento Club would have

taken me once I will have no trouble hooking up with a team when the time comes to get my parole I want to thank all my friends on the outside who never gave up their faith or lost confidence in me so his parole is denied again in 1958 but a psychiatric evaluation on December 18th

1958 made a strong case for his release and the report here uh stated examination revealed a rather gaunt friendly man with a dynamic type of personality and he is let out on january 6th 1960 so he didn't even 11 years and didn't even do 11 years first degree murder first degree, like in the commission of a robbery. Holy shit. That is fucking wild. Well done, California. He said when he left, the only freeway in LA was Pasadena.

When he came back, there was the harbor and the Hollywood, and they're building others. He said his dad told him to come over and go to dinner, and he said it took him, he couldn't find it, because he didn't know the new roads. He said, here's what you do. You take Harbor to the Hollywood. When you get down to the interchange, be careful because you get over to the Hollywood side. Jesus Christ, I drove around like crazy. I should have parked and walked.

I should have called the cops and asked them to drive me over there. But I finally saw his off ramp. So, yeah, he says that he sent his first week out, catching up with his family. His wife remarried, and her new husband formally adopted his son as he was in prison. Jesus Christ. But he said they were still in touch and he would take his son places and do things and shit like that. He said that I was happy for it. Blackie says he was a fine man and I didn't want to cause any problems.

OK, it's like I don't want to deal with that anyway. I don't have to pay for him. Right. OK, fuck your't want to deal with that anyway. I don't have to pay for them, right? Right. Okay, fuck it. Is there a problem? Great. Deal.

1960s plays with the Sacramento Stars, in Sacramento, obviously. Plays up there a little bit. He misses his parole officer meeting, shows up a day late to parole, which isn't okay. His new parole officer saying sent a teletype saying he violated his parole they found him getting into his car in front of

his girlfriend's house he said he was planning on driving back to sacramento to see his parole officer but he hadn't asked permission to visit la because he'd he'd been afraid they'd refuse him to go so he ended up in la county jail for. Back in there, parolees need permission to leave where they are, the area. While he sat in jail here, you know, this was all happening. They spoke with baseball people. And they all said that if Blackie didn't keep pitching, it would destroy his chances for a pro comeback. So the L.A. parole officer was also concerned about all this sort of thing. So the only thing he was worried about, though,

is that he'd been hanging out with several ex-convict and old gangster buddies. They were like, if we let you out, you're not going to do that, right? And they said, by the way, you're hanging out with your girlfriend. Irene is a married woman, too. So you're doing all sorts of shit that's not okay. Her husband was away in the military. Oh, my God. So, yeah, after three weeks in the L.A. County lockup,

they brought him back to sacramento he failed to get any of the jobs his parole officer had uh told him that he was going to start he didn't get any of them uh he ended up working as a cleanup man and a janitor at a bar which also had a semi-pro baseball team so that was that so he ended up playing there uh he kept moving around and failing to get permission to move from his parole officer um finally he was tracked down uh while he was shacking up with his current girlfriend a woman named nancy black who had a 17 year old daughter also living with them there yeah it's a fucking mess he said i got out of prison the thing you're supposed to get out of

it uh that's not that you're not going back but i retained my temper for years i had a hair trigger temper i didn't get into any legal trouble up there but there were those kinds of things where you walk into a beer joint and you have a beer the guy comes in sits next to you and has a beer and sets down his can a little too loud for you or something so whack what literally never happened a little too loud for you so you hit him or you look down the bar and a couple guys are talking and one of them happens to look at you. So you go down there and say, you have something you want to say to me? He's the guy in the fucking bar that does this. This is that guy. This is that guy.

April 15th, 1961, he signs with the Hawaii Islanders. What? The Hawaii Islanders. So he's going to Hawaii. Going to Hawaii. Yeah, he sends a letter to Ford Frick to try to get reinstated. So they are expected to reinstate him because other people have been reinstated. It's kind of right along the line here.

