Ten days after the 1906 earthquake, Tony Accardo was born in Chicago’s Little Italy. Accardo was 14 when he dropped out of school. By 16, he was working for Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, one of Al Capone’s hit men, and in his mid-20s, he was promoted to be Capone’s bodyguard. Two decades later, Accardo had risen to the top of the Chicago Outfit, one of America’s most-feared organized crime families.
This Sunday, 116 years after Accardo was born, his great-grandson Nick Bosa — a boss of a very different sort — will take the field for the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game.