The Bookie as Hero

Howie was sitting in a straight-backed chair at a kitchen table, propping a telephone receiver between his shoulder and left ear and scribbling rapidly on a large yellow legal pad. His assistant clerk, Lenny, was poised by another phone, drawing neat lines on his own paper so he could keep things in order once the day's hectic business began. It was a crisp autumn Sunday in New York, and within the next 12 hours, there would be a dozen pro-football games and 17 major-league baseball contests, including double-headers and a night game in Texas, which is a favorite with many gamblers who like to prolong the day's action. It was the kind of schedule that makes bookmakers prosperous--but also makes them work very hard to earn their supposedly easy living.

The "office" did not open for bets until noon, but by 11:40, Howie was enduring some of the small aggravations of the bookmaking profession. The "line man," supplier of the odds on the games, was busy and impatient, and he was quoting the prices so fast that it was a struggle to write them down. The man was also giving some odds that made Howie wince and interrupt him. "How can you make the Yankees that high a favorite, the way Ed Figueroa pitched the last two weeks?" he moaned. "And that Buffalo price, it'll swamp me with action on the Jets. I got a million guys will love the Jets over Buffalo."

"You clerks are all the smartest bastards in the world," snapped the line man. "Go ahead, make your own line and get killed. Show the boss how smart you are." Howie shook his head and resumed writing.

The other phone rang and Lenny grabbed it. "Pillow for S.R.," said the voice on the other end. It was the code name of a steady customer. "I need the football line and the baseball prices for the East Coast games only."

"You know the office don't open till noon," said Lenny.

"But I can't wait. Tell Howie just this once, do me a favor. I got to have the line now."

"No way. We're still getting it over the other phone."

"But it's really an emergency." Pillow's voice was tense and hoarse. "My mother died and the funeral's at noon. If I don't get my bets down now, I'll miss out on all the one-o'clock games."

Lenny laughed and relayed the message. Howie asked the line man to wait a minute: "Tell Pillow to give us his teams and we'll fill in the prices later."

Vastly relieved, Pillow bet $100 on each of four football games and placed a $60 parlay on the Mets and Yankees. Through a combination of trust and desperation for action, he never worried that Howie might cheat him on the odds. "And he's right," Howie said later. "The way he's going, nobody has to cheat to keep beating him."

•

Some bookmakers would have ridiculed Pillow. There are a lot of people taking bets in this country, particularly in the higher echelons of the gambling business, who look down on all the "suckers" and "degenerates" whose craving for action sends bookies on their Acapulco vacations. Because the percentages of the industry guarantee that in the long run the office must win and the bettor must lose, a certain type of smug bookmaker basks in the conviction that he is smart and people who bet on sports are dumb.

Howie is not that kind of bookie. So he was merely amused by the frantic Pillow, just as he smiles at the dozens of other voices of hope and desperation and boastful confidence that he hears each week. Howie understands and likes gamblers because he is one of them. He is 31 years old and he has bet steadily since he handicapped his first trotter at Yonkers Raceway when he was 16. He has been making book for about two years but has not become hardened to the excitement of being in action. Theoretically, a bookie assures himself a profit by accepting an equal amount of wagering on both sides in every game and merely keeping the vigorish, or juice, that the bettor pays in return for his services. But it never really works out that neatly. A bookie always "needs" one team in each game--and that's fine with Howie.

"In all the years I was betting for myself," he says, "I dreamed of having bets on every single game being played. But, of course, I could never afford it. Now, on a busy day in a season like college basketball, I may go home at night knowing that I have action going in every state in the Union. How many people in life have that kind of wish come true?"

Since bookmakers vary widely in attitude, lifestyle and appearance, it is much harder to select a typical bookie than it is to find, for example, a typical accountant or hairdresser. But Howie is reasonably representative of many of his hard-working, upward-striving colleagues on the lower-middle-management level of the gambling business. As such, he also contradicts many of the stereotypes that have grown up around the trade.

Howie was raised in the Bronx, did well in high school and has worked as a bookkeeper for several legitimate businesses. His wardrobe runs mainly to jeans and windbreakers; he wears no flashy jewelry. Unlike older gamblers, who always seem to be named Tommy the Priest or Willie the Clutch, he bears no catchy or ominous nickname; he is short, skinny and clearly incapable of inflicting any personal violence on reluctant payers. He lives in a modest Manhattan apartment and has an attractive girlfriend named Jill, who often helps him calculate each day's wins and losses.