He has an all right time in 1961 here. He pitches six games, one and two, 21 innings pitch, 514 ERA. Not exactly prison, but he's also 35 years old. Right. Which he's losing it a little. He's released on May 13th, 1961 by the Islanders. March 1962, he signs again with the Islanders. He's working on a knuckleball now, which means his arm is fucked up.

That's what pitchers do when your arm's fucked up. You need some gadgets. Pitchers who can throw 95, don't bother with that. April 12th, 1961, he pitches a complete game. Oh. Six hitter versus the Vancouver Mounties. Now he ends up being released eventually here. Yeah.

So anyway, he ends up, we'll just say he ends up with a nine millimeter Luger at some point in the mid 60s. Okay. He says, quote, I just drove around and sat in the car at night in parks and drank. I thought, bullshit. I ain't going anywhere. Do myself in. That's what he said.

I'll fuck myself up. So at 5 p.m. on December 30th, Blackie showed up at his ex-girlfriend Jean's job as she was getting off of work. The married girl. A different girl. Shit-faced, drunk with a luger. Yeah. He told her that he wanted to talk, and they got into the car. As she was driving them to her house, he pulled out his gun and said that he was planning to kill himself.

Now, Jean drove around in circles for about a half hour, then pulled into the parking lot at Kim's Liquor Store in Monterey Park. They sat in the car and talked for an hour, but they weren't really getting anywhere. Finally, basically, he didn't know what to do anymore, so he pointed the gun at her and told her to drive. Now he switched it for, I'm going to kill myself, so I'm going to fucking kill you, drive. So after a while, he had her pull over and let him out at a bar, and she drove away. So he said, so I went to this beer joint and i hung out i hung out in i had the gun in my belt and a sweater on when i walked in the door and unbuttoned the sweater here's this big gun i ordered a beer and three people headed for the phone i just drank

my beer and police came and threw the net over me they showed up at about 8 p.m and arrested him for kidnapping suspicion of robbery and possession of firearm by a convicted felon. Right. Big time parole violation. Of course. Yeah, obviously he could have been sent back to prison to complete his life sentence because of that parole violation. But he had an understanding parole officer

who listened to his story and convinced the district attorney to file lesser charges on him. He was drunk, Your Honor. He was really drunk. Like, really drunk. Like, you've been drunk, honor he was really drunk like really drunk like you've been drunk right but like really drunk that's what he was so i mean we've all been there on february 10th 1971 he pleaded guilty to one uh one charge of possessing a firearm and kidnapping they dropped and was sentenced to four you sir may fuck off four months in jail what wow um this is crazy uh so then he ends up also getting his parole revoked at that point though and he ends up in some program at

chino so uh um yeah the person said it was to interrupt his obvious pattern of self-destruction confinement would afford schwamm as well as the parole agent time to formulate an adequate release program and time for him to resolve some of his interpersonal problems i don't think they're getting resolved uh so he's back in prison yeah he almost got a fucking he's a menace but he's almost like just a self-destructive disaster at this point where he just has to fuck up yeah it's almost like he's like hmm i've been good for a while i should fuck up he's also i mean he's destructive to a lot of different people to people not just himself anymore i know i don't even know who to feel bad for anymore but i know who i do feel bad for these people richard schwamm

because he goes by richie always so we'll go we'll go with richards who's a corporate retirement director and a financial advisor at morgan stanley in New York City area. Richard Schwab, owner, RLM Consultants and Computer Software Company in Atlanta, IT engineer at Air Technology Services in greater Milwaukee. And then finally, oh, it's the same one. Oh, no, this is a different one. Retirement plan advisor at Merrill Lynch. Two Richard Schwabs doing the same job for different companies. I swear we've had somebody from Morgan Stanley before, too.

I think we have. Lots of people that have the same name as criminals. So he gets out of prison on October 6, 1971. His mother picks him up. She gets him a small apartment in Inglewood. Oh, no. Yeah, but the thing is, that's where he wanted to go because it was where he used to be. So he thought that was where he would be.

