Beating The Book: Story Time with Chris Andrews, Part 1

Beating the Book Podcast. Enjoy. But I wanted to sort of make this week something that we could sort of ease into all that and today and on Wednesday. It is one of the great treats that we could possibly have for those who listened to the Beating the Book Podcast for so many years, and we've listened to a numbers game for our three years. This is a staple of the show. Obvious slee the best part of guessing lines. It's my missh Booka. The director of the South Point

Hotel Casino, Chrissie Andrews. Good morning to you, Chris. How you doing I'm doing good, Yo. How are you holding up? I'm doing very well. Let's let's start there before we get into because all we're gonna do today is tell stories. It's two hours of storytime classics from you. So we're happy to have you do that and thank you for doing that. But you finally left the casino. They finally kicked you out. Uh. Michael Gone told me he does not want me to leave in the house or he's

gonna fire. So I can't. I can't afford to lose these jobs. I'm listening to Michael Gone, and why do you know what I mean? Yeah? Why why did it take that for you to leave? Like? Why are you that stubborn? You know? I didn't mean to be you know, but I mean I wanted to I wanted to number one, do my job properly. I went in and thankfully I had a few of the people down there who really wiped everything down for me. And I get my social distancing and all that, um, but you know, casinos are

probably gonna have some of this. And if you know, the governor didn't do what he did, you know, and I don't think we wanted that hanging over our heads. But you know, I wanted to be fair to Michael, fair to all my employees and you know, but of course fair to myself. And and healthy and all that. But you know, I mean something. Listen, if you know how I got sticked in the first place, I was very stubborn before I went to go see a doctor too,

so it probably fits in with my personality. Come up. Yeah, obviously I bring that up because underlying conditions are something you know very well. So we we just want you to be healthy. So you should have been the first one out, is all we're saying. Thankfully, you're you're okay. Obviously there's a very surreal time for everybody. It's like living in a sci fi movie. So to the extent that we can make this uh normal and get people distracted from it, I think we'll have done our job today.

We attempt to do just that. Chris, see, you got stories lined up? You're ready to do this? Yeah? I do? Yeah? All right, do I do? I do the official because I don't have the I don't have the girl talking, so I have to do it myself. Everybody, Okay, it's story time. You're on what you got? This is this is it? This is the one that started off the book. Right. First of all, we should say all of these are

in your book called Then One Day, which is available everywhere. Yes. Actually, if you are not in the book, they're going to be in my next book. So you know, little tease, little tea. But most of them are in the book. I'm looking at my little schedule here, and there's two that are not in the book, but they'll be in the next one. And this one's in the book. And this one started out the book. This was in I

was seventeen years old, so three. And my uncle Jack, who again is featured prominently in the book, he would buy a Cadillac every year, usually from my cousin in Pittsburgh who was in the car business. I would get a used Cadillac, a one year old Cadillac. There's a lot of you know, and kids today don't understand, like having a Cadillac. A new Cadillac was probably the prestige thing that that uh, that somebody with money could do every year. And guys with new Cadillacs were looked upon.

Is you know, hey, man, this is the guy that's made it. Uh. But a lot of those guys were corporate guys and they would trade them in after one year and the corporation would just buy him another Cadillac. Well, what happens. You know, if anybody's bought a new car versus an old car. You know, a year old car is still a great car, but it costs probably you know,

six with the new car cost. Maybe. So my uncle Jack would have my cousin Jimmy looking for cars like that that we're pretty much cherries, and he would buy one and somehow get it out to Vegas while was seventeen years old at the time. And uh, and I look back, I can't believe Uncle Jack let me drive this car that he had just bought in in Las Vesar in Pittsburgh to Las Vegas, you know. But me and his son Zack, and we're the same age. We got the car and you know, we drove out to

Las Vegas. But but before we get some stairs from people that here's these two seventy seventeen year old kids, you know, in a white El Dorado, you know, a year old at white El Dorado. And who knows what they fought? I mean, God only knows. Um. And we get to Las Vegas and uh, Uncle Jack of course takes the car he had sold his the other one probably like the day we got there, and uh, we didn't have a car Me and Zack to seventeen year old kids. Now again, Vegas was a lot different back then.

We lived about maybe two blocks from the strip. Michael Jack had some pretty good juice over at the Sands. We had a swimming pool in our apartment complex, but sometimes we walked over to the Sands, which is where the Venetian is. Right now, we've walked over there. We could use their pool. Uh, you know, so what life wasn't bad. But of course he had a seventeen year old kids. Of course you'd like to have a car.

Uh So Uncael Jack and Sonny Vicario Jimmy's brother. But Sonny of course now is world famous as uh mostly through basketball and tennis shoes and that sort of thing. Anyway, Sonny was living in Las Vegas just kind of get a foothold as a as an as an agent, as a player's agent at the time, and so Sunny Sonny

called us up. And by the way, just a little backstory at work, Zack and I both worked for Sonny as ball boys at the Roundball volunteer work of course, but we worked as ball boys for the Roundball Classic, which was Sonny's all star game, which was the Sylvania All All Stars versus the US All Stars. So we knew Sonny really well. And uh and I always here everybody. I knew Sonny and Jimmy from town. I'm twelve years old, so we're going on fifty two years now, but I've

known Sonny and Jimmy Viccarroll. Anyway, Sonny calls, Sunny calls one day and I'm in the apartment. I picked up the phone. Chrissie. Uh, this is Sunny. Yeah, son what's up? Do you Zachie want a car? Uh? Yeah, sure, because okay, I'll be over in ten minutes. Okay, son Zacher, we're in the We're in the apartment. Wait here comes Tonny. We get a knock on the door and uh, today, all right, boys, here's your car. It's right out there. You know. We see this giant orange UK Electra to

They don't make these things anyway. I mean it was a lot of people what I originally told the story of have googled it and sent me pictures of it. I can never they've never sent me quite the right color. I think it somewhere probably around a Tennessee orange. I would say, like really just like almost fluorescent orange and you know, it's a it's a huge car. And it was a buickx Um challenge to the U Cadillac Fleetwood Brome,

which was another huge boat, probably the same chassis. Anyway, you looked out and I just kind of remember like looking at Sunny like you kidding me. It's this giant car for me? Is Zach and and he talks with me the keys he says, yeah, it's George German's car. Uh. George is in Europe for the for the summer, and he wanted me to watch it because I really didn't have any use for it. So I figured you and Zach me a car. I'll let you guys use it

for a while. Did you could you explain to people, Chrissie how big George Gurvan was, by the way, because I'm sure that's lost on a general rations. It is. And again, if you google the fifty greatest players of all time in NBA history, George is one of them. And he had the classic commercial which he got known for probably about almost as well as his NBA career, when it was a bunch of guys talking and George said, one thing I can do his finger roll and singer role.

He go. He put the accent on the role for some reasoning role. Yeah, and uh, George was a score. He wasn't known much for his defense, but George could score um anyway. George and I and George was a young player at this time. I think it was either a rookie or second year player, but I think a rookie. And another quick little aside, I knew a guy and George. I think he went to Central Michigan. And I knew a guy went to Eastern Michigan. I got a guy

knew later on in life, really athletic guy Woody. We used to call actually had his last name is his real name is Larry something, but would call him no no, no no. And I knew and Rena and and what he was. He was a big, strong kid, you know, was about six seven. And he told me, he said, you know, he was playing against Gurband and he you know, this was like the rival when he wanted to stop George. This was like he was psyched for a week. And George broke his ankle as a senior in college, but

he still played. He was hobbling around and you go around like two or three picks and get a shot. Off and what he was saying, Oh, I was disappointed. I wanted to face government at his best and I was gonna stop and uh what Yeah, he says, yeah, I stopped him at a broken angle. He had thirty eight on me. That George was that kind of a score and they could do that in the pros because George is a hell of a player. Anyway, said Zack, And I get this card sending gives a twenty buck

for gas, and I'm not joking. Gas was about forty cents a gallon at that time, but your but sunny gave us the twenty bucks. He says. It eats gas like crazy. And I don't want you guys reaching in your pocket, uh to do it like to take care of this car. Okay, So so me and Zach we're just driving this car around. I mean, we wouldn't have anything to do except drive the car around Las Vegas. Now.