For entertainment, Howie plays poker two or three times a week; he also loves watching ball games on television. He doesn't go out with women other than Jill and when he dines out, he chooses a modest Chinese restaurant or a steak place. "A lot of broads and fancy food happen to be things I don't need," he says. "I'd rather sit home and watch myself win a big game on TV in overtime."

Howie is an unusual bookie in one respect: He is both a clerk and a runner. A clerk is in charge of taking bets on the phone, keeping track of the flow of money and shifts of odds, and finally calculating all the "work" and finding out who won and who lost; his most important asset is accuracy. A runner does the paying and collecting, so he must be good at making and maintaining personal contacts. Most offices separate the functions; Howie does both jobs, increasing his income but doubling his work load.

Howie broke into the trade with a small operation known as a quarter-sheet. That means that he got to keep one quarter of the profits before turning the rest over to his boss. After about a year of acceptable performance, he was promoted to a half-sheet, which allows him to keep 50 percent. The arrangement is not quite that simple, of course. Lenny, the assistant, must be paid. Several steerers are also in on the action; when Pillow added "for S.R." to his code name, for example, he was giving the initials of the man who steered him to Howie. S.R. has no direct connection to the office but still gets a percentage of Pillow's losses. Finally, there is Victor, a burly, gruff-speaking veteran who brought Howie into the business and still works with him on occasion in return for a piece of the take.

Victor is Italian and tough and he gives the impression of being much better connected with organized crime than Howie and Lenny, who are Jewish and mild-mannered. Victor has a numbers game in the south Bronx and several "baseball agents" in the bars of Spanish Harlem--where the customers bet on whether each batter will hit the ball to the infield or the outfield. Dealing in those high-speed, high-risk games obviously requires more muscle than taking sports bets from Manhattan office workers, and to emphasize how strong he can be, Victor likes to tell the story of the time the money blew out of his pocket in the Garment District.

"I was walking down Seventh Avenue and the wind was swirling around," Victor says. "I reached into my pocket and somehow my whole wad came out and slipped away from me. All of a sudden, there's 3000 bucks blowing around the sidewalk, and all these Puerto Ricans are leaving their garment carts and scrambling around for my money. I knew I had to do something quick, so I grabbed one guy...." At this point, Victor clenches a fist, lets his voice trail off and leaves a (continued on page 190)The Bookie as Hero(continued from page 150) gap in the narrative. "A minute later," he continues, "all those guys were running over and giving me my money back. Out of three grand, I lost maybe $130." Victor does not bother to specify what he did to the guy he grabbed. When he uses the story to strike fear into bettors who are slow in paying, he finds it more effective to let them imagine for themselves whether he killed the guy or merely maimed him.

The boss maintains a very low profile, calling once or twice a day to keep up with which teams the bettors are favoring and meeting Howie once a week to settle up. The boss oversees perhaps a dozen moderate-sized sheets in his area; his system is roughly similar to that of a fast-food franchiser. He provides a newcomer with training, a guide to finding customers and occasional services such as warnings of police interference and assistance in collecting bad debts. In return, he expects certain standards of smooth operation, an honest count and a specified piece of the profit. Howie will not say much about his boss but gives the impression that his superior is just another bookmaker, hoping that the wins keep outnumbering the losses--a hard-working executive a rung or two above Howie in the industry.

Ultimately, organized crime is involved in all this; but in most cases, it remains a vague and distant force. The mere knowledge of the Mob's existence is intimidating enough to keep eager young bookies from deciding they want more than half of their sheets; newcomers realize very quickly that if they don't pay for support from the organization, they will not last long in the trade. And it does not take a genius to figure out that the money keeps filtering up through various executive levels to the top, where it may be channeled into drugs, loan-sharking and other criminal enterprises, far less savory than the victimless act of helping people bet.

But that kind of maneuvering takes place far above Howie or even his boss. At Howie's level, the closest thing to a criminal is the field-goal kicker who hooks a short one left of the goal post, costing Howie maybe $5000. And while it is soothing to know that someone up above is keeping an eye on police patterns and maintaining people who can be very convincing bill collectors, Howie scarcely thinks of those factors in his daily grind.

