The Sports Gatecrashing Hall of Fame
Part 2
This is Part 2 of a series on the greatest sports gatecrashers of all time. Part 1, about One Eye Connelly, is here. My book, Ticketless, in which I describe my own gatecrashes, can be found here. Historical newspapers cited courtesy of newspapers.com.
Hyman “Pinky” Ginsberg’s story requires more parsing, research, and supposition than One Eye’s. Pinky never published (that I could find, anyway) his own “autobiography” like One Eye’s Crashing Through.
And arguably, Pinky’s greatest gatecrashing feat falls outside my purview. It had nothing to do with sports, but is great nonetheless: Pinky, of Jewish heritage, allegedly got into Adolf Hitler’s office by bribing guards with white shirts, which were rare in 1930s Germany … and asked the Führer for an autograph. He was thrown out of the building, though luckily, not killed.
But the sheer number of sports gatecrash stories I did find was enough to say definitively: Pinky is a first-ballot hall-of-famer.
This much we know for sure: He was born in Hoboken, NJ. That’s about all we know for sure.
The Miami News (May 12, 1929) says, “Just 21 years ago, Hoboken became a greater town. Pinky was born there at that time.” This would suggest he was born in 1908. However, an AP story from 1978 has him at 74 years old — indicating a birth year of 1904. A piece from The Guardian (Aug. 20, 1988) has him at 82 — which would put his birth year in 1906. An AP story from 1989 has him at 84 — which would mean a 1905 birth.
Even the story of his first gatecrash is unclear. Now, the newspapers agree on the general premise: He was walking into a game with a ticket, when he saw a girl, standing alone and evidently heartbroken. She did not have a ticket. Pinky gave his to her.
Then, he rolled some newspapers into a ball and set them on fire on the sidewalk. “When the guy on the gate ran out to put it out, I went in,” he said in the AP article. That article says this first gatecrash of Pinky’s career took place during the 1920 World Series.
On the other hand, the Honolulu Advertiser (Nov. 7, 1940) reports, “His career got a start when he crashed a high school football game in his native Hoboken.”
The St. Petersburg Times (Sept. 19, 1940) agrees that this crash took place before a high school football game. It goes on to say, “He has used that fire ruse many times since.”
The Brownsville Herald (Feb. 19, 1956) reports, “The hobby got started sort of by accident. Pinky wanted to see a pro football game in Yankee Stadium one cool day in 1923.” It goes on to tell about the newspaper fire, but adds, “A newspaper reporter observed this sequence of events and wrote a story.”
So I tried to track down that story. I managed to find the Galveston Daily News (Oct. 16, 1960): “But what really impressed him, [Pinky] confessed, was that he told a newspaper reporter about it and the next day he had his name in the paper. He was a confirmed gatecrasher and, of course, publicity seeker, from then on.”
But that doesn’t exactly clear anything up. Unfortunately, the true, first-hand origin story of Pinky Ginsberg might be lost to the ages.
Pinky’s non-gatecrashing life is interesting, as well. He supposedly crossed the Atlantic Ocean nearly 300 times. According to the St. Petersburg Times piece, he was a table waiter in 1940, and twice had gone into the saloon business. He won and lost thousands of dollars gambling, but reportedly, came out ahead.
The Morning Call newspaper (August 18, 1988) asked Pinky what his legacy would be. Pinky responded in the third person:
“[Pinky’s] been shot out of a cannon 10 times. He sat on the tip of a flagpole four months to raise money and send 2,000 kids to summer camp. He pushed a peanut down the street with his nose — all for charity. He will do anything for a worthy cause, free of charge.”
“I’ll give you another good line: Pinky right now is flat broke. He don’t beg, borrow, or steal. You heard the story about rags to riches? Pinky went from riches to rags. He went from plush mansions to the gutter, but he would not give up. Today, at 82, everything he owns is on his back: one suit, one pair of shoes — in very bad shape. But he’s happy.”
