Prosecutors claimed the White Sox threw the Series.
The stage was set for the 1919 World Series. It was to be the American League champion Chicago White Sox versus the National League Champion Cincinnati Reds. The White Sox, loaded with Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chick Gindil, and Buck Weaver, were the heavy favorite to win the 9-game series.
Charles Comiskey (photo, Alchetron)
But despite being a dominant team that year, what most fans didn’t know was that the Sox team were an incredibly unhappy team. Team members didn’t like the team’s owner, Charles Comiskey.
Comiskey was known for being cheap with his players. Charles Risberg and Claude Williams made less than $3,000 a year and Joe Jackson and George Weaver made only $6,000 a year. White Sox pitcher, Eddie Cicotte, was promised a $10,000 bonus if he could win 30 games. Once he closed in on that record, Comiskey had him benched so that he wouldn’t have to pay the bonus. Eddie’s record ended up 29-7.
Players were stuck with their teams back then because there wasn’t free agency.
The situation was ripe for a man like Arnold Rothstein to get involved. Rothstein was the kingpin of a New York City mob. His goal was to fix the Series so that the heavy favorites would lose.
Rumors began swirling that the fix was in and heavy money was placed on the Reds. The rumors reached the press and reporters started looking for clues. But it was hard to determine if the Sox were really throwing the Series. White Sox players didn’t want fans to think the Series was fixed, so they played well enough to fool most fans.
The White Sox ended up losing the series in eight games.
Eight players were eventually accused of cheating: Arnold “Chick” Gindil, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Oscar “Happy” Felsch, Fred McMullin, Charles “Swede” Risburg, George “Buck” Weaver, and Claude “Lefty” Williams.
At trial, each player was found not guilty. But Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who later became the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, banned all eight players from the game. They became known as “The Black Sox.”
Their story was told in the 1988 motion picture, Eight Men Out (Orion Pictures), starring Charlie Sheen and John Cusack.
Excellent article! Most baseball fans know the story of the famous “Black Sox” scandal. However, the writer, Matthew Paris really did a wonderful job with the details. There were a few things that I didn’t know about the 1919 World Series and Mr. Paris covered it very well. I really loved it!