At the time, the entire valley Henderson, Las Vegas, North, Las Vegas, you know, everything add up, everything might have been about a hundred and fifty thousand people. What is it now about two and a half million, something like two and a half million, yea, yeah, yeah, two and a half a million, so in a whole different city at that point in time. So me and Zach, that was just what we would do all that. I mean, we had sunny gas money, you know, we didn't you know,

we didn't have to reach in our pocket. You know, Jack gave us some money. We you know, we pulling the McDonald's. I don't even think they had drive CRUs at the time. You know, we pulling the McDonald's or Wendy's was like, you know, a trip for us, or you know, we would take it down to the sands. Were scrape up a dollar so we can park it in the valet, and you know, we were living large. Man, this is pretty cool. So after about I said, about two or three weeks, we're driving around. Man, we are

just in Heaven. So I'm sitting at home and I get the phone rings. I hear this scratchy voice that I somewhat recognize. Uh, are you Jack's kid? Yeah, this is Jerry Tarcamian. Then he told me to call you. We need the car. Uh. Well, you know, here's the address, reads me. The address. Of course, made have Google Maps at the time, either, so we had to figure out where it goes. Here's the address. I'll see it. Get over here as soon as you can. Geez, you know,

it's okay, all right. So I don't think Jack was with me. It was just me. I don't know what Jack was doing that game, but anyways, just me. We go over and I find Park's house and I go in there. There's Tark and Lois is there and about five or six very tall gentlemen, you know, but you know, only like my age were a little older me. I'm

seventeen at the time. These guys are like eighteen, nineteen twenty maybe, And uh, you know, in the old in the old story, I used to name the player, but Sunny asked me not to name the player anymore because he's actually a guy that was known and had a career in the NBA. Is that cost toss him the keys? Tossed him the keys, and uh, Sunny looks and and Tark looks for me, goes, there's your new car. He

points the total piece of crap. Honestly, I can't even remember what, what time, what make of car maker model. This car was like this one of the like a keell meat green piece of crap that had stuff falling out. You know, and I never like, look at it, Park. I'm looking at it, Park, like you gotta be kidding me. I'm going from George Gurvan's electra at this And he just put his arm on my shoulder. He says, kid, you've been driving George Gurvan's car for two or three weeks.

You've got nothing to complain about. That's right. Yeah, I guess I guess Park is right. So you know that was I wrote that. And uh, when I was putting together the book, the young lady, I'll mention her name, Courtney Wells Fustco out of Washington, d C. I've never met. We talked on the phone many times, but I centered my book and she helped me kind of organized and edited a little bit. And she said, you've got to start off with that story. And because that's what I

always said, was like Park Park. One of his expressions was he loves transfer because they usually had their own cars already, you know, because this was what transfer, Because this was a transfer. This player came in from a junior college into Parks program. And I think it was Park's first team here at the U N O V. And uh and this, uh, this young man did not have his car yet so did not tell the truth. They don't always have the well, I think I shouldn't

say that he did have his own car. Was just a total piece of crap, you know, and I wounded up inheriting that. But I think after this, I only had it for like a couple of days, and Jack wounded up flying me and Zack back home, and uh so the bulk of my trip we were driving around in George Gurban Electra and uh, you know, it was it was a experience that it really was like a seventeen years old and uh but like if you know

Sonny and sending in Jimmy, very very similar personalities. You know, Sonny giving me that har would be like if you hit up, if I hit, you have guilt. I need a dollar for the coke machine. Can give me a dollar? Oh yeah, sure, That's about how much it meant to Sunny, you know what I mean. It was not those kind

of things mean nothing to him. He's just he has a heart of goal and he's helped a million people over the years and I'm just one of them that he's helped and was been, you know, unbelievably kind to the weight above and beyond so but that was one of my first experiences, uh, you know, in that world and I and you know, you look back and say, it would be tough to go back to just some nine to five corporate jobs after life, you know what

I mean? You know, yeah, I mean just I can see like my future was kind of in front of me, and you know, maybe maybe not the traditional future that a lot of other guys were looking at. You know that that was like one of my first four ways into this kind of a world. And it's and it's hard to stress just how amazing that must have been driving around you and your cousin Zack in a car that how could I put this noticeable right in a desert of one people? And to do it, to have

done across country? Talking to Chris Andrews, that's the story that leads off his book. Then one day, forty years of bookmaking, uh in Nevada from Chrissy. Uh. We have about three minutes here, Chris before a break. Did you want to address uh something This has nothing to do with the story. We'll get back to the stories after the break, but did you want to address the matter because we've gotten a lot of questions on baseball season

win totals. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. We I, you know, just unilaterally, I guess, you know, canceled all our season win total bets because we had a rule that was different than anybody else's, and everybody else had a minimum amount of games. Us like a hundred and sixty or a hundred sixty one, maybe even a hundred and sixty two games that had to be played for action on your season win totals. What we never had. We used to have it, but Jimmy and I talked.

We decided to just screw it, you know, just because we had a beef one year and it costs us. You know, it didn't cost us a lot of money, but it costs us a lot of time from some of my supervisor that had to go and testify from the state. And this guy, the guy who challenged it was just a total scumbag. I mean, he had he had bets both ways, and he cast his cub bet over and wanted to avoid his cub thatt under right

right at the same window. Because you know, the Cubs only they technically played a hundred and sixty two games, but one of the games was deemed the tie, which I can't ever remember in baseball history except for this one time. But anyway, beside, screw it, We're just gonna have no minimum. If they start the season, you have action. Well, we never foresaw the coronavirus in this world that we're

living in right now. We were thinking, you know, a hundred sixty games or hundred six the one that you know, we would invoke that rule. Now, I mean, I don't even know if we're we're to have a season, you know, really, And so I went on arbitrarily said, no, all those bets are cans, because a lot of guys are there arbitrage and you might bet you know, over eighty two with me, and you found under eighty four somewhere else, you know, And I didn't want people holding those tickets.

And by a lot of guys, you know, naturally Twitter being the jerks that everybody is on Twitter, and oh south Point must the south Point must be holding a lot of UNDERBD. No, the exact opposite is true. And because I would keep track, we're about thirteen units high to the over overall on the old you know, thirty two teams or thirty teams. Uh, we were high thirteen units to the over and I was constantly chacking. I was just wanting, you know, just to see if our

math is right and everything else. So no, I mean by campering it, I probably caused Michael gone. You know, let's say thirty thousand dollars or something like that. Thirty thousand of Michael, it's like hit and sign you up for that dollar for a coke machine. You know, that's probably how much matter. So it's really one of those things where we you know, we could have pocketed a couple of bucks, but we didn't. And I just really thought it was the fair thing to do, just for

everybody out there. And uh, and I wanted to do it quickly, um, you know, so people would know exactly where they stand, because, like I said, a lot of those guys were looking at arbitraging. That's and uh, I definitely think it was the right decision of me. All right, Chrissy, appreciate it for the clarificational in that, because I think a lot of people were wondering, and certainly by Twitter

at least a few were. But we appreciate that. We'll come back, We'll tell a story, or you will anyway you will will come back and tell a story about a gentleman who just passed away eight days ago. We'll come back. We'll tell that one next on a numbers game at Visa. Welcome back to a Numbers game with Jill. Alexander Risk and I had spoken about the story he wanted to tell here brief segment right here, and if we're being authentic, we're being honest. I said something before

the break, and Chrissy texted me during the break. He goes, wait a minute, I didn't even know that the subject of this story that Chris is about to tell is cowboy Tony Salinas, and eight days ago Tony passed away. Chrissy didn't even know this, Um Roxy texting Roxy Roxborough, R I P Tony Sealinas after a lengthy hospital stay, per my buddy arn Lang. Is it Arnie Lang or arn Lang? Is it Chrissy who said? Quote Arnie Lang? Who said quote another legendary character from a bygone era.

He departed on the same day that some sports books went dark. He could not have timed his leave taking any better. Unquote. So how about that, Chris, R I P Tony Selenas. Yeah, due, I wasn't going to mention his name and his story because probably doesn't reflect real well on Tony. But well, I mean it's out there. I guess nothing we could do about it now. Uh. Anyway, again, for kids out there, just don't understand how different the world was back then. Uh, Tony ran a tout service

and actually, uh, Tony picked a lot of winners. I mean, he won some contests around town and really had a reputaination for a guy who could really. Yeah, they win a lot of games, good poker players, you know, winter it in sports betting. But like anybody, he went good and bad, like every one of us have done. You know. Well, this is when he was going pretty good, and it happened to be New Year's Eve, and so now it

goes into New Year's morning. Uh and uh he goes into New Year's morning and these guys that you know, they were working for him, you know, moving the money here around town and also running his poud service. And uh so they go in and where's Tony at Tony wasn't home, he's not answering his phone. I don't forget, we didn't have cell phones or even beepers back then.

