Posted on 01/26/2022 8:32:42 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Ten days after the 1906 earthquake, Tony Accardo was born in Chicago’s Little Italy. Accardo was 14 when he dropped out of school. By 16, he was working for Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, one of Al Capone’s hit men, and in his mid-20s, he was promoted to be Capone’s bodyguard. Two decades later, Accardo had risen to the top of the Chicago Outfit, one of America’s most-feared organized crime families.
This Sunday, 116 years after Accardo was born, his great-grandson Nick Bosa — a boss of a very different sort — will take the field for the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game. It’s one of the NFL’s strangest connections: a mob capo and a football dynasty.
Bosa’s great-grandfather got the nickname “Joe Batters” as a mere teen, allegedly due to a penchant for beating disloyal compatriots with a baseball bat. Accardo eventually met Capone at the race track, where he was betting on ponies. He became Capone's chauffeur-bodyguard — and potentially more.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
In all fairness Lucky was quietly released and deported to Sicily after the war. Probably as good a deal as he could have hoped for.
I’ve read that any American soldier on Sicily could invoke the Luciano name and be treated like royalty by the locals. Good food, wine and...umm..hugs and kisses from the ladies.
The Luciano name carried some heavy weight.
Butch O’Hare, Navy ace, MOH recipient and namesake of O’Hare airport was the son of a Capone lawyer who later turned against his boss and was killed for snitching.
Grandfather: I never wanted this for little Nicky. Glad he broke out.
Oh and tell him…that game next Saturday… they gotta lose…ok?
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