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The Death Row Baseball Team and Other Odd Episodes in History

Khalid Elhassan May 18, 2020 34 min

Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption, and Murder - State Penitentiary — Alston's All Stars. Daily Mail

37. Shocked, Shocked, to Find That Gambling Is Going On Here

Shoes made from the skin of George Parrot, a 19th-century train robber who was lynched in Wyoming. Death Row All Stars

The Alston All Stars (and death row players) played before packed crowds in baseball-mad Rawlins, WY. It was a harshly conservative town where wrongdoers were punished to the full extent of the law, and then some. The townspeople often did not bother waiting for the law to run its course: desperados caught in the act of murder, rape, or robbery, were often lynched on the spot, and not only hanged, but even skinned.

The good people of Rawlins were not only baseball mad, but also gambling mad. That was one thing they had in common with the All Stars, as well as with warden Felix Alston. Indeed, during the death row All Stars’ run, team captain George Saban developed a sideline as a bookie, going to local saloons and dives, taking bets on his team’s games, and pocketing a 20% commission.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.