Read Online Pin Action: Small-Time Gangsters, High-Stakes Gambling, and the Teenage Hustler Who Became a Bowling Champion by Gianmarc Manzione - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gianmarc Manzione
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Brooklyn bowling alley—Maple Lanes on 60th Street and 16th Avenue—included meals such as Greek salad, brisket, meatloaf, or chicken parmesan. In 1961, you could have ordered all four dishes at once and still hardly spent more than five bucks.
“What the hell am I gonna do with these?” Johnny asked the bodyguard. “I don’t even know how to break a hundred-dollar bill!”
A few years later, Johnny hoped his biggest problem bowling with Mike McGrath would be remembering how to breaka $100 bill. When a shylock known only as “Black Sam” invited him and his friends for a night of action at Avenue M Bowl, McGrath thought of the kind of people who break things that have no business being broken—things like kneecaps and jawbones—and not the kind of people who reward talented kids from the block with more money in an afternoon than his parents made in three weeks. McGrath knew about those rumors that swirled in Brooklyn—the guns and the people who were not afraid to use them. He knew the answer to Black Sam’s offer: Hell, no.
Johnny told him those rumors were overblown. He had nothing to fear, Johnny said, and told McGrath, “Mikey, you and Richie could bowl doubles there, because no one knows who you are.”
That was the advantage of bringing a California kid to Brooklyn. The less familiar bowlers were with your crew, the more likely you were to find a fish. Telling McGrath he could bowl with Richie was like telling him he could bowl with God. “Richie” was Richie Hornreich, otherwise known as “The Horn,” and he was the greatest action bowler in Brooklyn. Richie was Johnny’s buddy. They both were growing up on the streets of Dyker Heights. Johnny knew he could count on Richie to make the trip out to Avenue M worth everyone’s while.
Though everyone on the action scene agreed that Richie ranked among the greatest bowlers on the planet, and though Richie himself knew he was damn good, he did not regard his talent with much pride because bowling, for him, was merely a way to generate the income he needed to blow his money at the horse track. The ponies were Richie’s weakness. He would win $5,000 at the bowling alley only to blow $6,000 at the track.
There was no shortage of tales about Richie’s hunger for the thrill of another night at the races or at the craps tablewhich he would later call his “downfall.” For Richie, the point was the action itself—not bowling. He found that action by placing bets on which raindrop would slide down the bowling alley windows the fastest on rainy days, or taking a $500,000 inheritance from his father’s trucking business and blowing it in Vegas in about six months. He once told a fellow action bowler named Pete Mylenki that if he found money in his pants when he took them off at night, he could not sleep.
“I gotta go empty those pockets before I can sleep,” he said.
Richie possessed the unsmiling self-assurance of some Russian gangster, his jet-black bangs gushing over his tan forehead like a cresting wave. His angular jaw was shapely enough to have been chiseled out of stone, and his dark eyes seemed to stare a hole through the cameras that flashed as he posed with the first-place checks at big-time tournaments throughout the northeast. His shiny fingernails and button-down bowling shirts with stitched trim completed the manicured appearance of a guy who entered his place of work every time he walked through the doors of a bowling alley. Let the squares punch their cards between the hours of nine to five; the real money was made here on the lanes between dusk and dawn.
Anytime Richie needed to strike out in the 10th to win a match, it never crossed his mind that he might throw a bad shot. He almost never did. One night, he and another brilliant action bowler named Mike Limongello were bowling a match for quite a bit of money. Richie was up and needed a strike in the tenth to win. As he picked up his ball, he glanced at the clock on the wall, turned
“What the hell am I gonna do with these?” Johnny asked the bodyguard. “I don’t even know how to break a hundred-dollar bill!”
A few years later, Johnny hoped his biggest problem bowling with Mike McGrath would be remembering how to breaka $100 bill. When a shylock known only as “Black Sam” invited him and his friends for a night of action at Avenue M Bowl, McGrath thought of the kind of people who break things that have no business being broken—things like kneecaps and jawbones—and not the kind of people who reward talented kids from the block with more money in an afternoon than his parents made in three weeks. McGrath knew about those rumors that swirled in Brooklyn—the guns and the people who were not afraid to use them. He knew the answer to Black Sam’s offer: Hell, no.
Johnny told him those rumors were overblown. He had nothing to fear, Johnny said, and told McGrath, “Mikey, you and Richie could bowl doubles there, because no one knows who you are.”
That was the advantage of bringing a California kid to Brooklyn. The less familiar bowlers were with your crew, the more likely you were to find a fish. Telling McGrath he could bowl with Richie was like telling him he could bowl with God. “Richie” was Richie Hornreich, otherwise known as “The Horn,” and he was the greatest action bowler in Brooklyn. Richie was Johnny’s buddy. They both were growing up on the streets of Dyker Heights. Johnny knew he could count on Richie to make the trip out to Avenue M worth everyone’s while.
Though everyone on the action scene agreed that Richie ranked among the greatest bowlers on the planet, and though Richie himself knew he was damn good, he did not regard his talent with much pride because bowling, for him, was merely a way to generate the income he needed to blow his money at the horse track. The ponies were Richie’s weakness. He would win $5,000 at the bowling alley only to blow $6,000 at the track.
There was no shortage of tales about Richie’s hunger for the thrill of another night at the races or at the craps tablewhich he would later call his “downfall.” For Richie, the point was the action itself—not bowling. He found that action by placing bets on which raindrop would slide down the bowling alley windows the fastest on rainy days, or taking a $500,000 inheritance from his father’s trucking business and blowing it in Vegas in about six months. He once told a fellow action bowler named Pete Mylenki that if he found money in his pants when he took them off at night, he could not sleep.
“I gotta go empty those pockets before I can sleep,” he said.
Richie possessed the unsmiling self-assurance of some Russian gangster, his jet-black bangs gushing over his tan forehead like a cresting wave. His angular jaw was shapely enough to have been chiseled out of stone, and his dark eyes seemed to stare a hole through the cameras that flashed as he posed with the first-place checks at big-time tournaments throughout the northeast. His shiny fingernails and button-down bowling shirts with stitched trim completed the manicured appearance of a guy who entered his place of work every time he walked through the doors of a bowling alley. Let the squares punch their cards between the hours of nine to five; the real money was made here on the lanes between dusk and dawn.
Anytime Richie needed to strike out in the 10th to win a match, it never crossed his mind that he might throw a bad shot. He almost never did. One night, he and another brilliant action bowler named Mike Limongello were bowling a match for quite a bit of money. Richie was up and needed a strike in the tenth to win. As he picked up his ball, he glanced at the clock on the wall, turned
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