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Our Deadliest Pastime · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Tony Marino thought that he knew what frustration was. But
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  Speaker 1: no matter how hard he worked or how carefully he schemed,
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  Speaker 1: his plans just kept falling apart. It was supposed to
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  Speaker 1: be simple, an easy way to get rid of a
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  Speaker 1: nuisance and get rich in the process. But try as
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  Speaker 1: Tony might, Michael Molloy simply would not die. The whole
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  Speaker 1: thing started late one night in nineteen thirty three in
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  Speaker 1: Tony Marine Knows Bronx Speakeasy. Tony was playing pe knuckle
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  Speaker 1: with the boys. There was Red Murphy, Tony's bartender, Daniel Kriegsberg,
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  Speaker 1: the fruit vendor, and Francis Pasqual the undertaker. As they
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  Speaker 1: placed bets, they talked business, and business was bad. They
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  Speaker 1: was the depths of the depression, and all of the
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  Speaker 1: men were having trouble paying their bills. Wouldn't it be nice,
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  Speaker 1: someone said, if they had a rich aunt or uncle
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  Speaker 1: who died, or even a poor one with a big,
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  Speaker 1: fat life insurance payout. Too bad. None of them had
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  Speaker 1: such luck. And that's when Tony Marino first broached the idea.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe he said they could make their own luck. Pick
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  Speaker 1: someone expendable, someone who lived on the margins, someone nobody
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  Speaker 1: would miss, someone like Michael molloy. Michael was a regular
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  Speaker 1: at the speakeasy. In another life, he'd been a fireman
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  Speaker 1: in Ireland, but now he just stumbled through the bronx
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  Speaker 1: looking for his next drink. The way they saw it,
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  Speaker 1: he was going to drink himself to death anyway, So
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  Speaker 1: who would mind if Tony and the boys just sped
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  Speaker 1: up the process. The gang quickly took an insurance policy
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  Speaker 1: out on poor old Mike for eighteen hundred dollars, the
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  Speaker 1: equivalent of nearly forty four thousand dollars today. They would
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  Speaker 1: be plenty to settle their debts and help them through
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  Speaker 1: the depression. All they had to do was make sure
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  Speaker 1: that Mike died accidentally. The plan was simple. They would
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  Speaker 1: tell old Mike that it was his lucky day. Tony
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  Speaker 1: informed the man that he now had an unlimited tab.
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  Speaker 1: He could drink as much liquor as his liver could handle,
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  Speaker 1: and then some. Now all Tony had to do was
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  Speaker 1: sit back, relax, and wait. But Tony quickly realized that
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  Speaker 1: he would be waiting for a long time. Every night,
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  Speaker 1: Michael drank himself into a stupor at the bar, and
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  Speaker 1: every morning he would reappear ready for another drink. So
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  Speaker 1: Tony and the gang decided to step it up. First,
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  Speaker 1: they gave him bad alcohol. With prohibition in place, there
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  Speaker 1: was plenty of dodgy spirits that Red couldn't serve the customers,
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  Speaker 1: but Michael drank them like they were water. Next, Tony
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  Speaker 1: tried anti freeze, then turpentine, rat poison, and finally ethanol,
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  Speaker 1: the stuff that makes you go blind. The gang even
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  Speaker 1: made Michael a special sandwich equal parts rotten sardines, poison,
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  Speaker 1: and metal tax Michael's iron stomach prevailed. By this point,
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  Speaker 1: they'd been trying to kill Michael for an entire month.
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  Speaker 1: The next payment on the insurance policy was coming up,
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  Speaker 1: and if they didn't kill him soon, the policy might lapse,
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  Speaker 1: so they needed to try something completely different. The next
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  Speaker 1: cold night, Tony waited until Michael drank himself unconscious. He
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  Speaker 1: and the gang dragged Michael out to the park, stripped
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  Speaker 1: him naked, and dumped him in a pile of fresh snow.
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  Speaker 1: They poured water on him and left him to freeze
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  Speaker 1: to death. Of course, Michael was back again in the
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  Speaker 1: morning without even a shiver. A few days later, they
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  Speaker 1: tried yet again. This time they enlisted the help of
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  Speaker 1: a cab driver named Harry Green. They lured Michael out
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  Speaker 1: into the street and had Harry run him down at
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  Speaker 1: forty five miles an hour. Imagine their disappointment when Michael
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  Speaker 1: showed up three weeks later with a couple of broken
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  Speaker 1: bones and demand for more whiskey. Finally, Tony had had enough.
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  Speaker 1: If they were going to kill Michael, they needed to
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  Speaker 1: kill him right. So on February twenty second of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty three, they waited for Michael to drink himself silly.