(In 1988, Pinky himself gives his age here as 82 in… so let’s go with 1906 as his birth year.)
There does exist (or once existed) a massive scrapbook with documentation of all his crashes. There are plenty of pictures of Pinky holding it. The front, according to the 1989 AP piece, reads: “Album of Fantasy, Alright — Let’s Have it, Fantastic — Fabulous, Step & Peep into the Wonder World and the Pleasant Life of Pink the Bum. Smiling Pink Ginsberg, King of the Gate Crashers, International Personality, Professional Gourmet, Wine Sipper and Food Taster.”
And the Brownsville Herald (August 27, 1950) says, “His scrapbooks, containing newspaper clippings and letters from most United States and European points, go with him everywhere. Those letters include greetings from 43 of the 48 governors and form 42 consuls all written in their native tongue.”
Unless that scrapbook turns up somewhere (if anyone who reads this happens to know anything about it, please hit me up!) and without any kind of definitive memoir from Pinky himself, it’s difficult to nail down exactly which events he crashed.
The ’78 AP story that appeared in the Evening Independent on Aug. 30, 1978 gives us a starting place: “…the self-proclaimed greatest gatecrasher in the world says he’ll attend the Mohammed Ali-Leon Spinks heavyweight championship fight without buying a ticket.”
The Morning Call reports that he “carried a broken camera and posed as a photographer for the Ali-Spinks fight at the [New Orleans] Superdome.” According to the 1989 AP story, it was “A piece of cake.”
So we can safely put Ali-Spinks, September 15, 1978, in Pinky’s win column. The ’89 AP story adds, “The 1988 NCAA Final Four in the same building couldn’t keep him out either.” (Now, the 1988 Final Four was in Kansas City, but the 1987 Final Four did take place at the New Orleans Superdome, so let’s give Pinky that one, too.)
He got into the 1933 Rose Bowl between USC and Pittsburgh on January 2, 1933 and called it the hardest gatecrashing achievement of his career, according to the Oakland Tribune (June 13, 1933).
The Tampa Tribune (April 11, 1966) reports that he crashed a Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston fight. It doesn’t specify which of the two fights he crashed, but because Mohammed Ali still went by Cassius Clay at the time of the first fight, which took place in Miami on February 25, 1964, it was probably that iconic first one that the paper was referring to.
The Miami News (Jan. 28, 1942) says: “He also uses fake telegrams and just plain wit. He says he can talk himself into any place. He broke into the Rose Bowl game for six straight years.” But it doesn’t clarify which years those were. At least the 1989 AP piece tells us how he typically crashed bowl games: “He got into a lot of Sugar Bowls and a couple of Cotton Bowls with a $2 camera and a ‘Press’ button he says he got off a Coke machine.” (As in, the button that tells you to “press here” for the type of soda you want.)
The Nashua Telegraph (Jan. 6, 1977) reports that he got into the Pittsburgh-Georgia Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, 1977 “dressed as an armed guard.” The Brownsville Herald from that same day adds a detail: “Ginsberg said he crashed Sugar Bowl games at the Louisiana Superdome by dressing as a guard with a toy pistol strapped to his belt and carrying a sack full of rocks.” They quote Pinky: “I tell them I have emergency change for the concession stands.”
The Tampa Times (Aug. 31, 1955) says he was unsuccessful once when trying to get into the Indianapolis 500. “Pinky got the heave-ho three times from attendants, despite the fact he was armed with an official-looking camera and a press card.” The Delta Democrat-Times (Oct. 22, 1953) clarifies, “Pinky’s phony press cards include the New York Times, The Daily News, and one covering the whole Rocky Mountains.”
Perhaps the most impressive of Pinky’s gatecrashes, the 1936 Olympics, was reported by the Honolulu Advertiser (Nov. 7, 1940): “Pinky’s record includes crashing the German Olympics, both world fairs, every home game of the Yankees in three years, big New York theater openings and football games.”
