BOOKS AND SUCH
The Philadelphia Titan: the Adam Renfroe, Jr. Story"
By Nicholas Cole
R ecently released The Philadel- phia Titan: The Adam Renfroe Jr. Story is a compelling story of a man seeking to set the record straight on the facts behind the rise and fall of a man who was about justice for all and how he went up against the great American pastime of professional base- ball to right a wrong – and lost. Adam Renfroe, Jr. is the Philadelphia Titan. Adam said he was going to tell the truth in a book one day, and boy, did he ever tell it in this book. Starting with a book proposal entitled “No Justice, Just Us, a Philadelphia born and Harvard-educated former defense attorney, prosecutor, and assistant dis- trict attorney was convicted for bribery and obstruction of justice in 1986 has completed his book. The Philadelphia Tita n is an illuminating true story by the lawyer who put Major League Base- ball on trial. Adam set out to tell his personal and career-ending story about his 1985 courtroom battle with Major League Baseball and the Federal Gov- ernment. A number of National League Baseball stars were in trouble that year for the use, solicitation, and participa- tion of recreational cocaine and its league-wide distribution baseball stars including Dave Parker, Keith Hernan- dez, Dale Berra and Lonnie Smith. This Major League Baseball drug scan- dal was a sign of the times in the Ameri- can 1980s when the entire country was struggling with recreational drug addic- tions. This scandal became infamously known as the Pittsburgh Drug Trials. Tough-nosed attorney Adam Renfroe, Jr. was stuck right in the middle of it, defending a fellow Philadelphian, Curtis “Chef Curt” Strong, a Phillies Franchise caterer who had been accused of selling cocaine to several Philadelphia Phillies
Adam Renfroe, Jr. (Gamma Omega 1968)
and Pittsburgh Pirates’ baseball players.
But when Curtis Strong faced with the prospect of doing hard time, Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Uberroth and head of the United States Department of Justice, Edwin Messe had worked out a deal with the accused baseball players to give them immunity for their confessions by naming not only Chef Curt but several Pittsburgh area drug dealers who had unfortunately befriended and associated with this group of popular, wealthy, and obviously pampered baseball players who had found themselves addicted to cocaine and hungry to find their next fix. With MLB and the Federal Govern- ment in collusion, Adam Renfroe, Jr. was strongly advised to leave the case alone, play nice, and walk away from it like every other attorney had previously done. He was told that Curtis Strong and the rest of the group of ragtag, petty drug dealers were not worth putting his career on the line for a case he couldn’t win. But Adam was a stand-up guy and a North Philadelphia loyalist, who had been trained to fight to the finish in
defense of the common man who needed it. It was the reason why he had become a lawyer in the first place. And in the aftermath of a long, revealing, and nationally televised and debated case Adam Renfroe, Jr’s career all came crumbling down. This book not only tells the story of his historical courtroom battle with Major League Baseball and the Federal Government but unravels the personal and professional struggles of a man who had the audacity to go up against the multimillionaires of Major League Baseball and the intimidating power of the Federal Government in the first place. So we give you The Philadelphia Titan: The Adam Renfroe, Jr. Story , the lawyer who took Major League Baseball to trial. Readers who wish to experience this en- gaging work can purchase “The Philadel- phia Titan: The Adam Renfroe, Jr. Story” at bookstores everywhere or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.
THE JOURNAL ♦ SUMMER 2021 | 179
VIRTUAL 85 TH GRAND CHAPTER MEETING
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