"I asked for help only once in two years," he says. "A guy lost $2400 in baseball and he didn't pay a cent for a year. Finally, I had the boss send some guys to see him. The guy kept screaming, 'Go ahead, kill me, I don't have the money. Kill me, because I can't pay.' They reasoned with him and now he's paying. It's only $25 or $50 a week, but at least he's trying to do what's right."

Howie refuses to reveal his income, and a survey of other bookies produced only a vague estimate: An office of his size probably nets him between $25,000 and $40,000 a year. "I couldn't tell you how much I make if I wanted to," he says. "Some weeks you win, some weeks you lose. Sometimes you go on a dry spell for months. In the end, obviously, I come out of it with a decent living. But who has time to keep score over a whole year?" The Internal Revenue Service doesn't get to keep score, either. Like most bookies, Howie pays taxes on a modest "salary" (which he does not receive) from a friend who lists him on a payroll in a "straight" business.

Whatever his precise income may be, Howie earns it. On most days, he spends four hours on the phones, two before the day games and two more in the evenings. Adding up the day's work means several more hours of painstaking calculations. And on several days a week, Howie spends another three or four hours traveling around the city to pay off or collect from customers. The routine varies with the seasons, but it hardly ever comes to a complete halt. Howie works seven days a week, 361 days a year. His only vacations come on Christmas Day, when, to the chagrin of millions of bettors, there is not a single thing to wager on, and during baseball's three-day All-Star break. At that time, Howie leaves Lenny to handle the lone betting event, the All-Star game itself. For his vacation, he boards a junket flight to Las Vegas to shoot craps.

•

Moments after he finished taking the odds from his line man, Howie dialed another bookie, who uses a different odds-maker. "I think my guy's way off on the Yankees and Jets," he said. "What did your guy make the games?" The other office was using the same odds. Howie put down his pen and left his sheet untouched. He would go with his line man's prices.

"I have a good opinion of myself," he explained. "I could make my own line and not get burned. I mean, if the line guy had a heart attack, I wouldn't have to shut down. But over all, the line guys are specialists; it's their business. So you got to respect them. Besides, they have access to so much information about injuries or last-minute pitching changes, all that bullshit. So you got to listen to them."

•

Because a good line is one of the central ingredients in a successful bookmaking office, this is a suitable time to explain the making of odds to the 11 or 12 Americans who have reportedly never bet--and to the millions who are misinformed on the subject. Football and basketball have the simplest system: A stronger team must give a certain number of points to a weaker team to equalize the betting prospects. If San Diego is rated seven points over Buffalo, for example, San Diego must win by eight in order for its backers to collect. If it wins by six or less--or loses the game outright--the Buffalo bettors are the winners. Incidentally, bettors on both sides put up $110 for every $100 they hope to win; the extra ten dollars is the vigorish that provides the bookie's income.

Baseball betting requires a point line that is slightly more complicated. When a good team plays a poor team, the strong one will be quoted as, say, an 8-9 favorite. (This refers to the basic five-dollar unit.) In other words, bettors who want the favorite must put up nine dollars to win five dollars; those who choose the weak team put up five dollars to win only eight dollars. The missing point between the nine dollars taken in and the eight dollars paid out is the vigorish, the bookie's cut.

Contrary to some misconceptions, there is no single omniscient oddsmaker sitting in Las Vegas or some other gambling center and handing down point spreads. Every major city or region has perhaps half a dozen of its own line men; like insurance actuaries, they mull over detailed mathematical facts and sort them into simple numbers that their employers, the bookies, can use. Some line men are proud and individualistic. But, like bookies, they understand the value of belonging to the organization; they always compare notes.

On a typical Sunday night during football season, for example, a line man will go over the day's scores and the following week's schedule. Then he will make his own point spreads on the next weekend's games. Many oddsmakers do not even watch games on television. They insist that the games become distorted, overemphasizing certain fumbles, penalties or other versions of what is called luck--and they are concerned with figures rather than with luck. Thousands of bettors lose every week on favorite teams they feel shoulda won the previous televised encounter. Line men survive because they consider only who actually did win.

Once the preliminary figures are set up, the oddsmakers call one another and debate adjustments. Good line men are seldom more than a point apart in their assessments, but even half-point switches can be crucial in avoiding a flood of money on one side of a game--and unemployment for the oddsmaker who errs too often.