But by then, it's not the same neighborhood it was. Now it's in fucking Ice Cube songs. Right. So it's a problem. His landlady told him about an opening in a freight forwarding company that worked out of a warehouse at the airport. From baseball to a warehouse job at the airport. Better than prison. I don't know.

Christ. He said, maybe. Maybe. He said, I got all cleaned up, put on a suit and went down there. to a warehouse job i mean it's better than airport better than prison i don't know christ he said maybe maybe he said i got all cleaned up put on a suit and went down there i was dressed better than the general manager i didn't know what kind of job it was i thought it was sales or something but i was driving so i said where can i start when can i start it was about noon i started an hour later and uh i guess he got work as a dispatcher with a cement company but that didn't last very long and all sorts of shit so at one point he's with this woman right kind of for the last 20 years of his life he's with this woman he's got a uh she's got a teenage daughter in

the house and all this shit her name is b and i guess he and b went out on a boat with some friends and he slipped on the desk on the deck and fucked up a disc in his back oh no so he had to have surgery and apparently he just drink and read until he was too drunk to read and then he just kind of that's a pretty great pass out drink and read well can't see anymore this will pass out down this book yeah he could still get around a little bit to do you know be sociable and shit like that but he couldn't do what he liked to do and uh his uh daughter said quote or his stepdaughter said it would totally broke his spirit when he injured his back his disability took away his manhood

he played mr mom while my mom worked he she said he was good at being a homemaker and shit like that he was a good cook and taught her how to cook uh but she said also he had a terrible debilitating cough from smoking but he didn't even try to stop and drinking was constant from the first budweiser of the morning to the last seven up and whiskey at the end of the night he was always happiest when he was drinking when he was drinking he was a generous fun and kind man when he was sober he was a volatile and angry man and you had to walk on eggshells around him you know like an alcoholic that's what alcoholics are you know someone with an addiction right that's what they do he's happy when he's got what he wants and needs yeah wow

he's furious and an asshole when he doesn't so this book the guy going to meet him and talk to him was in 1985 yeah and he said he kind of tracked him down by he was the only ralph you know schwamm that had a driver's license in the state of california right so he sent him a letter and the guy you know sent him a letter back saying i am that guy here's my address come on by if you want basically yeah we know he did say though he would not talk to this guy unless he showed up with a carton of unfiltered palmols. But he's like 65 years old. A carton of unfiltered palmols and at least a quart of Kessler.

Ew, gross. A quart. A quart. A quart. An unfiltered palmols. That's the most disgusting measurement of booze. A quart. Bring me a quart.

It does. That's an alcoholic's measurement. Half gallon sounds bad yeah half gallon i don't half gallon sounds like a party measurement like that's that's for everyone yeah obviously a court is personal handle sounds like a guy that's about to have some fun a court is disgusting court is like yeah that's a lot that'll get me through tonight that seems like you're measuring it out in a cup and he said he threw in a case of beer for good measure, just to be nice about it. The way the guy described it was, quote, he lived with a woman and her daughter in a dull green metal slab-sided house that looked like a double-wide trailer that had been permanently affixed to a dry bush and dirt lot.

Oh, my. That's his life. And one small tree fought a losing battle to survive by the mailbox. This guy's a great writer. It's funny. A big engine, mid-60 Dodge in so-so shape, crouched out front. Drying laundry scooped up, blowing dirt on the side. So he said, quote, a whip-thin tall man, whittled and darkened by the sun, came onto the front step to watch me get out of my car.

Quote, you bring the Kessler and the smokes. You got that boo. So you got the booze, and he did. And he said that basically he didn't have to prod much. Guy just told him everything, told him the story of his life. He was super proud of it. He said that he had told him over the course of this two different versions of what happened. Murderer and doctor. of what happened. Murder.

Doctor. Oh, boy. Right. So he said, I pestered him into telling the story again because the first two were contradictory. Obviously, maybe the third time's a charm. And he said, oh, it definitely wasn't. He said, basically, he got pissed off. He broke down crying and he was like, whoa.

