Sport: Death of Nick

As it must to all men, Death came last week to Nick F.

Nicholas Forzely, or Forzelli, was his real name. He was a race-track gambler, the son of a Syrian hop-seller, who seldom bet on a horse except to win. In the course of his wild career, he was often broke and more than once a millionaire. In 1923 he swaggered into New Orleans with a few dollars in his pocket and came away, after the season’s racing, with $800,000. A few months later he lost his money and got pneumonia. He went to a hospital and said, “Pneumonia is easy to beat.”

Once he put his entire bankroll, $327,000, on a horse and won. Sometimes he made book, sometimes he bet against the bookmakers. He had a staff of scouts and dockers but not infrequently he bet against the information they brought him. Stocky, grey-haired, he used to watch the races with a smile on his face, saying nothing. Horses he liked to bet on best, but (like all good gamblers) he would bet on anything uncertain. He started out as an accountant in England; he staked gamblers when they were down and out. Writing he found arduous; he got his nickname from the way he always signed a booky’s ticket. He invented certain words which remained his own and did not become slang. When one of his friends died or a winner finished in the ruck, Nick would say, “He wiggled

When Nick F. wiggled off, the New York Times, whose city editor would not know about a race-track gambler, ran a confused story which spoke of Nick F. as “Nick the Greek.” Nick the Greek (Nicholas Dandolas) is a gambler too but he seldom plays the horses. Craps, low ball, stud poker and faro are his specialties. Jack Dempsey’s friend, he lost a hundred grand on the first Dempsey-Tunney fight. At last reports, Nick the Greek was alive and broke in Los Angeles.

Like Nick F. and Nick the Greek, many gamblers are known by mysterious and confusing titles. The most successful racetrack gambler at present is Chicago O’Brien, who regards running horses as an investment. Saratoga is his capital; he plays one horse a day, usually a favorite, and never goes broke overnight.

The Broadway game, an itinerant and expensive Manhattan crap tournament, is often patronized by 0. K. Coakley, Long George, Dollar John, Titanic, Fred Perry, the Elk City Flash.

John the Barber is a gambler now somewhat obscure. He was Dempsey’s first manager. Later (1919) he was connected with the Black Sox baseball scandal and is alleged to have profited by racehorse tampering.

Jerry the Greek, alias Jerry the Rubber, Jerry Luvadis, is a less shady character. Incapable of reading or writing, he is a trainer of Jack Dempsey, is famed for a perfume stronger than ammonia which he uses in large quantities.

Gangsters and gunmen have names that describe their talents. The Rough Riders of Jack the Dropper, were led by Kid Dropper, so called because in the early days of his career, he often pounced on children pitching pennies, beat them to earth and seized their coins.

Gyp the Blood, Leftie Louie, Dago Frank, etc., were executed for killing Rosenthal. Another Gyp the Blood, a onetime newspaper man, was an undercover prohibition agent.

Jack the Ripper is a title applied to criminals who kill women by slitting them with a knife. The original Jack the Ripper was an Englishman who had his own special technique, more effectively sadistic than the others.

All these men, good or bad, have often confessed a certain pride in their nicknames.