These anonymous characters should be distinguished from famous oddsmakers such as Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, whose point spreads and predictions appear in newspapers. Snyder knows odds, but he is also a handicapper, willing to adjust points slightly to favor teams that impress him. His odds may often turn out to be closer to the result of a given game than those of the line men. But the local oddsmakers aren't trying to predict the result; they must predict how people will bet, in order to equalize the bookies' action. In daily sports like baseball and basketball, they obviously have less time for consultation and refinement. But despite the pressures on them, their skills still produce amazingly reliable odds.

Then it is up to the bookie to make his own hour-to-hour shifts in response to the ebb and flow of the bets he takes on the phone. As Howie's phones began ringing, he soon learned that the line man had been right on the Buffalo-Jets game; there was no overwhelming action on the Jets. But the price on Yankee pitcher Figueroa had, indeed, been too high. As he had feared, Howie quickly wrote down $3000 in bets against the Yanks. He and Lenny counted only a handful of $50 and $100 plays on the pitcher. Cursing, Howie moved the line downward from 8--9 to 7-1/2--8-1/2 at 12:30.

"I'm free to change any line," Howie said. "The trick is to lure guys into betting a certain way--without driving any action away on either side. You hope a guy who wouldn't lay 9-5 on a team will be tempted by the bargain prices at 8-1/2--5. But you don't want to dry up all the action the other way. We're still in this business to handle bets."

Some bookmakers take a stronger position when they manipulate their odds. A move of half a point in baseball or football or a full point in basketball is usually enough to change betting patterns; more drastic changes tend to unbalance things too much in the opposite direction. Some small bookies have gained minor fame by their willingness to juggle lines beyond those limits. One was a personable Irishman, who wound up trying to get even by becoming a stagehand. Another was a popular Bronx character named Jerry Machine, who went so far as to ignore his bosses entirely and make his own prices when he felt strongly about a game. Jerry maneuvered so boldly and unwisely that he climaxed one football season by trying to rob a gas station to cover his losses. Like many of the teams he had bet on, Machine almost pulled it off. Then he accidentally shot himself in the foot.

•

The calls kept coming, and neither of the two phones ever remained on the hook for more than ten seconds. But Howie and Lenny stayed calm, writing the bets carefully and repeating them to the customers. Some clerks in major bookie offices live in dread of shutting out a customer by tying up the phones too long. Shutting out a bettor cuts down the day's betting "handle" and inevitably leads to some furious complaints: No gambler who ever got shut out has ever admitted that he had been planning to bet on some losers. As a result, many nervous clerks tend to rush bettors to get them off the phone. "I won't do that," said Howie. "You rush, you make mistakes. Then you got beefs with customers and confusion that might make the boss think you're cheating him."

Howie's arguments with clients are usually minor. "Dutch for J.K.," said one voice on the phone. "What's my figure for last night?"

"You lose $238," said Howie.

"No," said Dutch, "it was $224. I figured it out on my electronic calculator."

"Me and Jill figured it on paper with a pencil," said Howie. "I'll bet you 50 more that we're better than your calculator." Dutch refused the bet. After some discussion, he also admitted that the loss was $238.

As for the boss, Howie has never had a problem with accusations of cheating. "Anybody can arrange collusion with a customer and write in winning bets that the guys really didn't make," he said. "A guy got fired for that the other day. But who needs that risk? I'm honest all the way. My boss is lucky. And, of course, he checks up now and then, too."

The familiar voices kept sounding over the phone: Fats, who bets modestly until college-basketball season, when he steps up his action because he considers himself an expert; he usually lasts a month into that season before going broke. The Group, a name assigned to four guys who devised a system for baseball and have lost $5000 over the season. Doc, a guy from the race track whom Howie never even imagined to be a real doctor--until he called a number Doc had given him in order to arrange a collection, and a hospital nurse answered.

"This is Pizza," a restaurant owner growled. "Do ya know what happened to me last night?"

"Yeah," said Lenny, who happened to take his call. "You lost."

"When that guy on the Mets got thrown out at the plate," Pizza persisted, "I threw a glass at the TV in my joint."

"You do that once a week, don't you? You're spending more time getting that TV fixed than you spend handicapping the games."

"It takes no time at all," Pizza said. "I got a guy always standing by to fix it."