They can't find Tony. They can't find Tony. But finally one of the guys says, I know Tony, Uh if if he hooks up with a young lady, Uh, he likes to go to this one certain place, you know, kind of a notel motel and Tonyo go down there. Uh when we find him. So so these guys are get in the car and they go to this one motel and like I said, the whole world was so much different back then. You go to the front desk and say, you know, uh, yeah, I'm here. See Tony

sny is kind of the key to his room. Yeah, sure, here you go. I mean, obviously that does not happen today, and uh now we're on earth. Uh can you do that in this day and age? However, that was kind of standard practice back then, and you knew the guy's name, So I mean, obviously a lot of nefarious things what happened here there? So they they go, they are banging on the door, banging on the door, and Tony won't answer and probably not allowed to help it. Let's let's

use the key and open it up. And they opened up the door and Tony is engaged. At this point in time, and he's got his cowboy hat in one hand, he's got a whiskey bottle in the other hand, a young lady underneath him, and they Tony. You know. Then they're talking as they enter the room, Tony, we need the game, we need, we need to get and they walk in and there's Tony and it is whiskey and closed the door as quick as they can't. Now they're

looking at each other. Wait a second, are we supposed to that Wisconsin or we were talking about the whiske he bottle in hand. We're am not sure what to do and matter that we're not going back in the room again. They I think they just said the hell that we're gonna go in Wisconsin, hope for the best and hope that they cover. And uh so that was so if you bet Wasisconsin that day, I think they

actually won. So you've got pretty lucky. So whether that was Tony's game or not, I guess we'll never know now, But that was the situation. I was described to mean by someone relatively well known who was actually there and part of that crew that went into Tony room that day. That is a that is a shorty, but a goodie. Chris I love that story. I'm not really sure if we're or not, but by that UM. By the way, I have any set story Chrissy from modern day that

I can't tell on air. You just want to share that. UM. But Tony was for those who don't know UM, as we go to break here, he won contest back in the day. He won the nineteen eighty Castaways Challenge. I think he won an early Super Contest too, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, it's it's tough to find that back in Super but I believe he did back in the early early days of the Super Contest. I want to say late eighties, don't hold me to that. Could have been early nineties, but way back when the late great

Tony Selinas will come back. More stories from Chrissy Chris Andrews exclusively story Time on a Numbers Game at Visa. Welcome back to a Numbers game with Jill Alexander back on the Numbers game right here at Visa these towards Betty. That work has all brought to you by the bet MGM mapp skill Alexander from our San Francisco outpost at Visa. I guess you didn't know we had a San Francisco outpost. We do now. Chrissie Andrews of course kind enough to

join us for two hours this morning. We'll do it all over again on Wednesday with some more stories, uh, some of these from his book. Then one day others yet to be told never before in podcast form. We'll get to some of those coming up. Christie, I think we have to tell this one though every time you're on the air. It's been told many times. But I think if there was a mount rushmore of your stories, this is without question included in them. Oh this, this

would be George Washington. Yeah. Anyway, if you go go and google and I just tried this just now and it comes up. Greatest NBA game ever played. This is the game that will come up June four, uh, nineteen seventies six. And by the way, of course, the announcer is Brett must Games anyone and three of anything. Anyway, So this game game Game five Celtics versus the Sun's uh, nineteen seventy six. And there's a character around Las Vegas at that time and he was just known as Crying Kenny.

And my first meeting of Crying Kenny I was in the I was one years old. I was in the Freemont and I'm watching the game, and I could hear this guy in the back of the room and that being like every single everything, you know, every dribble, every past, every everything, the streaming, yelling, and nobody paying attention to him. You know. I remember asking the one guy, who's that guy back here? And he looked at me, like, what are you talking about? Who's that guy who screaming? Young? Oh?

That's just crying Kenny, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh. Anyway, Like I don't think his act would have played too well on the script, but it didn't play well down town anyway. Crying Kenny was one of those guys, you know, he definitely was not a square. He was that wasn't particularly called a wise guy, but it's no square either. Kenny always bet under or an under dog, never laid points,

never beg games over. So this is uh, the the June fourth game, and you know, I don't remember the exact scores of the game, but anyway, Kenny bet under, like under a pretty big number. I think it was like two fifteen. He bet under and the Celtics and Sons. This is Celtics they had, you know, Joejoe White, Paul Silas, Dave Cowen's just you know, John Halicheck, just a terrific, terrific team. And the Sons. This was one of the great Sons teams. Paul Westfall I think one of the

Van Oursdale's played for him. I can't remember who exactly. Paul gar heard heard of course, Oh we're getting the guard heard, Yeah, we're so Uh they're they're they're in the game. And Kenny's got it under and he's up at Bill dark place. It's not there anymore. Bill Dark. By the way, in the Annals of Las Vegas history, Bill Dark a very key guy because he invented the total. Before before Bill Dark, there was no such thing as betting on total. He also switched the rules of the

baseball totals, as I recall Overnight. Yes, it's a matter of fact. He we'll let Roxy tell that story when he's later this week. Uh, and we still go by them, by the way. Um anyway, so, uh, Kenny's up at Bill Dark's. Uh. Del mar and I described it in the book is saying it was a little CD of rocking on the text Me said, a little CD is about the kindest thing that's ever been said about the del Mar was that kind of a joint. Anyway, he's in there and Kenny screaming and yelling at the TV

every time they do anything. But he's got the game one. The game is one. He's got the game. It's a dead under. They go into overtime. You know, still I'm not looking too bad for Kenny. So at the end of the first overtime, they go into an other overtime and this was the guard her shot. It was like one of these miracle shots in a miracle situation, like with a technical file that that the Signs got on purpose so they could get the ball at mid court.

It's just a very weird situation. I said, you can kind of you can google and watch, you know, watch the overtimes. It's really it's quite interesting on how they did it. Paul Westball figured out that day they needed the technical calling on them and that was a good way for them to get the ball in a better position. Anyway, game goes into another overtime. Kenny, now he's gonna lose. I mean, they've got to score by four points in that last overtime for the game to go over. So Kenny,

Kenny loses. He walks out of the joint and he's mumbling to himself and he's obviously pissed, you know. He he goes and the game is going on. Everybody. You gotta remember most guys have overs and games like this, you know, So the game games going on. Kenny lived not too far in the Delmar. He came back about five minutes later with a gun. Of course, let's just of course he did. Why not he was in Texas, so I think you have to have a gun, don't you know, if you're in Tectis. It comes back, he's

got again and he walked in. Now, I mean everybody sees Kenny with a gun. I mean, I don't. We don't know what's gonna happen. Well, they had one TV in the Delmar, which, by the way, that's all you really needed back in those days because there wasn't much

many games on TV. So they had one TV in the del Mar hanging from hanging from one of those posts like off the wall, off the ceiling, and Kenny takes out the revolver, empties it into the TV bissess and you know, bursts and phizzes, and drops to the floor and everybody, well, they're stunned. I mean, you know, I just fired six shots into the TV and Kenny kind of looked around. They said, he says, that's the last game that's ever going over on that TV set

and walked out. I guess we're not gonna know the final. He's not not watching it there. He walked out and left and uh the next day and he came in as he apologized the build. Arc told Bill he would buy him a new TV, which he did, buil you know, made him pay for new TV. And just the kind of guy Bill was. The bullet holes were in the wall, and Bill got like a frame around the bullet holes and for years it was just up there called you know, the Crying Kenny game June four, nine seventies six Game

five Tompics Sons six Final. I'm just like a plaque on the wall that he had bullettle It's pretty funny. Years later, years later, Bill had the places painted, which, man, roxy can't believe you actually spent the money to get the pa place painted. But he forgot to tell them kN the paint over the bullet holes, and they did, and they you know this little piece of lots Vegas history,

amazing gone. But Chrissie, I gotta jump in. We'll do the we'll do the PostScript on this after the break cry and Kenny right here on a storytime version of a numbers game in Vison. Welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander. It is the Numbers Game Kill Alexander Beck on Vison, the Sports Betting Network. The book is called The Then one day, Uh, Chris andrews all

his stories for forty years of bookmaking in Nevada. UM told these stories on the Beating the Book podcast on the Guessing Lines edition for years we added a section called story Time and we just thought, oh, this will be a little throw in. And then once these stories were told, Uh, nobody wanted to talk about anything else. There's a shot of it at Visa dot com and the Visa that that is the book right there. And I think, of all the stories you tell, obviously that's

the one that's most requested. But that's the one, Chrissie, where for those of us who weren't around in Vegas in those days, that's the one that's the most impossible to believe because if it happened today, that dude to be prosecuted in a second, but not then. Nothing happened, No, nothing that you think you do that today you have the SWAT team out. I'd be taken out in handcuffs. He'd probably never seen the light of day again. You know, it's just made. And they come up with a couple

of hundred bucks and paid Bill for Bill's TV. And what can I do? Do you remember? Roxy, were your old friend. Roxy Roxburg was kind enough to come on this show a lot, friend of show, friend of network. His favorite real quick, his favorite Ryan Kenny story was, as you say, he always had the under in games.

