Black Sox Scandal

1919 Chicago White Sox team photo

The Black Sox Scandal refers to a number of events that took place around and during the play of the 1919 World Series. The name "Black Sox" also refers to the Chicago White Sox team from that year. Eight members of the Chicago franchise were banned from baseball for throwing (intentionally losing) games.

The Fix

The plan was thought up by local gamblers, but rumor has it that New York gangster Arnold Rothstein supplied the major connections needed. The money was supplied by Abe Attell, former featherweight boxing champion, who accepted the offer even though he didn't have the $80,000 that the White Sox wanted. The conspiracy was the brainchild of White Sox first baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil and Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, who was a professional gambler of Gandil's acquaintance.

Gandil enlisted seven of his teammates, motivated by a mixture of greed and a dislike of penurious club owner Charles Comiskey, to implement the fix. Starting pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude "Lefty" Williams, outfielders "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Oscar "Happy" Felsch, and infielder Charles "Swede" Risberg were all involved. Buck Weaver was also asked to participate, but refused; he was later banned with the others for knowing of the fix but not reporting it. Utility infielder Fred McMullin was not initially approached, but got word of the fix and threatened to report the others unless he was in on the payoff. Sullivan and his two associates Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, somewhat out of their depth, approached Rothstein to provide the money for the players, who were promised a total of $100,000.

Stories of the "Black Sox" scandal have usually included Comiskey in its gallery of subsidiary villains, focusing in particular on his intentions regarding a clause in Cicotte's contract that would have paid Cicotte an additional $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games. According to Eliot Asinof's account of the events, Eight Men Out, Cicotte was "rested" for the season's final two weeks after reaching his 29th win, presumably to deny him the bonus. However, the record is murkier. Cicotte won his 29th game on September 19, had an ineffective start on September 24, and was pulled after a few innings in a tuneup on the season's final day, September 28 (the World Series beginning 3 days later). Reportedly, Cicotte agreed to the fix on the same day he won his 29th game, before he could have known of any efforts to deny his chance to win his 30th.

The Series

Even before the Series started on October 1, there were rumors amongst the gambling community that things were not square, and the influx of money being bet on Cincinnati caused the odds against them to fall rapidly. These rumors also reached the press box where a number of correspondents, including Hugh Fullerton of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and the ex-player and manager Christy Mathewson, resolved to compare notes on any plays and players that they felt were questionable. Despite the rampant rumors, the gamblers continued to wager heavily against the White Sox and arranged to have the players signal their willingness to go through with the fix. On the second pitch of the Series, Eddie Cicotte struck Cincinnati leadoff hitter Morrie Rath in the back. The fix would go ahead as planned.

Whether or not Jackson was in the conspiracy remains controversial. Jackson himself maintained that he was innocent, especially in his last words, which were "I'm about to face the greatest umpire of all, and He knows I am innocent." He had a .375 batting average, threw out five baserunners, and handled thirty chances in the outfield with no errors during that series. However, he batted far worse in the five games that the White Sox lost, totaling only one RBI, from a home run in game 8, when the Reds had a large lead and the series was all but over. Jackson — generally considered a strong defensive player — was unable to prevent a critical two-run triple to left during the series, though, on another occasion, he also threw a runner out at the plate. Most damningly, Jackson took $5000 from the gamblers. After the series was over, he tried to give the money back on multiple occasions, but by that time the damage had been done. Possibly, if he had not been illiterate, he would have never fallen into the scandal.

One play in particular has been subjected to much scrutiny. In the fifth inning of game 4, with a Cincinnati player on second, Jackson fielded a single hit to left field and threw home. Eyewitness accounts say that the throw would have resulted in an out had pitcher Eddie Cicotte, one of the leaders of the fix, not interfered. The run scored and the White Sox lost the game 2-0. James C. Hamilton, the official scorer of the 1919 World Series, later testified under oath in a civil trial between Jackson and Charles Comiskey that the throw was honest and that Cicotte jumped up and knocked it down for an error. Chick Gandil, another leader of the fix, later admitted to yelling at Cicotte to intercept the throw. Cicotte, whose guilt is undisputed, made three errors in that fifth inning alone.

Another argument, presented in the book Eight Men Out, is that because Jackson was illiterate, he had little awareness of the seriousness of the plot, and thus he consented to it only when Risberg threatened him and his family. Jackson accepted money in the fix and, on the advice of his lawyers, pleaded guilty in the ensuing trial.

Fallout

The rumors dogged the club throughout the 1920 season, as the White Sox battled the Cleveland Indians for the AL pennant that year, and stories of corruption touched players on other clubs as well. At last, in September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate.

During the investigation two players, Cicotte and Jackson, confessed. Comiskey suspended the seven White Sox still in the majors (Gandil had left the team and was playing semi-pro ball). This move decimated the team, and the remnants finished second, two games behind Cleveland. Prior to the trial, key evidence went missing from the Cook County Courthouse, including the signed confessions of Cicotte and Jackson, who subsequently recanted their confessions. The players were acquitted. Some years later, the missing confessions reappeared in the possession of Comiskey's lawyer.

However, the majors were not so forgiving. The damage to the sport's reputation led the owners to appoint Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner of Baseball. The day after the players were acquitted, Landis issued his own verdict:

Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked gamblers and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.

With this statement, all eight implicated White Sox were banned from Major League Baseball for life, as were two other players believed to be involved. The White Sox would not win another World Series until 2005.