So he said he didn't know what to do. He let him collect himself for a couple of minutes and uh they sat there on their chairs and then he looked up at him super angrily black he did and said quote that's it get the hell out of here before i fuck you up and the guy said i grabbed my shit and ran to the car because he was ready to fucking start swinging on me so he goes i took off he talked him into almost telling him what really happened i'm done with you and then he said get the fuck away from me. I don't know if he was sober for a minute or what. So, yeah, that was it.

He said, I never saw him again. Blackie showed up at an Astros game. I want to say it was an Astros-Dodgers game or something, but he showed up at an Astros game in 1985. And people knew who he was, based like old-timers knew who he was based like old timers knew who he was and uh he was there to say that he was praying for dickie thon every day because dickie thon their shortstop had got hit in the head with a pitch last year okay and he just wanted him to make a full recovery that's why i'm here everybody said he was kind of weird and you couldn't understand him when he talked because he was so fucking gravelly sounding uh finally december 15th, he goes into a hospital in Lancaster, California.

He had pneumonia. But then the next day he was told that he was in the end stages of lung cancer. He'd been diagnosed six months before, but didn't tell anybody. Kept it to himself. And in the hospital, he said he doesn't want a funeral or a grave. He just wanted to be cremated and wanted his ashes spread on a pitching mound. Throw me in the trash. That's all he wanted. Just throw me in the trash. He wanted to be cremated and wanted his ashes spread out a pitching mound throw me in the trash that's all he wanted just throw me in the trash he wanted to be on a pitcher's mound december 21st

1989 he dies he's cremated uh-huh who knows where he spread can't get enough blackie unbelievable you can get a blackie schwab sign three by five index card what on yeah there's a few of them on there all around for auction they're like 400 though like this guy's there's very little love his shit there's very little of him out there i kind of want that i kind of do too it's i kind of want something of his because it's pretty cool and he's so fucking rare that like it's i mean he just disappeared story and then he disappeared for the last 20 years of his life like that was that and i couldn't find any more arrests or anything i don't know if he chilled out and started being more of a homebody but what in the fuck man it is goddamn crazy but that everybody is blackie schwamm and one hell of a fucked up story i gotta be honest with you that is crazy shit the guy's

his own menace he's his own menace he's's his own menace. He's his own kryptonite. I didn't know he existed, really. And then I looked this story up, and the further you get into it, I'm like, who is this monster? This guy's crazy. And this old-timey story, it's so great, man. Where did you come from? Where did you go? What's your deal?

Blackies. So if you like that story, give us five stars. That's what you can do. That purple icon, Apple Podcasts, that helps us out a lot. Give us five stars. It helps drive us up the charts charts and we don't even know why but it's good for business get on shut up and give me murder.com for everything crime and sports and small town murder related and listen to small town murder if you haven't yet or just lapsed on it because it's a why it's crazy over there you think this is a crazy story listen to some of the shit we've

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that's why it's okay we go deep into that defense and the origins of it and it's fucking insane you can get all that and more full catalog and access to last it, and it's fucking insane. You can get all that and more, full catalog, and access to last year's and everything else for anything, anybody over the $5 level, patreon.com slash crimeandsports, or if you want to just be a nice person and have good karma, you can go over to PayPal and use our email address, crimeandsports at gmail.com. If you want to get a hold of us, the email's a good way to do it. You can also head over to at Crime and Sports on Twitter and Facebook, or we are at Small Town Murder on Instagram.

You can do all of that and support the show and tell your friends. And it really does help a lot. I'm telling you right now. What I also need to know, though, Jimmy, tell me something. You need to tell me the names of the greatest people in the world who would never, ever, ever take me out to a lover's lane and beat me to death till I choke on my own blood. I'll do my best. Thank you. Hit me with them, Jimmy.

