In the winter of 1930, Manhattan police arrested four young men for stealing $59 from an Amsterdam Avenue grocery store. Three of them received short jail terms The fourth, one Edwin Collins Pitts of Opelika, Ala., had carried a gun. For his first robbery he was sentenced to from eight to 16 years in Sing Sing. Convict Pitts, as "Alabama" Pitts, became a star player on the prison's baseball and football teams. News stories about Sing Sing's games against local teams of semi" professionals, firemen and police made him a U. S....
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