"OK, Pizza, we're kinda busy," laughed Lenny. "So how many times you want the Mets today?"

"I swore I'd never bet those bums again. But, well, give me the rat bastards 40 times." A time is five dollars. Before he stopped bemoaning his bad luck and hung up, Pizza had bet four other games 20 times each.

"We could sit here and predict about half the bets we take," said Howie. "Some guys always bet their favorite teams. Others use only home teams that are underdogs. The Group, they devised a brilliant book that kept track of what pitchers were hot. It didn't take a genius to figure what pitchers they'd like. If I wanted, I could maneuver the prices on all of them to get a bigger edge. But it isn't worth it. For one thing, they might find somebody else with the real prices and take their business away from me. And, anyway, none of them are doing all that great--why bother to mess them up?"

When a bettor is truly unlucky, of course, it hardly matters what the bookie does for him or to him. One East Side bar owner who was a fanatical New York Giant fan spent an entire season betting on the Giants, who seldom made a first down that fall. Not only did he lose but he noticed that his bookie was taking advantage of him; while other bookies were offering seven points against the Giants, his man would quote a price of only four--because he knew the fan would bet, anyway. Finally, the bar owner got fed up. He checked and found that the Giants were ten-point underdogs all over New York. When his bookie said they were getting only seven points, the bettor cackled. "I'll show you, you son of a bitch," he said. "This week, I'm betting a thousand against the Giants." It turned out to be the only game the Giants won that season.

•

As two o'clock approached, the phones rang less steadily. The early games were under way and there would be a lull until 3:30, when Howie would open again to accommodate the many customers who would want to invest their early-afternoon winnings or stab to get even on the televised game from the West Coast. Just as Howie and Lenny were about to take their two-o'clock break, Pillow called. The funeral was over. He asked for his odds on the early games and then bet two late ones. Most of Howie's customers used simple code names, ranging from their own first names to ones related to their businesses. Pillow had chosen his code name because he said he was very lucky in bed with women. "For his sake, I hope he's right," Howie said, "because when it comes to gambling, if it wasn't for bad luck, he wouldn't have any kind at all."

The rest of the phone action was perfunctory and uneventful. Just after the four-o'clock closing time, Howie called the boss and reported the day's events in general terms. "Our biggest need right now is for Dallas to score one more touchdown," he said. "We took 45 [$4500] on them and almost a dime [$1000] against them. We're Cowboy fans today. We also need the 49ers and Oakland in the late games, and Vida Blue to break a leg in that game he's leading one--oh. Nothing else means too much of a swing."

"Plenty of action," said the boss. "A good fall day."

"Good for you," said Howie. "Me and Lenny, we got writer's cramp."

In the season before the start of basketball and hockey, Sunday night is usually a night off for bookmakers. But Howie had an appointment with a bettor named Max. Most losers are expected to fit into Howie's schedule and pay during the week. But Max said that he had been tied up in meetings all week in his job with a big fabric company. He also owed $3000, and Howie knew that the chances of collection would decrease with every day he gave Max, because Max was busy losing more to another bookie in a desperate effort to get even. So Howie picked up Victor, who is much stronger in the collection department, and they went to a bar to await Max.

"How you guys doin'?" asked Tony the bartender when they arrived. He did not wait for an answer, because he had his own ill fortune to tell about. "Forget about it, Howie," he continued as he poured a Scotch for Victor and a Tab for Howie, who doesn't drink. "I mean, you can talk about your wise guys and your dumb losers, you know what I mean? But I had a game that was the ironclad cinch of the century. The figure guys and the injury guys and the smart guys, they all come in separately and give me this game. So what happens, I'm ahead by a point with ten seconds to go. I mean, my team is losing by one, but I'm getting two, so I'm home, right? Then this nitwit quarterback, he drops back into the end zone----"

"And gets tackled for a safety," said Howie. "I lose the same game yesterday. On a goddamn fluke safety."

"That's what I'm tellin' you, Howie. You know what I mean."

Max arrived 20 minutes late with a jacket over his arm and a nervous grin on his face. 'He was perspiring slightly in the cool air. Howie whispered under his breath to Victor, "Looks like a P.P." Partial payment--half the debt, maybe, and a good story. Victor grunted.