This week's executive producers are Beth Whitlessy. I think she donated both ways for me to misspell her name. Misspell it twice. Whitlessy. Whitlessy. Thank you so much, Beth. You're amazing. Jennifer Visconti, Joanne Ahern, who also wrote us a letter a couple weeks ago and thanked

us for telling you about MS because we were sensitive to it, which I don't know how we couldn't be. Yeah, I don't know. I guess because we have experience. Fucked up shit. Yeah. Hang in there, Joanne. Hey, fuck MS, man.

Yeah. Quit being a bitch. Matthew Molina, happy birthday. Claire Molina, 29 for life is what I'm told. Sweet, so 46. Happy birthday. It's a rat's later song when they retire. Linda Campbell, Michelle Gilbert, Ian Hurley, Jordan Bennett, of course, thank you.

Jeff Watson, Buffy Sykes, Jordan Covington, Shelley Ann Barnard, Bernardard barnard i don't know uh caroline or carolyn fia uh holly hunslow chris bartolini tamara tamara tamara carpenter uh an unemployed history major also and amber denneke i think thank you so much thank you you're fucking incredible absolutely other producers this week are holly hayman steve schnell eric thompson Brielle with no last name, Ryan McGowan, Thomas Smith, Jade Armstrong, Brendan Ables, Leslie Ward, Ashley Veo, Carl Doyle, Terry Staudinger. A lot of our old buddies on there. Good people. Tons of them. Spencer Ludman, Melissa Turner, Winter Hubbock, Brad Peters, Elizabeth Arnold, Julia Duncan, Jaden Patterman, Russ T. Medina.

Got it. That's why, because I'm an idiot. Yeah, okay. Kristen Ems, Brad Peters. I think I said that. Molly Duncan, Mary Wood, Krister or Chryster, Craig Cole, Jude Doyle, Nikki Batchelor, Jade would know last name. Ryan would know last name.

Keith Marler, I think, Marrier. Yeah. Sarah Vresk, John DeLong, Michelle would know last name. Keith Marler. I think Marrier. Yeah. Sarah Vresk. John DeLong. Michelle with no last name. Morgan Baker. Michael Melito. Melito.

Molido. Jenny Bradford. Gabriel Rebus. Liz Vasquez. Samantha Hedinger. Taylor Ferris. Stephanie with no last name. Heather Cox.

Peyton Meadows. Melody Agofa. Teo. Oh, it's her birthday. Happy Meadows Melody Agofa Teo Oh it's her birthday Happy birthday Melody LaDonna Little Elk I hope she's native And that's a cool fucking name

Carrie with no last name Ed Barrier Stephen Clay Camp Susan Olgis Happy birthday Jessica Stope She's down in Florida right? She moved down there and married somebody? Or she moved to Pittsburgh?

I think he moved The guy from PA moved there, right? Yeah, I can remember. I think that's true. Stephen Claycamp, I said that. Teddy Martin, Amy Fry, Jennifer Sorensen, Sherry Neese, James Marder, Michael Kelso. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate you.

Somali 53, Jenny Hand, Christoph Johan. I think that's right. Joan. Alyssa Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cieslik. Happy birthday,'s right. Joan. Alyssa. Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cieslik. Happy birthday, Charlene Esteve. Or a Steve. I'm not sure.

Andrew Gillen. Chris Buczek. Samilja. Probably not. Brandon Allen. Tina Geschwender. There's not enough vowels in that one. That's a lot.

Jerry Fairchild. Jimmy's Viagra dealer, obviously. Maddie Johnson. Stephanie Griffiths, or Griffith this. Rick Daniels, Brendan Keating, Steve Randell, Janice Hill, Chris Hunter, Emma Morris, Selena Goldworth, Angela Cornman, or Cornman? It's probably Cornman. Mandy Knight, Todd Alton, Mason Dubois. Jagged Little Quill. Destiny with no last name.

Renee with no last name. Selena Schmitka. Jude Kendall. Derek De... What is this? Donato? Yep. Lauren Gray.

Brad Kabler. Cobbler. Cobbler. Jordan Martin. Katarzyna Niedzolka, I think. Alexander Sudkamp. Chris Henson. Jacqueline Piernich.

