Wild Story Of A Bookie Who Stalked A Pirate Pitcher, Claimed To Be Fixing Games, & Ended In A Police

SI.com – "All over the country, people who bet on baseball in the fall of 2012 began hearing that Locke and a mysterious handicapper were fixing Pirates games. Like Congero, some complained. Those reports sent shivers through Major League Baseball, prompting a probe of unusual scope and intensity: MLB’s own investigators and organized-crime detectives from the New York City Police Department were deployed to learn the handicapper’s identity and unravel the plot. Before it was over, their investigation would lead to a tense standoff by the side of an Arizona desert road, where more than a dozen armed officers confronted two frightened young women with a baby in an effort to track down James Hunter. The outcome would hinge on separating fact from fantasy in the interpersonal dynamics between two former youth-baseball teammates from a small New England town — one of whom grew up to become a major league pitcher, the other a sports gambler."

 

Incredible story appearing in the next issue of Sports Illustrated. The full article is enormous so I’ll give you some Cliffs Notes, but if you have any interest in gambling, sports scandals, and a baseball story that reads like a Hollywood script, I suggest you take the time to read this. Save it for you commute tonight.

Spoiler

But the gist of it is basically two kids grew up together in New Hampshire – one grew up to become Jeff Locke, pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The other was Kris Barr, who grew up to be a shady bookie with a lot of major gamblers. As the story goes, Kris Barr and his brother both reached out to Jeff Locke on facebook, and when Locke didn’t respond to them, they felt slighted. Barr flew completely off the handle, like some Eminem “Stan” ****. He began betting against him every single start, and after 5 or 6 starts in a row where Locke completely bombed and Barr cashed in, he began telling everyone he had Locke in his back pocket. Started telling people he and Locke were fixing games together if they wanted to get in on the action. Turned out Locke never even spoke to the guy, he just sucked and kept ****ting the bed on the mound. Barr was simply riding his cold streak out of spite because of a social media insult. But he was running his mouth so much about Locke fixing games he eventually ends up getting tailed by police and some sort of unknown officers trying to crack down on illegal gambling. To this day he says they dont know who or what agency they represented.

It all came to a head when 15 police cars pulled Barr and his family over, guns drawn, trying to draw out a confession for a crime he didnt commit. Investigators basically stalked Barr over the course of six weeks trying to catch him in some sort of lie proving he rigged games. It never came, and eventually they realized it really was just a bizarre case of spiteful revenge, a mediocre pitcher, and such incredible coincidence that they closed the case.