numbers runner

A reader had wondered whether Simkins was the individual to which Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson was referring when he mentioned in his memoir, “I Came As a Shadow,” that a numbers runner named “Simpson” had purchased the uniform the young Thompson wore on his first organized team.

And, yes, he was a numbers runner, part of the vast underground mechanism that kept the illegal lottery humming.

In his book “I Came As a Shadow,” Big John Thompson mentions a numbers runner named Simpson.

He wrote: “I played my first organized sport, on a baseball team whose uniforms were purchased by a local numbers runner named Simpson. He had a restaurant on North Capitol Street where one of my sisters worked.”

There may have been a numbers runner named Simpson.