And there was a Sonics game, Seattle SuperSonics game, as you like to say, in those days, Gus Williams and Dennis Johnson would have conversations walking the ball up the court, like they played such an unbelievably slow faced and so crying. Kenny had an under in some game and as Roxy tells the story, it was like zero zero. He had

an under in a game. It was zero zero five and a half minutes in like it was just this unbelievable drought and started game and then downtown Freddie Brown hits some circus shot and gets fouled and crying, Kenny sleeps up into the air, goes, Jesus Christ, are they're gonna hit every shot in this damn game? I said to me, Still, what the best? More rare crying Kenny's help them. Yeah, that didn't get obviously the publicity. That's right,

that's right, all right. I guess I got about ten minutes to tell this, so let's see if I could do it anyway. This is nineteen and uh, you know I was I was working on the Barbara Coost and you know, I was hustling from my uncle Jack, uh, you know, on the streets, and you know, there was a lot of runners back then, everybody trying to hustle them for numbers and that sort of thing. And and again, just just the whole the whole society was different. But

you know, certainly Vegas was part of that. We didn't have cell phones, we have beepers, we have anything like that. So, uh, baseball, Well,

let me just backtrack a second. So we you know, this was game six h the Los Angeles Lakers were playing at the Philadelphia seventies sixers, and the Lakers were a great, great team, but It was still Kareem's team at this time, and they had Worthy and Magic and I don't think it's the four Worthy, So they had um Keith Wilkes was was their key forward, and Norm Nixon. Really a good team. It was Magic Johnson's rookie year,

but it was still Kareem's team. Kill Kareem sprained his ankle terribly in Game five, and so this game was in Philadelphia. Kareem didn't even get on the plane. He didn't make the trip. They said, well, we're just gonna leave him home and try to win without him. But if we don't, we want him, you know, as good

as possible for Game seven. Okay. And by the way, that so many Sixers team had Dr J. Bobby Jones, Maurice Cheeks, all Hall of famers, and Darryl Bawkins another terrific player, not quite all the fame, but a terrific players team. Also George McGinnis. I think, I don't I don't think McGuinness was on the team. It might have been. It might have been I didn't have in my notes,

but he might have been anyway. So they're going out there and uh, you know, these games were usually you know, pretty two pretty evenly matched teams like about three poor four, three or four point favorite whoever was at home. But this game with no Kareem and Philly in a must win situation. The game was between eight and a half

and nine, and it's one of those. Now, you gotta remember back then when when my uncle Jack played a game, it moved all over the country, you know, and I mean this was Vegas was like the hotspot, of course, but you know, people were following what was going on in Las Vegas. So I go and you know, get money from and I had money and tickets and all that other stuff. So Jack calls me in the morning, says, a kid, I want you to go out get all

the Lakers plus nine that you can. Now, you gotta remember, like I said, back in those days, when Jack played a game of moved all over the place. So I go out. H first off, I think plus nine, you know, for whatever the limit is, I go plus nine, plus nine, plus nine plus I'm taking it all over the place.

This is strange. You know, usually you know, if he's on his side, and then everybody knew that it was you know, Kareem was not going to be in the lineup, but it's still kind of surprising that I'm getting all this action. So after a couple of stops, you know, I called my Uncael Jack and I tell him, you know, this is I got X amount plus the nine. I said, but it's kind of weird. I said, there's a lot of it out there. He says, yeah, he goes, I

think I made a mistake. I moved too early. I found out Lefty and that left the Rosenthal who in the movie, Uh Casino is a ace roth Steam. Because I found out Lefties on the other side, he's laying in eight and a half now, Michael Jack moved games all over the country. Lefty moved games all over the country. And I'm just telling you, if you were back there in the day, you could have followed either one of those two guys and done really, really well for yourself.

They were on a game. It was a pretty strong play. So he says, well, well, we're committed the hell of it. Just go get all the nine you can. But I guess we're just gonna have a big bet on tonight's game. Okay. So I go out and I, you know, I bet everywhere I could find something. There were some eight and a halves around, but there was a lot of nines. You know, come back, we had you know, a fortune

on the game plus nine. So game gets off and uh and again this is if the Celtics Suns game is the greatest game of all time, this one will be pretty close. Magic Johnson, he was a twenty year old rookie point guard. They played him at center that Day's Magic six nine, So you know, you could play point, you play all five positions on the court, including center. He played center this this game against the seventies sixers. Magic had fourteen points, fifteen rebounds, and seven a six

and the Lakers won one one oh seven. So Manald Jack had you know, handicapped this game about as well as you possibly could. Like there's winning going away. They wind up winning the championship. You know, Kareem was at home, even though like I said, it was Kareem's team still at this time, but he was at home and the obviously he's as joyous as any of it as the Laker players were. But they won the championship without him

in Philadelphia. But now if you go back, and I don't know if you remember this goal, there was a threat of a baseball strike. And I think they actually might have gone out for like a game or two, but not long. But there was definitely a threat of a long baseball strike, and they wind up having one a year later. Anyway. Um, anyway, so Jack's as well, you know, basketball's over. I don't know what they're gonna do with the baseball. He said, you know, let's let's

uh settle the figure. Uh, you know, bring me all the cash over to the house, and you know, we'll we'll settle it there. Okay, so now you know whatever it was like next day or two days, I'm counting down my money. I'm counting down. I'm counting down. I'm forty two hundred short. Okay, I count you know, I mean I count so many times. And I don't have tickets, and he didn't want me to cash all the tickets.

Will hold on to some of those. And looking through all my tickets and and uh, all of a sudden, you know, and I wait a second, I got this ticket. It says seventy six years minus eight and a half. And I remember where I got the ticket. I got it at Sam's Town at the time. And it was one of those deals where Jack told me, says, just go in, told the guy your your my nephew, and the guy, I'll hand you an envelope and you give him twenty two hundred for the ticket and just go.

Well that's all I did, and I didn't check the ticket or anything like that out of game, you know. Anyway, now I go back and say, listen, you guys gave me the wrong ticket. I got a call with his money. Well they want no, no, no, you should have checked your tickets and don't give me that crap because you know you're not supposed to do that. This was illegal at the time and definitely against regulations. You were not supposed to take bets over the phone. There was no

apperating like that. No, no, you know said they handed neither wrong ticket. They handed me the wrong ticket, and that's what we could do about it. And you know, I was one of those. Guy said, listen, you know I'm not gonna call gaming, but you don't want me to call game either, because you were definitely in violation. Yeah, he said, I said, let me ask you this at on on the Lakers and he looks and said, yeah, we do does that being cash? No, it hasn't okay, well,

now it hits me, somebody has my ticket. Well, who would they hand an envelope too? Just like that like they did for my uncle Jack, only be one guy, Lefty. So now left Leftie had two guys, Marty Kane, and I know we're running out of time, but he had two guys, Joey Boston and Marty Kane, and the whole out that hated my uncle Jack. I don't know why. I don't know what the situation was, but they hated my uncle Jack. But for some reason, they loved his son, Zach.

And if you know that, and he's impossible to Hey, he's one of the greatest guys you've ever met. I call Zack. I says, Za, you gotta get ahold of Joey Boston or Marty Kane. They have the ticket. I give him the story and Zach right away says, oh my god, you're right. They have the ticket. So he calls Joey Boston. I'm sitting by the phone. I'm dying. I'm thekuy. They gotta have the ticket, and I'm hoping they would, you know, give me back the ticket. Paul's Joey.

