Book Is Author’s Bill to Get Golf Debt Paid

As one of the few who apparently waited long enough to actually read the book by Richard Esquinas about Michael Jordan’s gambling before reacting to it, my first reaction is to suggest that everybody stop being so hard on him.

Not Jordan.

Esquinas.

Just because a man cannot fly through the air and dunk a basketball does not automatically make him the bad guy, any more than it makes him wrong.

Yet I have seen Richard Esquinas, the former co-owner and president of the San Diego Sports Arena and the San Diego Gulls hockey team, alternately described in print as a “sleazoid” and a “worm that crawled out of the wood work,” as though he had murdered or maimed somebody.

No, all Richard Esquinas did was try to embarrass a welcher into paying off his debt.

If somebody owed you a million dollars and you had no legal recourse to sue for what was rightfully yours, I guarantee that you would never have have said: “Oh, well. It’s only a million.”

You would have done something about it--same as Richard Esquinas did.

He couldn’t sue. No judge or jury is going to arbitrate a golf wager. So, Esquinas tried everything else he could think of--phone calls, letters, pleas, you name it. He repeatedly asked Jordan in person to pay up. He repeatedly asked Jordan to stop putting him through the humiliation of making him beg for his money.

Put yourself in Esquinas’ place. The money doesn’t have to be so much. Say a friend owes you a hundred bucks. Say you’ve been trying for two years to get your money, but keep getting put off.

What would you do?

I keep reading that if Esquinas had been the one who owed Jordan, that Michael never would have similarly embarrassed him.

Says who?

Maybe Michael would have sicced every high-priced attorney in America on the welcher until he made good. Or maybe he would have sent over two 300-pound guys with shoulder holsters and evil eyes.

Which is what Esquinas could have done rather than write a book.

Which is why this gambling thing of Jordan’s is a real issue and not some innocent thing that the NBA can continue to shrug off.

Because what happens the day Michael Jordan owes hundreds of thousands to someone who doesn’t give a hoot who he is or how many basketballs he dunks?

What happens when Michael Jordan owes somebody who doesn’t stop at writing a book to get his dough?

If you bother to read Esquinas’ account, you will learn that he paid Jordan many times after losing large amounts on the golf course. Theirs was a running wager that got out of control--until one day, when Michael owed him $626,000 and said: “Double or nothing.”

Knowing full well that Air Jordan could go double-or-nothing until the 21st Century without going broke, Esquinas implored him to get their friendly wager back to “sensible numbers.” But Jordan kept pulling the old poker-table ploy of demanding a chance to win back his money, the implication being that Esquinas would be less than a friend--or maybe less than a man--if he walked away winning.

“E-Man,” he quotes Jordan, using his usual nickname, “I want to do more than get even. I want you to owe me.”

So, again they played. Jim Brandenburg, the basketball coach at San Diego State, and another man completed the foursome when the E-Man raised the Air Man’s debt to $313,000. Esquinas writes that the coach had no idea how much was at stake, that Brandenburg cheerfully patted him on the back and said: “Attaboy. You got him now.”

After the IOU soared to 626 grand, Esquinas begged of Jordan: “Let’s get out of this insanity.”

He worried aloud that this was “taxing our friendship.” After all, Michael was a man who had eaten at his home, who had invited him to play a round with the PGA’s Raymond Floyd (to whom Esquinas says he lost $100), who had gone nightclubbing with Jordan and played cards with him.

But then came one more day of golf--Sept. 20, 1991, to be precise--at Aviara, where Jordan and Esquinas played a $313,000 match and $313,000 medal “with some side bets on birdies.” Before playing, Esquinas insisted that there be no more of this double-or-nothing business. It was play and pay.

By day’s end, the IOU was up to $1.252 million.

Nearly two years later, Esquinas was still waiting for his money. Again, picture yourself winning a wager of any amount from someone you perceive as a friend. You’ve asked, begged, bugged this person and still can’t collect. What would you do?

Richard Esquinas is no angel. He gambled as a boy in Ohio, once took out a “student loan” to pay off a bookie. He admits to betting up to five grand regularly on Super Bowl games.

He also might very well be accurately described as a hustler, someone who enjoys finding rich, easy marks such as Jordan who are not as good at certain games as they think they are.

Once, while at Ohio State, when a guy owed him $1,500, Esquinas brought his “6-foot 5-inch, 260-pound twin brother, Rob, who had been an All-American high school football player,” over to the guy’s apartment, kicked down the door, demanded monthly installments and said: “The first payment you miss, I’m gonna come and get your clubs and Rob here is going to have a field day with your head.”

Some day, somebody might say that to Michael Jordan.

Then what will the NBA say?