Anthony Accardo
| Tony Accardo | |
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Accardo in 1960
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| Born |
Antonino Leonardo Accardo April 28, 1906 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | May 22, 1992 (aged 86) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Cause of death | congestive heart failure |
| Other names | "Joe Batters" or "Big Tuna" |
Antonino Joseph Accardo (born Antonino Leonardo Accardo; April 28, 1906 – May 22, 1992), also known as "Joe Batters" or "Big Tuna", was a longtime American mobster. In a criminal career that spanned eight decades, he rose from small-time hoodlum to the position of day-to-day boss of the Chicago Outfit in 1947, to ultimately become the final Outfit authority in 1972. Accardo moved The Outfit into new operations and territories, greatly increasing its power and wealth during his tenure as boss.
Born Antonino Leonardo Accardo (also known as Anthony Joseph Accardo) on Chicago's Near West Side, the son of Francesco Accardo, a shoemaker, and Maria Tilotta Accardo. One year prior to his birth, the Accardos had emigrated to America from Castelvetrano, Sicily, in the Province of Trapani. At age 15, Accardo was expelled from school and started loitering around neighborhood pool halls. He soon joined the Circus Cafe Gang, run by Claude Maddox and Tony Capezio, one of many street gangs in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago. These gangs served as talent pools (similar to the concept of farm teams) for the city's adult criminal organizations. In 1926, Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, one of the toughest hitmen of Outfit boss Alphonse Capone ("Big Al," "Scarface Al"), recruited Accardo into his crew in the Outfit.
It was during Prohibition that Accardo received the "Joe Batters" nickname from Capone himself due to his skill at hitting a trio of Outfit traitors with a baseball bat at a dinner Capone held just to kill the three men. Capone was allegedly quoted as saying, "Boy, this kid's a real Joe Batters."
The Chicago newspapers eventually dubbed Accardo "The Big Tuna," after a fishing expedition where Accardo caught a giant tuna and was famously photographed with his catch. In later years, Accardo boasted over federal wiretaps he participated in the infamous 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which, allegedly, Capone gunmen murdered seven members of the rival North Side Gang, which was led by the notorious Bugs Moran. Accardo also claimed that he was one of the gunmen who murdered Brooklyn, New York gang boss Frankie Yale, again by Capone's orders to settle a dispute. However, most experts today believe Accardo had only peripheral connections, if any at all, with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and none whatsoever with the Yale murder, which was most likely committed by Gus Winkler, Fred Burke, and Louis Campagna. However, on October 11, 1926, Accardo may have participated in the assassination of then Northside Chicago gang leader Hymie Weiss near the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.
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