Joey calls Marty. Actually Marty had the ticket, he threw it, he had thrown it away, went through the garden. He says, Yeah, I got Jack's ticket. Come on over and pick it up to Zach and I'm sitting there dying and I phone ring, bring I pick it up right away. Hello, Michael, Jeff, What the hell is Marty Kane doing with my fort So I explained that him, the whole situation, and I just I'll never get what he said. He said, you you figured this all out by yourself. Yeah, Columbo Quinn

had din a better job. Come on over your account. So good on Lefty and all those even though they hated my uncle Jack, they did the honorable things. Honor as always a big deal back in the day. Hopefully it was a staple. Today we'll come back. We'll tell a story that's never been told before in podcast form, coming back on a numbers game at Visa the sports

betting network. I guess a surreal time, that's for sure. UM, as we do this from San Francisco remotely today, UM, thanks for joining us, everybody, and really with all that's going on, UM, we just hope that it's uh something that can distract you from all that's going on in the world right now. As long as sports are silent, we figured we'd try to add a little levity, a

little distraction from it all. And what better way to do with than with Chrissy Andrews, who continues with us, now joining us for the full two hours this morning and hopefully so for UH for the next two hours that we do not not not tomorrow, but on Wednesday. Other guests this week Rufus Peabody, who let us all know that he tested positive for the coronavirus. He'll be on to tell his story tomorrow, Roxy Roxborough from Thailand.

Also from Michael Lombardi later in the week, Brent Musburger, and we'll get the whole Megapod crew on this show. The Megapod comes to Visa and Mike Palm, Todd Wishnev Jeff Parls will join us as well to UH talk all kinds of schmack talk all kinds of football with us and find out how it's affected all of them in this very strange time. Chrissie is still there. I am, yeah, all right, let's tell let's tell one. Go ahead, yeah,

go ahead, this way. I texted Rufus last night. I know, I didn't know he's gonna be on your show, but he told me he's doing well. So yeah, definitely one guy we were worried about because with with the virus, but he's going pretty well. Yeah, he's doing very well. He is doing very well. I think it's I think it's something that people would like to hear, you know, just though how he found out about it, how he was able to test for it. Um. I know his

fiancee is also affected by it as well. She tested positive. He'll tell us about that as well. UM and just I think people are are scared, um and even if they're not scared, they're curious, what, what were the symptoms, what happened, What did you do? How to find out? Did you inform other people that you are around? So I think it's um an interesting story to tell of imagine having him on and not talking sports betting at all, if you know, if we do mentally, Yeah, you know,

so that'll be interesting, you know what I mean? And I'm glad he's okay. I like the guy. Yeah, we all do. All right, let's tell one Chrissie that we've never told in podcast more before, you've never told it. We did you did tell it once? Two great reviews on the Visa show. Let's hear that one, okay, but the Whiskey story not in the old book will be in the new one. This one not in the old

book will be in the new one. Uh. So I saw and like this is one of those times where I'm using the phrase literally and it means literally and not figured. Literally saw a guy go great and he was His name was Kevin White, and Kevin was a huge Cincinnati Bengal fan. And that that's really a little bit of the back story here. But anyway, Kevin and I and Barry Phillips, and Barry Phillips still to this day one of my very best friends here in Las Vegas. He worked for the Herbs Brothers right now is I

think they're marketing director. So they very really sharp. God. But Barry was originally a radio guy, did some play by play minor league ball. Minor League Baseball, had spots on various Bay Area uh television show. So Barry was like a real radio guy, real media guy. So Barry originated the Calneva line and he yeah, there's kind of a little bit of a story there about what happened but anyway, Barry called me up. We started the Countiva Line.

There's a couple of iterations of the county of the line. A matter of fact, it's still going today. Kenny Barler is another good friend of mine. Kenny hosts it now. So this show has been going on for you know since I nik since nine, so it is kind of pretty long history. And uh, when we were there, this was back in the old days. It was a good show. We got picked up by a thing called the Money Network and we were in we Reno obviously, but you know, Denver.

We were in Denver, and you know, that was our biggest city, but we had some other towns. I think we're in tallahathe Making, Georgia. But all in all, we were in twenty three different cities around the country. So we're a pretty pretty big deal. So we would handicap the games every Friday night, just go through the NFL

games on on Sunday and handicapped each one individually. But before the before the show, uh, Barry and I and Kevin we would go have there and we were just kind of discussed, you know, discussed the lines, you know, you know, where they were, where we thought they were going, how did we get to where we are? What injuries are out there? What are the betting dread that, all the things that you would think they have to do.

And uh and Kevin was my swingshift supervisor at the cal Neeva and uh so I was the boss and I was one of the owners at this time, and uh and Kevin was was, you know, one of my top assistants, doing a really good job. But it was always like a little a little crazy, a little bit. But we go to dinner and uh this happened to be and oh man, I should have had that. I had the date written. I can't find it right now.

But in the nineteen nineties three so the Bengals, which I said, you know, Kevin was a huge Bengals fan, or the worst team in football. They were just awful. And the forty Niners and this is what you know, Joe Montana had gone already, but they had Steve Young. We had one Hall of famer replaced by another Hall of famer. And the Niners they did not win the Super Bowl that year, but they they I think they wanted the following year. So they are great, great teams. Anyways,

it was a Sunday night game. Niners are playing the four. The Niners are playing the Bengals at home. So it's at the forty Niners pointe spread was twenty four, maybe the biggest spread in NFL history. It's right, anyway, Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. Be sure it is. So anyway, you know, we get to the game. Now, Barry, like I said, big big Bay Area guy, so he wound up being a big forty fan. Here it comes the game,

forty Niners against the Bengals. Now, Barry, so you know, I think I probably picked the Bengal that There's no way I'm gonna late twenty four and we and we did every game. Yeah, they have a pick in every game. I think I'm pretty sure I think the Bengals. Anyway, Barry gets Barry gets to his thing and he's laying the twenty four because he loved the They loved the Niners. And of course the Bengals are just awful. And you know the Niners can name their score blah blah blah.

Now we get we get to Kevin, and Kennon says, well, first of all, I like the Bengals plus the twenty four, but I'm gonna tell you right now, not only do I like the Bengals plus the twenty four, I think the Bengals have a pretty decent shot of winning this game, all right, Barry, you know, Barry is one of us,

like a roadball, but it's a berry. He's Kevin. When we had dinner tonight and you put that white stuff in your and your his teeth, I just figured it was sugar and didn't realized it was lsd N goes crazy, and I'm not lying, he goes crazy. We're on the air live and like I said, we're in twenty three cities around the United States. He goes crazy on live radio. You I mean, I can't you know, I know we're in Canada. I can't use, you know, some of the

language that he used that night. Uh Sin's Barry and me, But essentially, I'm sick of you. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of the caliva. I'm saying, I'm kind of taking this crap from you. And you know this time mean went, you know, as off the rails as you would ever see somebody going, like I said, the live radio, throwing stuff at Barry and night and uh storms up into the office. We did it, We did the show in the sports book, and the office was kind of

like offset anyways, throwing stuff. I quit, I'm leaving, you know. So he runs up into the office. Now we still have a Monday night game to do, you know. So so you know, I throw in my little evaluation of the of the Monday night game and Barry kind of takes it from there. And like I said, thank god, Barry was a professional and experience and he he got through the Monday night game while all this craziness is going on. You know. So I I go up into the into the sports book and I'm you know, Kevin,

what are you doing? I mean, you know, Barry's joking. You know, I can't believe it. Barry always on me, and you are too, And I hate this place and I hate you and I hate Barry. And you know, he gathers up. Yeah, he hates everybody, and he hates to count leaving and and you know, and I quit, I'm out of here. I'm done. I'm not, you know. And he gathers up his stuff and uh, and he

heads out the door. Now I still have a sports book to run, so so I had my you know, The second in charge at that time was a guy named Eric, and I said, Eric, as of this moment, you are now the swingship supervisor. You know what to do. And Eric was like a really sharp guy. He probably should have been promotered in product. Kevin even before then. I said, you know what to do cample business and you know, take care you blah blah blah, you know exactly what to do from now on, and you are

now in charge, you know. So anyway, me and Burrying I go back. Can you believe this? You know, we always knew he was a little volatile and little on edge, but you know, this was like so far beyond the pale. I mean just you know, just nothing that you would think was any kind of a rational reaction. You think he went great right in frontise, you know. So so now I get to work next day and uh, you know,

