49ers edge rusher Nick Bosa is the son of an NFL first-round draft pick, the brother of one of the league's most dominant defensive players and the great-grandson of the longtime head of the Chicago mafia.
Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim wrote a story on the No. 2 overall pick's great-grandfather, Tony Accardo. Accardo, who died in 1992 of natural causes at the age of 86, was a notorious Chicago mobster nicknamed "Joey Batters" who once served as Al Capone's bodyguard. Once Capone went to prison for tax evasion in 1931, Accardo began his climb to the top of the Chicago Outfit and "was in full control of the Chicago mafia" by the late 1940s, Wertheim wrote.
Along the way, Accardo -- "by some accounts," according to Wertheim -- helped plan the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929. He reportedly earned his nickname when, with a baseball bat, he bashed the skulls of a couple of rival gangsters trying to seize power from Capone. After his home in suburban Chicago was robbed in 1978, 10 men were brutally murdered for their role in the robbery, according to a 1984 report in the Chicago Tribune.
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“If you’re a mobster and you don’t die with your shoes on, you must have been doing something right,” Chicago author and historian Rich Lindberg told Sports Illustrated. “Just consider his span. He was in power for six decades. Capone was in power for six years.”
Accardo's daughter, Marie, is Bosa's biological grandmother. Marie married nine-year NFL veteran Palmer Pyle, then later married Ernest Kumerow. Kumerow adopted Marie's children: Eric (Bosa's uncle) and Cheryl (Bosa's mother). The Miami Dolphins drafted Eric Kumerow No. 16 overall in 1988, one year after they drafted John Bosa in the same spot. The elder Bosa married Kumerow's sister in 1993, and Nick was born in 1997.
Nick and his older brother -- Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa -- "tend to smile when their great-grandfather’s name comes up, but neither is inclined to talk about him," Wertheim wrote. In 2016, Joey Bosa told a TMZ reporter that his great-grandfather's history was "not something I should really be talking about."
When the reporter referred to Accardo as a "legend," Bosa offered a diplomatic correction.
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"He's an undercover legend," Bosa quipped. "He keeps his ... stuff under the radar."
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49ers president Al Guido told Bloomberg's "Business of Sports" podcast that the team asked Nick Bosa about his social-media history, which included liking posts with racist hashtags in high school and tweets that many saw as attacks against black culture. Wertheim did not report whether Bosa was asked about his great-grandfather, but Bosa's mother told the Chicago Tribune in 2016 his uncle was asked about Accardo during the pre-draft process out of fears that Accardo would try to influence games.
“To me, he’s just my grandfather, and I love him," Eric Kumerow told a Miami Herald reporter after Fortune Magazine ranked Accardo No. 2 on a list of American gangsters. "He’s a great man, a caring man. I remember him coming to ball games and being with us. I never had an opinion when I would see articles in the paper. I don’t believe them. Half of what you read in the paper isn’t true.”
Kumerow and Cheryl Bosa did not comment on Sports Illustrated's story.