Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series

History remembers Arnold Rothstein as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, an underworld genius. The real-life model for The Great Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim and Nathan Detroit from Guys and Dolls, Rothstein was much more -- and less -- than a fixer of baseball games. He was everything that made 1920s Manhattan roar. Featuring Jazz Age Broadway with its thugs, speakeasies, showgirls, political movers and shakers, and stars of the Golden Age of Sports, this is a biography of the man who dominated an age. Arnold Rothstein was a loan shark, pool shark, bookmaker, thief, fence of stolen property, political fixer, Wall Street swindler, labor racketeer, rumrunner, and mastermind of the modern drug trade. Among his monikers were "The Big Bankroll," "The Brain," and "The Man Uptown." This vivid account of Rothstein's life is also the story of con artists, crooked cops, politicians, gang lords, newsmen, speakeasy owners, gamblers and the like. Finally unraveling the mystery of Rothstein's November 1928 murder in a Times Square hotel room, David Pietrusza has cemented The Big Bankroll's place among the most influential and fascinating legendary American criminals. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs are featured.

Called "a national treasure" and one "of the best historians in the United States," David Pietrusza has produced a number of critically-acclaimed works concerning 20th century American history.
His book 1960: LBJ vs JFK vs Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies was named by ForeWord Magazine as among the best political biographies.
Pietrusza's 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents received a Kirkus starred review, was honored as a Kirkus "Best Books of 2007" title, and was named an alternate selection of the History Book Club. Historian Richard Norton Smith has listed 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents as being among the best studies of presidential campaigns. 1920"reached #1 best-selling rank in three amazon.com non-fiction categories.
Pietrusza's biography of Arnold Rothstein entitled Rothstein: The Life, Times & Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series was a finalist for the 2003 Edgar Award. 
Pietrusza's Judge and Jury, his biography of baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, received the 1998 CASEY Award.
Pietrusza collaborated with baseball legend Ted Williams on an autobiography called Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures.
He has been interviewed on NPR, MSNBC, C-SPAN, ESPN, the Fox News Channel, EBRU-TV, and the Fox Sports Channel. He has produced and written the PBS-affiliate documentary, "Local Heroes." He has served as a regular panelist on FoxNews.com Live.
Pietrusza holds a master's degrees in history from the University at Albany and has served on the City Council in Amsterdam, New York. 
Pietrusza is the Recipient of the 2011 Excellence in Arts & Letters Award of the Alumni Association of the University at Albany.