I I get in like about seven thirty. You know, we did the show Friday night to the Saturday morning. Get to the show, uh you know Friday, I get into the sports book Saturday morning and I'm not there more than a couple of minutes. And Kevin calm and uh said, well, you know, listen, I really Uh, you know, I'm sorry for what I did and said and how I acted last night. And uh, and I still quit. I want you to know I'll work. I'll give you a you know, the two weeks. I'll give you a

two weeks notice. Still quit, Yeah, yeah, I still quit, now, said Kevin. You know, I thank you. I appreciate it. But you know we've made other arrangements promoting Eric. He's gonna be doing the job. And uh, you know that that's that he goes crazy again. You know, yeah, I hear the same stuff higher you know, you're a you son of a bitch and is screaming, yelling at me and all listen and nothing. Well, obviously I made the right decision. I don't want this nut job getting my

sports book, you know, running the Joy. You know, Uh, there's no you know, so whatever happened to him, I don't know, but you know this, this was it. You know, I certainly didn't want him back. And so again he's screaming and yelling and and all that other stuff, and uh, you know, I'm this dirty rat and all that. So now, uh so he hangs up on me, and you know, I don't I don't hear from him for a couple of days. He shows up in the sports book about

a week later. I'd say something like that, he's got like this this cheesy off the rack suit. Uh, I don't know if it costs, you know, thirty dollars, you know, one of those kind of suits. He's had a tie and everything else, which he never wore anything like that. Yeah, I'm in the mafia. Now can you believe that I'm actually in the maffia? I mean he's telling guys, yeah, yeah, they you know. I can't even remember what he said. But I mean, again, so off the risks, and I'm

thinking myself. Number one, you're not even Italian. Okay. Number two, you don't go you're not in the mafia in like, you know, four or five days. You know that I knew you. You know you're not You're not in the mafia. That's not That's not how membership in the mafia works. It's much more complex than that, you know, um in the mafia. Anyway, he disappears again for a couple of days. Now it comes in. He had grown a go team. He had a turban on his head. I am now

a seat warrior. Okay, I don't I don't know much about the Sikh warrior culture either, but I'm you're pretty sure, you know, from Reno, Nevada, you don't become a Sikh warrior in a week. I'm pretty sure that is not how Sikh warriors hood works. I'm pretty sure now he's a Sikh warrior. Oh my god. I mean they're like

I said it, literally what Craig the Sek Warrior. So about another week goes by and he comes in and he's got a cowboy at and one of those long black and dusters that you would see, you know, in a in a Western movie. I am now a Texas Ranger. I am now a Texas Ranger. And uh and again I'm thinking the Texas Rangers are actually real thing, you know, in Texas. It's part of the Department of you know, whatever they want to call it. It's not the days a Wide Earth and stuff like that. It's actually a

real thing, you know. And I'm pretty sure from Reno, Nevada, I don't become a Texas Ranger in a week just because you have a duster and a ten yallon hat. It does not come on. Yeah, but now he's a Texas Ranger. So I mean, now, you know, I mean this is this is like, this is pretty crazy, you know, and what we're all partially like laughing, but but partially

it's pretty pretty darn scared here too, you know. And uh so now as things go scared because he's a nut job and you just don't know what you're gonna get from it. Yeah, who knows, I mean, I don't know. I mean, you know, this is this is America. It's not that hard to get a gun, you know, and really like like yeah on he knows in case you don't have newspapers in the internet, you're at its interesting just that's Bryan Kenny. It's really you can get a gut.

So so I mean, you know, we're worried, you know, because I mean his hatred is you know, primarily at Barry, but also at me too. Now as this is going on, and I should I should have said this beforehand. So he right when this first happened, when he Quitner, he demanded a meeting with Bill mckugh. And Bill was the president and general manager at County even he was he was the boss. And he want he wants to he wants a meeting with Bill mckugh. So he goes in

and Bill tells him. He said, you know, you know, there's a wrongful term. You know, he's gonna sue us and all that other stuff and build something. You know, you weren't wrongfully termed. You quit. You quit, you walked out, and you walked down on your shift. You told everybody quit it, sent it on the radio, that equip it, you know, he said, So it's not a wrongful time. And Build Nashly stuck up from me, and there wasn't that much a stick up for I mean, you know,

gold It was a smart guy. So the Calvinny storied Kevin would call billy blue belt billy blue I what's a blue bellty? I didn't know. Well I found out pretty soon. Uh So now Kevin and I think we're gonna bleed into another segment. Can we take a break right here? Uh yeah, let's let's take a break right here, and then I can finish the story in the next segment. This it's just a good time for a break. Let's let's do that. We'll do that. What what about? What

year was this again? So this isn't like ancient ancient time. It's just sort of a long time ago times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Entry. And what sports book was it? Again? We were to count me the sports

book where count men? And uh yeah, So had you had any thinking beforehand, had you had an England beforehand, Christie, that this guy was capable of these sorts of claims when that he was going to fly off the handle in with You know, we didn't at the time, but then when we started looking back, and again I think

I'll highlight some of that in the next segment. How just things a lot of things like you know, you know something maybe you don't see the forest for the trees kind of thing, you know, I mean, it was there. We kind of got used to it, and then later on we looked back and said, yeah, remember when he did this, Yeah, remember remember this? Remember that? And I'm yeah, jeez, we kind of should have seen this coming, you know,

but but we didn't. You know, just kind of tend to accept things that you see every day as normal, and uh, you know, and like I said, afterwards, we looked back and we we probably could have seen it come up, but we never thought how many guys turning into seek warriors, you know, I don't know, probably not that,

probably not that. We probably didn't see that. Yes, right, all right, well we'll continue the Kevin White story here coming up after the break right here on the Numbers Game at Visa, brought you by the bet MGM app again Nuts Moral on the show, among other things, Roxy Roxboro from Paquette, Thailand. If technology allows it, he's got a Tony Selina's story that he wants to share. Uh as Tony Selina's Vegas legend passed away just eight days ago. And again, I know a lot of folks are tuning

in and UH. While story time is just sort of the tonic we need on a day like this and at time like this, we will talk about some football tomorrow. Michael Lombardi will be on as I mentioned, Rufus Peabody, and we'll get the Megapod guys back together on the show as well. Mike Palm, Jeff Parl's Todd Wishev will be here on the show this week, and Brent Musburger making a rare, rare Numbers Game appearance later in the week.

Brent was kind enough in the early days of as UH to allow me to do a podcast with him. We went back and we talked about all his stuff from yesteryear. I don't know how comfortable he isn't doing that again. We'll talk football and then I'll try to sneakily, if that's even words, sneaky, slide in some stuff where we can get some stories from Brent from back in the day. We'll continue though with my mission book, Christie Andrews more story time exclusively on a numbers game right

here in visa. Welcome back to a Numbers game with Jill Alexander. Back on the Numbers game, Kill Alexander. I have a seat, Chrissie. How does this one wrap up? Kevin White? Okay, so, now, like I said, we're starting to get scared with just the guy's just off his rockery, you know. And uh now he starts, you know, I come in in the morning, the sports book would be closed overnight and behind the counter being an envelope with my name on it, and it would be a letter

from him. And Barry was getting the same things, you know, slid underneath his door every day and I'm seeze what you know? I mean? Now these first of all, if you and I have a couple of the letters that I've saved if he's a pretty intelligent guy. He's a smart guy. And now his last version of himself, since he was no longer a Texas Ranger, he was the gray Ghost. Who's the great Ghost? The Great Ghost is

John Moseby. And John Moseby was a m was a rebel for the South during the Civil War, and Rose Mosby conducted raids on northern position and he would do that and uh, and they never caught him, and that was one of that's why they called him the Great Ghost. Later Ron Mosby while I'm not for having a career in politics and all that other stuff. So they knew he was, but they never could catch him. So Kevin

claimed to be descendant of the Gray Ghost. And now he was the Gray Ghost, and he's sending these He would side every all of his letters the Gray ghosts the Gray Ghost. So now you know, I mean, of course being barrier getting scared. So now you know this goes on for days and now in the base and Kevin was a huge baseball nut and all the sports was a huge baseball nut. And he used to play that app a p B a app bub baseball game was kind of like a precursor to the computerized games today. Yeah,

there's no computers back then. It was just you know, spinning cards and blah blah blah. Anyway, uh so he would, but he Kevin liked the Historical Game. He would play that and like he was one of these nuts, would play like a whole season, you know, with the with an himself and made teams and etcetera, and have a whole season. And that she was pretty close to the way the actual results came out. They had the Historical Game. And one of his things was smokey Joe would should

be in the Hall of Fame. And imagine that's the hill you're gonna die because he would Joe would be in the Hall of thing. Okay, you know, I don't know, I never heard of smokey Joe would before Kevin. Now then one day or we're in our offices and everything, and there's about maybe about eight of us, I think

they were in this rotation. Not everybody worked at the county, but it was certainly me and Barry, a couple of other people, and Derek was one of them too, and he'd be calling it smokey Joe would just struck out, Babe, Ruth's playing that out. A couple of you know, five ten minutes would go by. Smokey Joe would just struck out Taie Cob, you know, and hang up. Like I said, back in the those days, we didn't have you know, caller idea and your phone right and you pick that up.

