Long before there was Where’s Waldo, Baltimore was asking where’s Big Sam? The year was 1952, and Baltimore was a very different place. The the Inner Harbor was an industrial area that tourists were wise to avoid, and we were a town without professional football having just lost the Colts for the first time.
Salvatore “Big Sam” Zannino was 27 years old went he became what mob guys refer to as “gone.” With partners Benny Trotta, Anthony Messina and Johnny Cataneo they operated the Squires Athletic Club. Squire’s promoted the professional fights in Baltimore at the time. Sam was last seen on June 18, 1952 when he was dropped off by Trotta at Baltimore’s Penn Station enroute to New York. Sam was never heard from again. A few days after Sam boarded the train to oblivion, his business partner, Anthony Messina, was found dead in the trunk of a car on Market Place in Baltimore. Sam’s blood-stained Cadillac was later found abandoned in Wilmington, Delaware. After that the trail went cold, and “Big Sam” became one of Baltimore’s enduring mysteries.
There is no evidence that Sam was involved in organized crime; but Sam was a boxing promoter when the fight game was heavily infiltrated by gangsters. It would be difficult for even the most scrupulous fight promoter to avoid the mob’s tentacles during this era. At the time, the undisputed kingpin of the boxing world was Frankie Carbo (aka Mr. Gray). Carbo was a street thug from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. After a stint with Murder, Inc., he became a boxing promoter. Carbo was the boss of an interstate confederation of fight promoters and fight fixers known to boxing insiders and law enforcement as “The Combination.” There is no evidence linking Sam to the infamous Carbo, but in the October 1963 issue, Sports Illustrated described Sam’s business partner Benny Trotta as “an old pal of Mobster Frankie Carbo.”
It appears that even if Sam was trying to run a clean boxing operation, he was swimming with sharks.
Check back for updates; this research is a work in progress
The Sun, July 1, 1952: “Baltimore Fight Figure Missing His Car Found Ripped, Blood-Stained”
The Sun, June 8, 1952: “Sunlight –OnSports”
Sports Illustrated, October 1963 “This Death Might Kill Boxing”
Life Magazine, May 26, 1962, ”My Rugged Educaion in Boxing”
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