The banned players

• Eddie Cicotte, pitcher.
• Oscar "Happy" Felsch, center fielder.
• Arnold "Chick" Gandil, first baseman. The leader of the players who were in on the fix. He did not play in the majors in 1920, playing semi-pro ball instead. In 1956, he expressed remorse for the fix, but claimed that he and his colleagues abandoned it and kept the money after rumors spread that the fix was in.
• "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. The star outfielder, one of the best hitters in the game, confessed to accepting money from the gamblers. (The story told by Hugh Fullerton of a tearful young boy standing on the courthouse steps, calling out "Say it ain't so, Joe!" is almost certainly apocryphal. ) He later recanted his confession and protested his innocence to no effect until his death in 1951. He was the first of the eight to die.
• Fred McMullin, utility infielder. McMullin would not have been included in the fix had he not overheard player conversations. He threatened to tell all if not included.
• Charles "Swede" Risberg, shortstop. Risberg was Gandil's assistant. He lived on until 1975, the last survivor of the eight.
• George "Buck" Weaver, third baseman. Weaver attended the initial meetings, and while he did not go in on the fix, he knew about it. Landis banished him on this basis, stating "Men associating with crooks and gamblers could expect no leniency." On January 13, 1922 Buck unsuccessfully applied for reinstatement. Like Jackson, Weaver continued to profess his innocence to successive Baseball Commissioners to no effect. He died in 1956.
• Claude "Lefty" Williams, pitcher. 0-3 with a 6.63 ERA for the series. Only one other pitcher in the entire history of baseball - George Frazier of the 1981 New York Yankees - has ever lost three games in one World Series. Frazier, presumably, was not trying to lose them.

Also banned was Joe Gedeon, second baseman for the St. Louis Browns. Gedeon knew Risberg, had heard of the fix from him, and placed bets. He informed Comiskey of the fix after the Series in an effort to gain a reward. He was banned for life by Landis along with the eight White Sox.

Origin of "Black Sox"

Although many believe the Black Sox name to be related to the dark and corrupt nature of the conspiracy, the term "Black Sox" may already have existed before the fix. There is a story that the name "Black Sox" derived from parsimonious owner Charles Comiskey's refusal to pay for the players' uniforms to be laundered, instead insisting that the players themselves pay for the cleaning. As the story goes, the players refused and subsequent games saw the White Sox play in progressively filthier uniforms as dust, sweat and grime collected on the white, woolen uniforms until they took on a much darker shade.

On the other hand, Eliot Asinof in his book 8 Men Out makes no such connection, referring early on to filthy uniforms but referring to the term "Black Sox" only in connection with the scandal.

Curse of the Black Sox?

The Curse of the Black Sox (1919 – 2005) was a superstition or scapegoat cited as a reason for the failure of the Chicago White Sox to win the World Series from 1917 until 2005.

After being marred by the Black Sox scandal in 1919, the White Sox franchise would not reach another World Series until 1959 and not win another World Series until 2005, when they swept the Houston Astros for their first World Series Championship in 88 years.

The Chicago White Sox defeated the Houston Astros and won the fourth and final game of the 2005 World Series and the World Championship on October 26, 2005. Coincidentally, Kid Gleason, betrayed manager of the 1919 "Black Sox" team was born on October 26. Charles Comiskey, owner of the 1919 "Black Sox," who many blame for the teams' sellout of the series, died on October 26.

Following the White Sox victory of 2005, it is likely most will consider the "Curse of the Black Sox" laid to rest. However, most White Sox fans refused to fall into such superstition so as not to be compared to their crosstown rivals, who use the Curse of the Billy Goat to explain their World Series drought. The concept of the White Sox ending a curse was mainly fueled by national media, and was unfamiliar to the attitudes of the local fans on the matter.

Interestingly, after the White Sox' prior World Series win in 1917, the Boston Red Sox won their last World Series win for a while in 1918. The Red Sox would finally end that drought in 2004, one year before the White Sox ended theirs.

In popular culture

Eliot Asinof's book, Eight Men Out, is the best-known history of the scandal. Director John Sayles' film Eight Men Out, based on Asinof's book, is a dramatization of the scandal, focusing largely on Buck Weaver as the one banned player who did not take any money. It stars John Cusack as Weaver. W.P. Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe is the story of an Iowa farmer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield after hearing a mysterious voice; Shoeless Joe Jackson and other members of the Black Sox come to play on his field. The novel was adapted into the hit film Field of Dreams. Also, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, a minor character named Meyer Wolfsheim was said to have helped in the Black Sox scandal, though this is purely fictional. In explanatory notes accompanying the novel's 75th anniversary edition, editor Matthew J. Bruccoli describes the character as being directly based on Rothstein.

Also, in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather Part II, the fictional Jewish gangster Hyman Roth alludes to the scandal when he says, "I've loved baseball ever since Arnold Rothstein fixed the World Series in 1919."

See also

• 1919 World Series
• Major League Baseball Scandals
• Hugh Fullerton

Sources

• Chicago Historical Society: Black Sox
• Famous American Trials: The Black Sox Trial
• Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out. New York: Henry Holt. 1963. ISBN 0-8050-6537-7.
• Ginsburg, Daniel E. The Fix Is In: A History of Baseball Gambling and Game Fixing Scandals. McFarland and Co., 1995. 317 pages. ISBN 0-7864-1920-2.
• Pietrusza, David Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series, New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. ISBN 0-7867-1250-3

External links

• chicagohs.org Chicago Historical Society on the Black Sox
• Eight Men Out - IMDb page on the 1988 movie, written and directed by John Sayles based on Asinof's book