It might have been your boss or you know, somebody gone from home. You never knew, so the phone would range you pick that up, Smokey Joe would just struck out. Willie made. But yeah, I mean this went on. You know, I'm not joking for like a couple hours. Yeah, I'm We're trying to run a business here. So I get ahold of Bill mckew, Billy blue Belly. And by the way, a blue belly is what the southern the ReBs called

the Northern officers. They were blue bellies. So Bill mckew was now Billy bluebelly, so you know, another part of the gray goat. So he's calling and cat and that the Bill, we gotta do something. You gotta stop this, you know. So Bill calls our lawyer and he said and tells the lawyer you gotta do like a cease and desist or something. So anyway, go to the servan. They go to certain favors and then Buried decide we're we're still in the calls. We're gonna walk to take

a walk. So we walk outside just kind of whatever we did. We come back. We'll go into Barry's office, not mine, and his secretaries on the phone. And I could see like her eyes are like wide open as we enter in, and you know, she looks at me. And I was one of the owners of the County of at the time. Um, do we have any comment on the Kevin White situation? And I'm saying, well, you know, the guys soon us or whatever we know. We we

don't have a comment. Okay, um oh, the police have his place surrounded and it's on every local TV station in Rio. Oh for sure, we don't have a comment on this now. So we ran up to the sports book where I had, you know, a bank of TVs and you know, lo and behold there is Chris. Let me, let me, let me interrupt you hold it right there at this moment. We'll finish that story. We'll get to another one coming up in moments storytime with Chrissie Andrews right here on a numbers game at fast Is the

Sports Betting Network. Welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander back on the Alexander Christie Andrews, author of then one Day, forty years of bookmaking in the State of Nevada. By the way, Chrissie, did you know, do you remember what the final score of that Bengals Niners game was? In? Did the Niners cover that? Just a brief a side? No? No, no, the Bengals covered. I think there was twenty three to six if I remember correctly, but I might be off. Okay, all right, so I

had that one. I thought I could do this in two segments, but every that way I couldn't. So now we run upstairs burying, and we ran up into the sports book and uh, you know, there he is on every TV. Holy crap, I can't you know. I mean, it's you know, it's pretty surreal, which we should all be used as surreal stuff right now, I guess, but this was very surreal moment um. You know, as we're watching this unfold, Barys, you know, we should go out there.

We knew where he lived there they did. They had his apartments around it, and you know, TV cameras there, So should we go out and maybe we could help in some way up whatever we have to do to apologize by Barry already apologized on the radio and it meant nothing to him, so so so yeah, let's go out there. So so we go out and we get there and you know, we find like the police, captain or whoever's in charge. We tell them who we are

and what happened is that? Boys, because uh, we're weighing you on that at this point there there's you know that that's just not gonna happen. So you know, Barry and I are standing there and were like those pop from a gun and Barry and I we hit the depth, both of us. Boom, we dropped like we got hit by snipers, you know. Captain, Yeah, relaxed, fellas, it's just an arrogant. We're blowing his door open. Okay, thanks. I was just the kind of guy you want in a

war situation. I'd be better off as a hostage than anything else. So we hit the deck. Anyway, they finally get him and they bring him out. He's in handcuffed and uh and like and this is like a said line with TV that you got him. You find the guy him. You got the Gray Ghosts. You got the Grey Ghosts, took your hundred fifty years, but you got him the Greg. So they take him away in the

patty wagon. Then their their interview and the the captain, the same guy we were talking to, and you know, he just they're asking him what happened, and he's kind of giving their run nays yeah, And then they took him away. They were calling him he's called himself like the Sober Spirit or something like that. He said, yeah,

I don't we don't know why. I teach at least give the guy enough respect to call him by the right name, for he was the Gray Ghost anyway, as things turned out, And tell me, Eva actually had quite a bit of juice, with more political juice than you would think um for a small casino like that. So you know, Bill mckoe, Billy Bluebelly, Bill mckough went to the the powers that be and to listen. You know, we don't watch this guy, but he lived back east somewhere.

He goes because we you know that won't pay our head of security just to escort to mcket make sure he gets off the airplane and goes home and you know, and then we'll be done with it and when So that was really kind of like the old West, you know, the judge or whoever told him, if you know, we just don't want you in town anymore, and you know, everything will be forgotten if you just go go do that.

But you know, and they did, and he did and not haven't heard from since, But you were talking about some of the things that, you know, what tipped us off that maybe we were missing something because he was a big fan of the Confederacy and I know there's a lot of people out there, okay when always that was one of the things that you know, the South should have won that war, they should have succeeded from the nation, and you know and all that. But like

I said, you know, he was not a racist. Definitely not a racist. A matter of fact, the exact boss that he always stood up for civil rights and black people. And he had a girlfriend who was like this beautiful black woman, you're well educated, and you know, it was one of those deals where I don't want to get involved in people's relationships, but I always wanted to ask her, like,

what are you doing with this nut job? You know? Um, you know, I mean, if they've made it clear he thought that the South should have won, the would would have been better off the South won the war. Well, you know, connect the thoughts that slavery, you know, And like I said, this is a beautiful, well educated black woman was his girlfriend, you know. So it was really a lot of those things that's ever never added up.

But like I said, we just kinda we were seeing it every day and just kind of forgotten about it, or you know, just accepted it. I should say, do we know? Do we know? Do we know if someone like crying Kenny not I'm sorry to interrupt, Do we know if someone like crying Kenny, is he long gone? Do we know his fate in the end? Actually I talked to Roxy, who knew Kenny fairly well. He told me Kenny is gone now, yeah, and that that was you know Kenny. You know, it was than I think

I said. It was that game, you know, so that's quite a while ago. Heck, I was a kid and I'm an old man now. So yeah, Kenny, Kenny's gone. Kenny's gone. And Kevin White, just to clarify again, is is where now gone as well? Oh? He's gone? Yeah, I don't want to say what he's gone from. What stay. Yeah, I haven't heard from him since then, which is fine by me, for our for our purposes, he's gone at this point, at this point, um, all right, um do we'll come back from the break, um, and we have

a choice of stuff to to wrap it up. We can do adventures in bad bookmaking. We can do a prank. I think a lot of people like to hear about pranks between betters, because it's not all about the relationship between whoever is behind the desk and whoever's on the other side making the bets. But you have some stories about guys pranking on each other. Yeah, I that's a pretty quick one. We can do that pretty quickly. All right. We'll tell some adventures in in bad bookmaking as well.

The name of the book, once again, is then one day. What is the sub The subtitle of it Chris forty years of Bookmaking in the State of Nevada. Yeah, forty years. I checked it on I checked in on Amazon, and I think not that the book, not that they're sold out or anything, but Amazon is concentrating on getting people supplies that they need, so it would take you a little while to get the book. But I mean, you know,

we might be hunkered down for a while. So if you want to read the book, you know, anybody listening to this probably would enjoy it, you know, So I'll go ahead and order, but you might not get it for for you know, maybe a week, couple of weeks or something. Yeah, but it is out there. Then one day, forty years of book making a vata. You see it on the screen there at Visa dot Com and the Visa app, from our beloved Chris Andrews, who, by the way,

you can follow on Twitter as well. We should point that out at Andrew's Sports to us is in the middle there at Andrew's Sports for all of his uh pithy tweets over time as well. We'll come back wrap it up. I'm sorry, Chris, you want to say something real quick? No, okay, I thought that was you coming in. All right, We'll coming up. We'll wrap it up. Um. Then one day at Tribute to story Time, we'll do

this again on Wednesday. We'll talk sports of the day or what we can milk out of it the rest of the week right here on a numbers game at Visa and the Sports Betting Network. I am a seek Warrior, one of the greats from Kevin White. We'll put this in podcast form as well for everybody who's listening to it on the Beating the Book podcast. Coming back right here at Visa the Sports Betting Network. Welcome back to a numbers game with you, Alexander. It is the numbers

game right here at least in these things. Betting Network deal Alexander, Chris Andrews guide enough to join us for the entire show today again story time during these uh very surreal times, Chrissie, I think the most amazing thing, and I think it needs to be said about these stories is again for those of us who just weren't around in Vegas. Then I'm not trying to act like I'm twenty years old, but it feels like an era

that is completely foreign to anything we know of. If we are just even a little younger right that that weren't there, that can't imagine these characters, and these characters a lot of it with corporization. Maybe some you know, maybe some casinos have a bit of a throwback, South Point being one of them, but in this corporate era, it's just it's so amazing to hear these tales, these characters, these things actually happened as they did, and you must have a little bit of um nostalgia in you for

those times. I would imagine, oh, absolutely absolutely, And uh, you know, listen, I worked one time, I would say, for a fairly big corporation. We don't way fairly big when I was a golden nugget, and uh didn't work out that well for me. You know. Otherwise, I've been with small companies my whole life and that just fits my personality much much better. And uh, I don't know if it's a nostalgia for the old days, but you know, you know, for me personally, things were just much much

better than it was. It was. It's a whole different era. And if you see, you know, just take a look around you today. You know, as soon as things go bad, I mean, these guys are cutting employees, you know, like like it's nothing. I mean, they were, you know, ruining people's lives, and uh, you know, it's just it was different back then. It just it just was, you know, and uh, you know, in a lot of ways it was better. Some ways it was worse, There's no doubt.

