Two Say Jordan Wagered on Golf : But San Diego Businessmen Claim Their Bets Were in $300-$400 Range

Basketball superstar Michael Jordan engaged in dozens of golfing bets involving thousands of dollars that changed hands between him and several San Diego businessmen over a four-year period, two of the businessmen said Friday.

Freddie Sarno, 31, a La Jolla manufacturer of men’s golfing apparel, said that he and the Chicago Bulls’ star golfed together on numerous occasions between 1989 and 1992 and always played for money, usually in the $300 to $400 range.

Ron Heitzinger, 44, owner of a San Diego firm that oversees student-assistance programs, said he was often part of a foursome consisting of Sarno, Jordan and Richard Esquinas, author of a new book that purports to detail Jordan’s high-stakes gambling on the golf course.

Heitzinger said that he and Jordan had “never bet more than $300 to $400,” but declined further comment, saying he was worried about his business. “I may have more to say next week,” he said.

Sarno said that other San Diego businessmen had played golf--for money--with Jordan and Esquinas, but he declined to identify them. He noted, however, that no one--not him, Heitzinger or anyone else--had challenged Jordan for the “lavish” amounts wagered between him and Esquinas.

In “Michael & Me: Our Gambling Addiction . . . My Cry For Help!” Esquinas writes that he was once in debt to Jordan for $98,000 before reversing the pattern and having Jordan owe him as much as $1.252 million. He claims they eventually settled on a payment of $300,000.

Sarno said he was shocked this week to hear figures that high, but noted that golf pros from one end of San Diego County to the other knew that Jordan and Esquinas played often and always for thousands of dollars.

“I knew it was high . . . really high,” Sarno said. “Frankly, I didn’t want to know how many zeros were on the ends of their numbers, but I knew it was up there. All I was trying to do was compete in my own modest way.”

After a silence of several days, Jordan issued a statement on Friday, acknowledging that he had played golf with Esquinas “with wagers made between us. . . . Because I did not keep records, I cannot verify how much I won or lost.

“I can assure you that the level of our wagers was substantially less than the preposterous amounts that have been reported,” the statement said.

But Sarno said he believed the $1-million-plus figure because Jordan and Esquinas “were in a whole different league. . . . No one was fully aware of what was happening between them, except that we knew tons of money was always changing hands. And a lot of people knew that.”

Whenever Jordan lost to Sarno, which happened about half the time, the businessmen said, he always paid “instantly” and always in cash, handing over hundreds of dollars.

“M.J. is a great guy,” Sarno said.

Jordan consistently shot in the mid-70s and mid-80s and was always pleasant and good-humored, even when he lost, Sarno said. But Jordan’s relationship with Esquinas appeared to be different, largely for its secrecy.

“They kept their own scorecard, believe me,” Sarno said. “I knew (the amount they were betting) was so high, I didn’t want to know what it was. You could just tell it was very intense and became even more so the longer they knew each other.”

Sarno said he had known Esquinas, the former general manager of the San Diego Sports Arena, for seven years, and had nothing but praise for both him and Jordan. He said he hoped the widespread notoriety would harm neither man.

“Richard is no (James) Slim Bouler,” Sarno said, referring to a North Carolina man convicted last year on drug and money-laundering charges. Jordan testified that he had written Bouler a $57,000 check to pay off debts related to golf, poker and other gambling.

Esquinas was “not a snake in the grass, waiting for his prey,” Sarno said, adding that Jordan and Esquinas met through a mutual friend, David (Smokey) Gaines, the former basketball coach at San Diego State University and now a San Diego bar owner.

Jordan and Esquinas are “very competitive, very dynamic young guys,” Sarno said. “They really seemed to like each other. There was definitely the chemistry for a friendship. And, they were really good golfers who just liked to bet lots of money.”

Esquinas’ professed reason for writing the book is to lay bare his history as a compulsive gambler. He accuses Jordan of sharing the “disease.”