Pierney. Oh, fuck. Grant Bodmer. Bodmer? God damn it. Corey Cabone. Happy birthday, Kim Duggar-Baker. And also Tiffany Gonzalez.

Thank you guys so much. Courtney Pass. Kevin Wright. We're running through it. Logan Hartley. What is this? Sagan what? Sagan what? No, that's not right either. kevin wright we're running through it logan hartley what is this sagging sagging what sangin sangin wet no that's not right either hannah adams j uh what is this jake young uh

i don't know how to pronounce that but her boyfriend said that could net him a really amazing blowjob good luck to you sir go get jake I don't know. It's as best as I got. Bill Jacobson, Derek Bentley, J.J. Kaiser, Alexandra Lamb, Connor Niven, Robert McGeown, and Antoinette Edes, Shelly Porterfield, T. Wicks, Hasher, Will Hunt, Christoph, what is that? What did I do? Chris Dix, Chris D., L. Robinson, I think. Christoph, maybe. I don't know.

Paige, Shag Shagag what have i done shagman shagman shaggerman shagaman jones kelly what is this kelly brenneman chandra nope chanda chanda harbor chanda cody ennis damian cabrera, Sarah Overstein Calvert, god damn it, Diane, what did I do, Antonopoulos, Jennifer Sewell Shifo, Shifo, Allie Arabski, Cameron Nugent, Jason Zachary, Morgan, nope, that's Morgan Brantley,

Tyrone Bliss, Tiffany Wonder, Joel Brenneman, Melissa Sanborn, Douglas Conradi, Catherine Catherine Garger Corey Campers Lisa C Brianna Ryan essence Smith Maxwell I think nope probably not Jacqueline Jones Demelza nope Demelza Brown Jenny Burkowski Rebecca Closters Jamie with no last name H Jamie with no last name, Haley with no last name, Elizabeth Stanton-Johansson, nope, that's Johnson, Cheryl Malone, Jake, what the fuck, Priyanovich, Crosby with no last name, Jamie with no last name, Joe Hogan, Brian, what is this, Brian Torres, Bogdan, what, Gilmut, what, Gilmut Tadoff. Wow, you're getting a lot of multi-syllabic names here. There's a lot of things happening.

Tia Moretti, Liz Smith, Michelle Barnes, Sabina with no last name, Cloud9, CheckLeftHook, Tristan Armbrister, Kira Stewart, Jamie Floyd, Abby Crago, Chris Moore, Joshua Smith, Perpetual Coin Toss, Amanda Spice, Shelley Frels, I think, Adriana Moraga, James Magnuson, Sarah Davidson, Jeffrey Linden, Neil Anis, Anis? Neil Anis, Anis, thank you for your cash. Choco Bear Gaming, I think he's a comedian in New York. I think that's the right person. Christopher Satisabal. Satisabal.

Shit. Colby Schaefer. Jason Christensen. Thanks, Jason. Hope you and the wife are doing well. And the kids. David Becca Breedy. Mary Brune. Cam Bob. Chris Johnson. Liz S. Lee Canale. Dina Rindo.

Reindu. Nope. Alexander McCraraid mccraig darth cheeto uh jessica coral carol carol courtney smith micah sky shy kristen with no last name conard 1717 ashley mccalliff i hope that's uh uh uh was the wasn't that the teacher's name that was on the shuttle? McAuliffe? No. Yeah. McAuliffe. Was it?

Right? I don't remember. Ah, fuck. Something. I think it's McAuliffe. It's McSomething. I think it's McAuliffe. Christine Zavaldi, Alabama Sassafras, Kayleen Kirsch, Jekyll Logan, Jekyll Jarrell, Patience Carpe, Megan Williams, Sydney Vittori.

