Baseball’s World Series in 1919 between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds was tainted by a scandal that involved eight players of the White Sox team agreeing to fix the outcome of the Series for a large sum of money from professional gamblers. The White Sox were the favorites to win the series, but the players generally (and the eight players implicated specifically) did not believe that their compensation from team owner Charles Comiskey was commensurate with their abilities and performance. Here’s how it all came about and what happened to the eight who actively participated in the scandal.
Foreground: Owing to Baseball’s reserve clause in its standard contract, players who refused to accept a contract from their team were barred from signing with any other team in the Major Leagues, or any other professional team that operated as “organized professional baseball.” Players were unable to change teams for a better opportunity unless they were traded by their existing team. There were various labor organizations or guilds that existed from as early as 1885 up until 1953, but none were effective at collective bargaining for the players until the Major League Baseball Players Association founded in 1953 became a full-fledged labor union in 1966. The sport became ever popular particularly during the era of Babe Ruth that spanned from 1914 to 1935 with radio broadcasting and later television coverage of games that brought the action into individual households. In reality Comisky paid his players as well or better than most of the other owners, but players’ pay in general did not keep up with the changing economic times, and the tendency was to blame the owners. This led to the growth of gambling, and the problem of fixing games—a phenomena that first came to light as early as 1865. In 1903, the first known attempt to fix a World Series game occurred when gamblers attempted to bribe the Boston Americans catcher, Lou Criger, into fixing the outcome. Other early World Series games were marred by unsubstantiated rumors of fixes coupled with questionable effort on the part of some participants—including the 1918 World Series that featured the White Sox’s cross-town rivals, the Cubs.
The Plan: The atmosphere in the league offices seemed to be nonchalant towards player malfeasance brightening up the perception that a huge fix in the World Series could be pulled off. The idea of a WS fix first surfaced during the 1919 regular season when starting pitcher Eddie Cicotte broached the subject with William Burns, a known gambler who was a former player. The interest was there, and the planning for the fix began in September of that year when White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil met with Boston bookmaker, Joe “Sport” Sullivan. They discussed how the upcoming WS could be fixed by the heavily favored White Sox for an aggregate sum of $80,000 (about $1,575,000 in 2025). A few days later in Gandil’s New York hotel room, a group of players interested in the fix gathered together and met with gamblers including Burns to hear the details. The group included the team’s third baseman, Buck Williams, who attended the meetings but was never paid any money, and utility infielder, Fred McMullin, who heard about the fix and bluffed his way in by threatening to expose it. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, the team’s left fielder and one of the league’s best hitters did not attend any of the meetings, but his name was kicked around as being in favor of the fix in order to draw in money from the big-time gamblers of the era. The conspirators included two of the starting pitchers, Eddie Cicotte and Claude “Lefty” Williams. The plan was still chancy and may not have succeeded if the very best starting pitcher, Red Faber, hadn’t caught the flu before the series began. Faber was not the type who would ever submit to a fix, and he likely would have started at least two and maybe three of the games taking away a lot of the probability that the fix would work. The result of the meeting was that the fix would be on, but the overall price tag went up to $100,000. Financing the fix turned out to be much more dramatic as big time gamblers such as Arnold Rothstein turned down requests to front the money leaving Burns and his associates in it alone. The group met with the gamblers again in a hotel in Chicago before leaving for Cincinnati. Cicotte, now the first game starter and a key participant in any fix, demanded $10,000 up front then left the meeting. With the matter of payment still unsettled, the corrupted players met again with Burns and company in Cincinnati before the first game. There was considerable wrangling over the money and payment details until they all finally agreed that the players would be paid in $20,000 installments after each White Sox loss. Cicotte also found his $10,000 prepayment under the pillow in his hotel room.
The Outcome: Cicotte took the mound as expected in game one and pitched well until falling apart in the fourth inning. When he was finally removed from the game the White Sox were down 6-1 and wound up losing 9-1. However, the corrupted players were stiffed by the gamblers who failed to come up with their $20,000 game one payout. In game two, Lefty Williams pitched well until unravelling again in the fourth inning helping the White Sox to a game two loss. Now the corrupted players were owed the sum of $40,000, but the gamblers only ponied up $10,000. In game three, however, the White Sox starting pitcher was not a part of the fix and pitched a 3-0 shutout sending shivers up and down the spines of Burns and the other gamblers who were stuck in the middle. Cicotte returned to the mound in game four and although he pitched more admirably, the team was on a cold streak trying to score runs and lost 5-0. After game five went to the Reds, the While Sox were looking at a 4 game to 1 deficit (the series was best of 9 games in 1919). In game six the middle of the batting order came alive and the White Sox eked out a come-from-behind 5-4 win in 10 innings. Game seven resulted in a 4-1 White Sox victory behind Cicotte that looked like the turnaround the Chicago fans had been waiting for. Then came game eight with Williams back on the mound, and he didn’t make it out of the first inning. The White Sox went on to lose the game 10-5, and the World Series five games to three. Some conjecture in the press and other circles surrounded the dubious outcome, but only two facts arose: one was that the fix was widely known in professional gambling circles, and the other was that far more than the original $10,000 furnished after game two went to the corrupted players from various anonymous sources.