"Hey, fellas, how are you?" Max began. "I hate to tell you this, but...." The story was not an original one: An expected check from out of town had failed to arrive, the ex-wife had been pleading for her alimony and Max had always had a good reputation. The bottom line was that he had scraped together $1200 and hoped to have the other $1800 the next week. Victor grunted again. Howie sighed and motioned for Tony to give Max a drink.

The adversary situation was as old as gambling itself. On the bettor's side, the hard-line rationale for such moments was best summarized by the late Norton W. Peppis: "The bookmaker was born to wait. He has a business with no union problems, no pension plan, no IRS audits. He has only one cross to bear in life, and that is waiting to get paid. He should accept it like a man." The bookie's equally hard-line retort was once framed by a somewhat menacing collection agent named Al Glasses: "When we lose, we pay."

But in real life, neither side can afford such firm positions. The bettor is uneasy and fearful, not of the physical retribution that is hardly ever employed but of an equally terrifying possibility--his credit and betting privileges may be cut off. So he wouldn't even think of sounding clever or arrogant about his plight.

The bookie, on the other hand, has taken risks, worked hard and provided a service for which he wants to be paid. "But it's the same principle as when you change a betting line," says Howie. "You want to accomplish your purpose but not drive anybody away. If a guy gets in over his head, it's partly my fault, anyway, because I try to know everybody's capabilities of paying and cut guys off when they plunge too far. So maybe we both made a mistake. The only way to handle it, if the player shows any good will at all, is to take what he offers and keep after him so he knows you're serious about getting the rest."

Howie took Max's roll of bills, rolled the rubber band off and counted 24 $50 bills under the ledge of the bar. "Yeah, Max," he said. "It's OK for now." Victor grunted again and took a drink.

"Great, thanks, Howie, thanks a lot," said Max. Suddenly, he was cool and relaxed. "By the way, that's my last cash in the world. The least you could do, you could buy me another few drinks."

•

"Losers all think we owe them something." Howie explained as he rode a cab across town to meet Jill for dinner. He planned to eat a quick steak, spend a few hours in a poker game and then get a good night's sleep after he bought a paper and double-checked all the day's scores. Monday was always a busy day, because in addition to the phone work, he had to compute the entire week's work and begin a new round of paying and collecting. He was tired but reasonably philosophical and good-humored: Dallas had scored an extra touchdown and Vida Blue had lost in the last of the eighth inning, giving his sheet a day's profit of almost $9000.

"The losers act like we told them what bad teams to bet on," he continued. "Listen, I can sympathize more than most bookmakers, because I've lost my own share of tough bets. I still have a photographic memory of Hank Aaron's historic 501st home run about ten years ago, because I happened to have the Phillies and I'm ahead four to two in the ninth and Aaron hits one out with two men on to ruin me. So I understand all the sad stories. But sometimes it gets me pissed off, the way customers take it for granted that I got the easiest life in the world. You think if I was short after a disastrous week and Max got lucky, he would accept half his winnings from me? And Pillow, he can't even sit through his mother's funeral without getting some action. If I happened to die, do you think he'd have one thought except where he could find the next guy to bet with?"

The answer, of course, is that in return for their fun and profits, the Howies of the gambling world will always be expected to pay in full and die unmourned. Two recent cases underline his point. Fats, the college-basketball freak who now bets with Howie, was living in Milwaukee several years ago when he announced that he could pick the winner of every single post-season game in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He proceeded to bet 15 straight losers, from the first regional play-off right through the national title game, at a total cost of $3000. The next night, he walked into his favorite bar in dismay--and found everybody cheering and waving newspapers. The obituary column revealed that his bookmaker had died of a stroke.

"I spent two hundred buying drinks for the house and still figured I was almost three thousand ahead," recalls Fats. "Then I started feeling bad for poor old Benny the Book. So I went to the funeral and dropped a check for the full amount in his grave."

Another elderly bookmaker suffered a heart attack a few years ago as he was flying home to New York from his annual Mexican vacation. The plane crew rushed to his aid and an emergency landing was made in the Midwest, but he died before he could be placed in an ambulance. A grief-stricken fellow vacationer was assigned to call the bookie's wife in New York with the bad news.

"Oh, my god, this is terrible," wailed the bereaved widow. "He died without telling me where he hid all the safe-deposit-box keys."

"Howie's only vacations come on Christmas Day and during baseball's three-day All-Star break."