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  Speaker 1: Once he was out for the night, they brought him
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  Speaker 1: upstairs to Red Murphy's room. They placed a hose in
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  Speaker 1: his mouth, connected it to a gas jet, and turned
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  Speaker 1: it on. An hour later, Michael Malloy was finally truly
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  Speaker 1: and completely dead. Carbon monoxide had finally been the thing
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  Speaker 1: to do him in. With all the attempts on Mike's life,
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  Speaker 1: rumors of an unkillable Irishman were swirling around the Bronx,
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  Speaker 1: so when he was finally declared dead, the police quickly
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  Speaker 1: grew suspicious. Once they exhumed the body, it was easy
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  Speaker 1: enough to spot evidence of foul play, and the culprits
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  Speaker 1: were well known to the citizens of the Bronx with
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  Speaker 1: how often they had tried to kill Mike. All five
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  Speaker 1: were arrested for murder. The cab driver was given a
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  Speaker 1: prison sentence, while Red, Daniel, Francis, and Tony were all
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  Speaker 1: executed for their crimes. Tony and the boys probably thought
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  Speaker 1: that Michael Molloy would be easy money. It turns out
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  Speaker 1: killing Mike was a grave mistake. Sports are an incredibly
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  Speaker 1: popular form of entertainment all around the world. As a result,
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  Speaker 1: sports injuries are just a fact of life. Whether it's
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  Speaker 1: Little league or the major leagues, athletes risk serious harm
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  Speaker 1: to play the games they love. When it comes to baseball,
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  Speaker 1: it's the fans who are the highest risk of injury.
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  Speaker 1: Baseball stands seem like a safe place. The hot dogs,
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  Speaker 1: the drinks, the cheering. Sure people get hurt by a
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  Speaker 1: stray ball from time to time, but no one ever
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  Speaker 1: dies right. Well, a look back at a very unique
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  Speaker 1: baseball game from the early twentieth century might have you
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  Speaker 1: reconsidering your season tickets. The game in question took place
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen oh two in Morristown. Nineteen year old Stanton
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  Speaker 1: Walker was a big baseball fan. There was a baseball
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  Speaker 1: field directly behind his family home. A young sports enthusiast
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  Speaker 1: couldn't ask for a better setup. He and his friends
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  Speaker 1: Frank and Leroy would sit on a fence outside the diamond,
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  Speaker 1: watching the local teams play. Once they were old enough,
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  Speaker 1: they became the official scorekeepers, and with no physical scoreboard,
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  Speaker 1: it fell to the three friends to track every inning.
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  Speaker 1: Now they used old fashioned pencil and paper to accomplish
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  Speaker 1: this task. The only problem was that occasionally that pencil
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  Speaker 1: needed to be sharpened well. On October twenty fifth of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen oh two, Stanton, Leroy, and Frank were all watching
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  Speaker 1: a game from the fence. As usual, Stanton sat in
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  Speaker 1: between Leroy and Frank, and for this game, Frank was
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  Speaker 1: keeping score. When his pencil ran low, he asked lee
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  Speaker 1: Roy if he could borrow his knife to sharpen it.
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  Speaker 1: Leroy obliged, producing his knife and handing it to Stanton
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  Speaker 1: to hand to Frank. Stanton took the knife, gripping the
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  Speaker 1: handle so that the blade was pointed to his body.
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  Speaker 1: Not the safest choice, and at that very moment they
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  Speaker 1: heard the crack of a ball being hit by a
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  Speaker 1: bat and looked up to see a ball flying right
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  Speaker 1: at them. Before they could react, it hit Stanton in
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  Speaker 1: the hand and drove the knife right into his chest.
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  Speaker 1: The blade entered between his ribs, severing an artery below
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  Speaker 1: his heart. He fell from the fence into the grass.
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  Speaker 1: Frank and Leroy jumped down next to him, asking if
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  Speaker 1: he was hurt, but by then it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: He was already dead. Now, some listeners might hear this
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  Speaker 1: tale of a foul ball and suspect foul play, but
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  Speaker 1: Frank and Leroy had at least two full baseball teams
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  Speaker 1: worth of witnesses to back up their story. Each and
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  Speaker 1: every person on that field had their eye on the
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  Speaker 1: ball as it sailed through the air and made fatal
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  Speaker 1: contact with Stanton Walker's hand. It seems that in the
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  Speaker 1: end he was just really unlucky, but luck aside death
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  Speaker 1: in the stands around a baseball diamond are more common
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  Speaker 1: than you might think. A September nineteen twenty eight game
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  Speaker 1: in Ifaca, New York, saw another tragic death when a
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  Speaker 1: player named Carlton Berger hit a foul ball. It went
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  Speaker 1: directly into the stands, where it struck and killed his father.
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  Speaker 1: But if these old school examples just seem like a
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  Speaker 1: case of low safety standards, consider that games have only
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  Speaker 1: gotten more dangerous since the nineteen seventies. This was when
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  Speaker 1: many major league teams in the US began constructing the
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  Speaker 1: massive stadiums that we're familiar with today, with some rising
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  Speaker 1: as high as thirty feet into the air. Several fans
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  Speaker 1: have taken fatal plunges when trying to catch a home run,
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  Speaker 1: soaring above their heads. But even if you survive the fall,
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  Speaker 1: don't look for anyone to pay your medical bills. Many
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  Speaker 1: teams have what's now known in legal circles as the
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  Speaker 1: Baseball Rule. It's printed on the back of your ticket
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  Speaker 1: and it says that the park is not responsible for
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  Speaker 1: any injury sustained from loose balls or bats. And look,
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  Speaker 1: I know that the old song says, take me out
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  Speaker 1: to the ballgame, but it seems like if we're not careful.
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  Speaker 1: We might just get taken out at the ballgame. And
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  Speaker 1: if that happens, I think we can call that curious.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldolore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.