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Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that drops into your inbox like an R. A. Dickey knuckleball.
Let’s dive in.
Today’s story is about an underground poker game that could’ve cost A-Rod his career.
Over the years, Alex Rodriguez has been the subject of several MLB scandals and investigations.
There was the issues with PED’s, the infamous slap, and of course, the rumors about him owning paintings of himself as a centaur.
Then in ‘05, Rodriguez was warned by Bud Selig and the league to stay out of underground poker clubs.
MLB was concerned that Rodriguez’s involvement with gamblers could result in a Pete Rose type of situation that might lead to a lifetime ban for A-Rod, and another blemish on baseball’s reputation.
After his warning, it appeared that A-Rod dialed things back for a while.
Until, he met Molly Bloom.
If you’ve never seen the movie they made about Molly and her story, it’s a must-watch.
Easily one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.
Bloom, a former skier who was injured while trying to qualify for the Olympics, ran the most exclusive high-stakes poker game in the world before she was arrested by the FBI.
Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck we’re just a few of her regulars.
In ‘11, one of Bloom's games in LA was shut down after one of her former clients, Bradley Ruderman, was arrested for a running a Ponzi scheme.
That’s when all the dirty laundry came out.
Ruderman admitted to spending around $25 million on personal expenses including $5.2 million on gambling debts, and several eyewitnesses came forward to expose even more details about the games.
Specifically, there was a story about a game that was hosted at Cody Leibel’s $16.5 million mansion in Beverly Hills, now owned by Katy Perry.
The buy-in was $100,000, cocaine was used openly, and apparently Dan Bilzerian was in attendance.
Bilzerian said a fight almost broke out when Leibel refused to pay after losing more than half a million dollars.
A-Rod immediately tried to distance himself from the situation.
After everything went down, he paid his debts (a few thousand bucks) and left, but it wasn’t the last time he went to one of Molly’s games.
Allegedly, Molly helped A-Rod set up his own “hush-hush” game down in Miami back in ‘09.
But once again, it ended with one of the players refusing to pay his debt and calling in thugs to protect him while he escaped.
Rodriguez denied ever being apart of these games, and he was never suspended for gambling.
BASEBALL TRIVIA
Find the answer at the bottom of this email!
STRANGE NAMES
If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.
Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.
If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.
Today's winner is:
Zip’s real name was actually George Washington.
He played three seasons for the Cubs, and in 1915 he set a record for most innings pitched by a reliever.
Zabel came in with two outs in the first inning and then proceeded to pitch 18.1 innings to finish the game.
Shortly after, he developed arm problems (naturally) and that was his final season.
THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE
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BASEBALL TRIVIA ANSWER: Lou Gehrig