The Brownsville Herald (Feb. 19, 1956) adds, “Probably his high point was the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where he borrowed a track uniform and ran into the athlete’s gate with the U.S. runners.”
As far as I could find, that’s where the published accounts of specific sports gatecrashes end.
What do we do with the “he crashed every home game of the Yankees in three years” claim? Can we give him credit for those? I found a report that, “For three years, he never missed a game of the Yankees,” but we have no way of knowing which three years those were.
The Brownsville Herald (Aug. 27, 1950) reports, “He’s seen the last eight World Series for gratis,” but we neither know which World Series he’s referring to, nor which games of those series.
The ’89 AP piece says he crashed 44 World Series games. Again, we don’t know which ones.
Luckily, Pinky spoke often about his tactics.
“I always had an angle,” Pinky is quoted in ’89. “I had a knack for getting along with people and for getting by people. If they had had television when I was in top form, I’d be a household word today. I was the best at one time. Everybody said so.”
“I got three ways to get in,” he said. “One way is to get a white uniform and carry a doctor’s bag. The second way is to dress as a bandmaster, and the third way is to dress as a security guard with a roll of empty shells and carry a toy pistol and carry a bag with rocks.”
The ’89 AP story says: “The press box has been his most frequent vantage points for big events.” It quotes Pinky: “Everybody takes a break once and a while, so you just look around until you spot an empty seat. Then you sit down and wait until the man comes back, and then you move.”
As a gatecrasher myself, I respect anyone and everyone who’s done it. Now, it does seem to me that One Eye, Pinky, and future hall-of-fame inductee Dion Rich were more interested in meeting and taking pictures with celebrities than they were sports fans. And I wish, when telling their stories, they had described how they started, and why they continued gatecrashing. That’s one angle of my “career” I covered in my book, Ticketless.
But whatever their motivations, I admire the hell out of these guys.
Early in Pinky’s career, he apparently admired One Eye. There was this line in the Miami News (May 12, 1929): “It’s all in fun,” said the lad [Pinky], who studied his game from a handbook written by old ‘One-Eyed’ himself.”
It seems Pinky grew to dislike One Eye.
The Honolulu Advertiser (1940) story says, “He doesn’t think much of One Eye Connelly, says Connelly crashes gates for a living, while he does it for pleasure. ‘I do it in a tux, he does it in rags,’ Pinky said.”
The Brownsville Herald (Feb. 19, 1956) says, “Pinky’s lip tends to curl at the mention of One Eye Connelly, who made a living at gatecrashing. Pinky’s amateur standing is unsullied.”
I did find a story about One Eye selling cold water to boxing fans after a gatecrash in 1923, and I read that One Eye did the same thing once at a political convention. But I found no other claims that One Eye ever profited from his hobby — and believe me, showman that One Eye was, he would not have been shy about telling people if, indeed, he had profited. So I call BS on Pinky’s claim that One Eye gatecrashed for a living.
One thing that stands out about Pinky is that he was considering retiring for years. Evidently, he could never give up the game.
The Galveston Daily News (Oct. 16, 1960) has Pinky saying he has never been arrested. It continues, “Among his many accomplishments on which he hangs his claim to fame, Pinky lists: crashing all the famous prize fights here and abroad … and the Olympics just about every time they have been held during his meanderings.” The story also says, “Ginsberg is getting mellow in his old age and doesn’t get the kick out of crashing gates that he did in his younger days.”
But Pinky kept going for at least another 28 years, even as gatecrashing became more difficult.
In 1978, he said, “I don’t advise anybody to start gatecrashing. Right now, with the fires, the bombings, the assassinations and the kidnappings, it’s a very, very hard career.”
And yet, we know he got into the 1987 Final Four, and, as the AP piece reports, “The last thing Ginsberg crashed was the 1988 Republican National convention.” According to Pinky, he “just copied the pass and walked right in.”
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If you liked these stories, you’ll love my book, Ticketless: How Sneaking Into The Super Bowl And Everything Else (Almost) Held My Life Together. Check it out HERE.