Some ways it was worse, but then a lot of a lot of ways it was better. And you say, there's you're you're definitely the world, definitely working on a second book. You collaborating, collaborating, Okay, No, I decided to take a different approach, and I don't really really want to say exactly what it is. Will be a little different than the first book. Um, I might talk to you privately about what I'm doing, but I don't really want to announce it yet. But it's but I'm I'm

working on it. I'm working on it almost every day. Well, especially now with all this, you know, I have time on my end. So yeah, I am. I am working on it, and uh, you know, I think it's gonna be really good. I think it's gonna be interesting, and you know, just one of those things I want to do. So all right, we'll leave it at that. Um, you can tell whatever you want here. You want to tell the prank on better to Better, You want to tell some adventures in bad book making up to you are?

We're gonna go all the way through in the end here. Yeah, we got about ten minutes. Okay, good, Well, let's start with the Frank story. A lot of people really like that one. Uh this is when I was working at the Barbary Coast and I was working the grade yard during football season, and uh so we had like the one guy who ran the poker room and he was one of those guys that it seemed like every crazy finish of every football game he was on the wrong side and he'd come in and he you know, can

you believe it? Can you believe? Then protect that field goal at the end of the game. Can you believe? You know this? Can you believe that Cowboys blew that lead? Can you every time? And he really was kind of kind of loud about it, and you know, really we all liked the guy. It was. It was a good guy, he really was. But this is one of the things

we just had to hear time and time again. You see those kind of guys in our industry, like just just think every bad break goes together from every single one. So his second inch large. I think I called him Larry in the book. Larry was I think I think it was from Brooklyn. He was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn, old, you know, one of those old kind of ballbuster type guys, you know that. Uh, Like I always loved those guys and it's like, my wife will do it, yeah, because

you're one of them. And uh. He would come in at night and he said, okay, listen, I want you to write me every every game, both sides, for twenty two dollars. And I'm thinking, what what the hell is he doing? This guy was so dumb me. I think, does he have some kind of scam? There's this like a tax right off? I mean, what's he's doing? You know, want me to write every bet, every game twenty two dollars? I write it. You know it's going off for a

couple of weeks. Finally I asked the one kid that relieving me in the morning, I said, what is what's Larry doing? What's that? Because you don't know what he's going No, I can't figure that. He says when Stevie, that was poker manager. And when Stevie comes in and starts screaming and yelling about how this game screwed him or that game screwed him, he lost the big beat. He had a four teamer one and three in and then this one outs and he starts seam whatever the

game is. Larry pulls out a ticket on the other side, for two dollars. Oh my god, you gotta kid. And then I hung around one Monday morning to just to witness this and Stevie screaming and yelling, can you believe you foulps through that interception? And you know, and Stevie would pull out a pickers on, you know, Denver. It was one of those fields. And once I knew what the gig was, this was how alarious. And this went on a whole football season. I have. I left shortly

after that. I was going to tell me of a year later, So I have no idea Stevie ever picked up on what exactly was going on. But this is just one of those things where a guy he's blown two bucks worth of juice on I think there's fourteen games a week. There's twenty eight teams in the league, but fourteen times too. He was blown that kind of juice every single week just to bust the guy's balls every single week. Well worth well worth the juice, well

worth it, juice on every board, you know, Christie. And all these years that we in, all these years that we've done this and again, story time was its own thing on the podcast and definitely on guessing lines on visa as well. I don't think I've ever asked you this question, and maybe that just says, how, how what an oversight this is on my part? And maybe it's asking you to pick your favorite one of your you know,

who's your favorite child? Is there a story among all of these that you like or has a special meaning beyond all the others for you, you know, if I had to pick one, he said, that's really hard, especially you're asking me just kind of off the cuff here.

Probably my my favorite one was when I was the short you know, that's probably my favorite one because you know, I figured out what happens and it was not I mean, it was not you know, playing You know, you can look back now and say, oh, okay, that's but it was, you know, not an easy thing to figure out. And you know, it wasn't that you know, experienced in the business. I was, you know, twenty four years old at the time, so I didn't know that much. But I was smart

enough to figure it out. And I got a rare compliment from my uncle Jack. He didn't throw him around too easily, but when he said, yeah, you did good, kid, Colombo couldn't have done a better job. Figuring that one out.

I think that that's probably my one favorite, just because of how ever it came back and like I said, as much as Jack and left, the hated each other, which they did, and I don't know what happened except if you knew their personalities, neither one was going to take a bunch of crap off anybody, and that's probably what led to their conflict. Um. But left he had enough. He had the class and the honor to say, yeah,

that's Jack's money, Give Jack money. You know. I think that, yeah, that was good all around for all all those guys, and I think, uh, you know, start to finish that that's probably my favorite. But you kind of caught me off guard, so uh, right off the cup, i'd say that that's that's my favorite. But there's there's there's so many of them that it's hard to pick one favorite, really is. Yeah, you know, somebody was telling me the other day too, and I can't remember who it was

to forgive me that that. I don't remember this gentleman, but he was like, you know, it was amazing. The stories were so good that when you ran out of them, because I mean, ultimately there's an end, right like there has there's only so many stories you can tell that people felt who felt so short changed by Like, what do you mean there's no more stories? How can there

not be? You know? And there's about thirty or forty of these and I and they've been told before, and and you'll tell some of the ones that haven't been told in a while on Wednesday. For me, it's it's the Twin brothers with the Minnesota Twins that started all. Um, that has been one. But but you know, if you asked me to pick one, obviously Crying Kenny is is

one that's indelible. But for some reason, the story about Max the hit man is because it's such a because it's such a throwback to that time, right, because it has all the makings mafia actual murder. I believe the number was fifty three, if I'm not mistaken. Um, you know, like that one, to me is the most representative of the time that the lefty Rosenthal stories, all of them. Um, do you ever just stop and think to yourself, Man, what a life I've led? Well, yeah, that's you know,

the closing line of my book. And I was kind of reading the book just to refresh my memory on some of these stories. With the closing line of the book is I said, if I die today, I told my wife and my kids, you make sure you tell everybody in my funeral. I had a one hell of a life. And that's what I said. I I'm one lucky, lucky guy. And uh, you know, you know, let's remember hearing Bob Martin and all people said, listen, you just want to take a big bite out of life. And uh,

you know, I think I've done that. You know, maybe not always on purpose, and bullieve things have not always broken my way. Trust me. I've had my shares of ups and down, but as we know, I think I've I've had a very lucky life, you know, I really have, and I I don't think I would trade it with anybody. You know. It's been good, you know, a lot of fun, you know, in in some small way, and I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to Alan Boston for about eighty minutes uh LAS Week, which we aired

as well. In some way, if if I could just have a small part in preserving some of this stuff, Roxy had the great idea to put all of your story times and give them the audio version of the original podcast to U and l V to have it as a living, breathing history of of Las Vegas. And I think that's something that you'll have to decide what you want to do ultimately with it. Obviously the book is part of that. Um. It's just awesome and we are so thankful once again for having you do it.

And by the way, people are just tuning in right now. Nothing's wrong with Chrissy. He's still with us, he's fine, nothing's happening. Uh, he's doing great. But just thank you again. That's right, that's right, so appreciate it. The book is then one day Chris will talk to you Wednesday. Thanks so much, man. Good sounds good.