Christina McAuliffe. Krista. Krista. Krista McAuliffe. Sharon Krista McAuliffe. There you go. Karen Lelm, Rachel Thompson, Yvonne Abrahantes, Patience, I said that, goddammit, Patience Wissman, Holly Levinson, that's another one, Katie Rages. You said that one. I know. You said that so. You looked over at me and went, That's another one. Katie Rages.

You said that one. I know. You said that so. You looked over at me and went, that's another one. Like we had three names and you were naming your thing. That's enough. How about, that's one more. Holly Levinson.

Take that. Carolina Vovatskavo. Very arrogant that was toward me. Like, what do you think of that asshole? Abby Lass. No L last name. Thank you, Abby. Adam Dugdale.

TJ Butner. Kate Stewart. Kara Kowalczyk. Kowalczyk. Kowalczyk. Sam Kehan. Pavelis. Oh, boy.

Pavelis Basificius. His wife's going through some shit, and I really appreciated his email. Thank you, Pavelis. Sorry to hear that. I apologize for not being able to say your name, man. Thank you, Pablo Licious. Corey McKinnon, James Stein, Kathy and James. Nope.

Steve Kuhonis, Coons, Anthony Kirachuk. Nope. Homer Nunez, Brandon. What the Gufferin? Nope. Michael Clark, Olivia Fort or Fart Fart. It's not Fart, is it? No, it's not. Cassidy Moore?

Lauren Greene? Thank you, Ms. Fart. Ms. Fart. Pamela Dennis? Neil with no last name. Katie Hayward Mullins? Marine Montgomery? Nicole Gattoni? Jenny with no last name. Anita Dunn? Gagan Sats? Kunlapa? No, none of these Dunn. Gagan, what? Gagan Sats. Kunlapa.

No, none of these are real. Gary Treisenberg. Joy Amelia. Jamie Hasty. Lucia Judge. Tim LaPlante. Clayton Crowley. Stephanie Gonzalez.

Ivy with no last name. Joshua Gilb. Ben Mounts. Brittany Weiss. Vile. Her last name really is Vile. Lori Christian. Ben with no last name, Joshua Gilb, Ben Mounts, Brittany Weiss, Vile. Her last name really is Vile. Lori Christian, Ben with no last name. What did I do here? Laura, nope, that's Eric. Shively,

Mike Johnson, Jessica Schwind, Carrie Schmidt-Swan, Aaron Nesbitt, Sam Hartop, Deb Compton, Lee Hibbler, Tony, nope, yeah, that is Tony McDomick, Catherine Perry, Jacqueline Goff, Matthew Forehand, Lynn Klunder, Amy Dickens, Angela Rosenberg, Timothy McGuire, Joanne Penn, Kristen Bull, Ellie Babino,

Boobian, what? Rhino Rhino, Carla Wood, Laura Shantz, Kristen, nope, that's Christian Yeats, John McQuown, Jill Fry, Christine Rushford, Melissa with no last name, Kenny Alaua, Paul Burns, Brian Poe, Deidre Solberg, Sherry Adams, and also then there's two last ones. Who are they? God damn it. What have I done here? They are Nicole Ellis and then Buffy Sykes.

You guys are terrific. Thank you guys so much for everything you do. Thank you, everybody, so much, honestly, for every damn thing you do for us. We just can't thank you enough. Can't understate it, really. You guys have in our backs as much as you do. It's bananas and completely unexpected and more than as much as you do it's bananas and completely unexpected and more than grateful it's great because yeah i mean we we have more

listeners now and stuff like that and we're like you know we we have like a business stuff going on but we're still we're not connected to anything we're not like part of some big thing we're not so all you our network just like helps sells ads like we don't have like oh then they're going to promote. We have to do all that shit on our own. And you guys, it's mostly you guys. So thank you for doing everything like that for us. We really appreciate you.

What if they wanted to do something for you, Jimmy? How could they? I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Wismansucks. And you? I'm at Jimmy P is funny. And you can find me and do all that shit and have fun with all that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, honestly, for everything you've done for us then now and always 226 episodes worth it's crazy once again live from the crime and sports studios we will see you next week Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

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