The Lid Gets Blown Off: During the World Series, Comisky received clandestine reports that a fix by his team was going on. When the series ended the reports were confirmed by club officials who traveled to St. Louis to consult two known gamblers. This fact was re-confirmed later when two other in-the-know gamblers related it to Comisky in a Chicago meeting that December. Comisky’s reaction turned out to be the right thing to do—he covered it up, signed most of his players for the next season, and carried on with huge crowds coming to see them play in what became the early trappings of a major growth industry. The rumors did not go away, however, and the lid came off near the end of the 1920 season after the suspected fix of a late August regular season game by two non-contenders, the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies, rose to the forefront. Other unrelated allegations, such as the fix of the 1919 Pacific Coast League championship cast a dark shadow of the integrity of the game itself. But the rumors did get the attention of Cook County, Illinois, Judge Charles A. McDonald who empaneled a grand jury to investigate the Cubs-Phillies game. It wasn’t long before the jury’s attention would be solidly focused on the 1919 World Series. Both Eddie Cicotte and Joe Jackson admitted to Alfred Austrian, the White Sox legal counsel, that they did accept money as a bribe to lose games but they never made any deliberate misplays in any game to insure defeat. The other suspected co-conspirators all pleaded innocent, but the entire group was indicted anyway.
The Trial: The indicted players now became known as the “Black Sox,” for selling out the game of baseball in its finest hour—the World Series. Burns, who was also indicted for his part, agreed to turn state’s evidence for immunity. The atmosphere of the courtroom resembled that of an afternoon ballgame with spectators in shirtsleeves along with children jamming their way into seats. When Charles Comisky took the stand, he was grilled by defense attorneys to the extent that he lost his cool in the courtroom making him the perfect bad guy for the drama. Burns, however, proved to be very good witness for the prosecution recounting and describing the events of the scandal. The evidence from the grand jury that included confessions by Cicotte and Jackson were challenged as both players contended that they had been granted immunity before testifying. After carefully reviewing the evidence, the Judge ruled against the players stipulating that they were not offered immunity and they confessed while understanding their rights. The concept of Comiskey suffering from losses during the next season owing to the scandal was scoffed at after the sizable revenue increases were reported. When it became time for Gandil to testify, the defense suddenly rested on the premise that the prosecution had not proven its case. The jury returned a not guilty verdict after deliberating for less than three hours.
The Strange Case of Joe Jackson: Was “Shoeless” Joe Jackson a part of the scandal or not? A lot of scrutiny was applied to Jackson’s case, but he was still indicted with the others even though he did not attend any of meetings and never met fact to face with any of the gamblers. However, he did confess to the grand jury that he received money (his roommate, Claude Williams, paid him $5,000 out of the $20,000 he was promised). Ironically, the signed grand jury confessions of three players (Cicotte, Williams, and Jackson) mysteriously disappeared before the trial, and later re-appeared in the office of the White Sox counsel, Alfred Austrian. During the trial, the prosecution was required to reconstruct the confessions from the recorder’s notes. Jackson further asserted that the team’s lawyers took advantage of him by pressing him into signing something that he did not fully understand owing to the fact that he was illiterate. His play on the field backed up his assertions to the following extent: he batted .375 for the series, collecting twelve base hits—a record for the time that stood until 1964. Further, he made no fielding errors, and had six runs-batted-in including three in games that the White Sox lost. He maintained his innocence until his death in 1951.
Aftermath: The owners of the Major League teams had for some time disliked and disapproved of the way the game was governed by the National Baseball Commission, formed in 1903 to primarily smooth over the merger of the National and American leagues. Before the 1921 season, the Commission was dissolved and replaced by one person, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Landis saw that the integrity of the game was threatened by the growing scope of gamblers fixing outcomes. He promptly suspended all players in the Black Sox Scandal permanently—even the ones who did not receive money on the grounds that they knew about it and didn’t report it. He further announced that any team that conducted any game that included banned players on either side would likewise be banned. The scope of the problem may have been bigger than originally thought. When Cicotte confessed to throwing games, he not only confessed to the 1919 World Series, but to other regular season games in the 1920 season.
Conclusions: Following the 1969 MLB season, player Curt Flood sued the league over the reserve clause charging that it violated antitrust laws and therefore his basic rights. The case went to the Supreme Court that ruled in Flood v. Kuhn that baseball’s exemption from antitrust law had been established by Congress and must be revoked only by Congress and not via jurisprudence. However, a few years later in arbitration, Peter Seitz ruled in favor of MLB pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally who played the 1975 season without signing a new contract arguing that the reserve clause allowed contracts to be renewed for one year only and not indefinitely. As the ruling was in favor of the players they became free agents, and the reserve clause was history.
Sources: The Black Sox Scandal, Society for American Baseball Research: 1919 Chicago White Sox Essays, by William F. Lamb.
Wikipedia, Black Sox Scandal.
Trial Starts for the Chicago White Sox Players Accused of Throwing the 1919 World Series, History.com, November 13, 2009.
What Was the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, History.com, by Evan Endrews, October 9, 2014.
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