The Black Sox Scandal

 

The Black Sox scandal describes a number of events that took place around and during the 1919 World Baseball Series, which resulted in the most famous scandal in the sport’s history. Eight players from the Chicago White Sox (who later became nicknamed the Black Sox) were accused of throwing (or intentionally losing) the series against their opponents the Cincinnati Reds. Exact details of the extent to which each man was involved have always been a little cloudy, but the charges were serious enough to have the players permanently banned from professional baseball for life. The eight men involved were – ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson, pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude ‘Lefty’ Williams, infielders Buck Weaver, Arnold ‘Chick’ Gandil, Fred McMullin and Charles ‘Swede’ Risberg, and outfielder Oscar ‘Happy’ Felsch. Ironically, because of the raised interest in baseball just after the war, the bigwigs decided to make the series a ‘best-of-nine’ play-off instead of the usual ‘best-of-seven’ and discussed ways of making it an unforgettable series. Little did they realise what bad timing this was, as baseball was about to make a spectacle of itself without their help.

 

formation of the white sox

 

The White Sox team was formed in 1900 under the ownership of Charles Comiskey and were originally called the White Stockings. In their first year they won the league championship and by 1906 the White Sox won the World Series by defeating the Chicago Cubs by four games to two.

During the next four years the team had no major achievements, but in 1910 Comiskey decided to build a new ballpark for his team and put every effort into building a really strong squad. To boost his team in 1915 he bought three star players – outfielder Joe Jackson, second baseman Eddie Collins and centre fielder Happy Felsch.

Two years later the White Sox were playing at their best and won the World Series, and by 1919 had the best record in the American League. Comiskey had succeeded in his dream – building one of the most powerful teams in the history of baseball.

Despite their outstanding success there was a lot of dissent among the players. Regardless of their plush grounds and facilities, the team were payed poorly and it is believed that it was Comiskey’s stinginess that was largely to blame for the scandal that was about to erupt. Many said that if they had received decent wages the players would never have agreed to throw the series. Comiskey was also known to constantly break his promises, teasing his players with offers of big bonuses if they won – but these were idle promises that he never intended to keep. When the team did win, all they received was the odd bottle of cheap champagne and a slap on the back. To add insult to injury, Comiskey even had the gall to charge the players a fee for laundering their dirty uniforms. In protest the players decided to leave their uniforms unwashed and for several weeks turned out onto the pitch in dirty gear, but Comiskey physically removed the clothes from their lockers and then fined his players. Unfortunately, without a union to back them up and a clause in their contract that stopped them from transferring to another club, there was little they could do about their conditions.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the White Sox players squabbled amongst themselves and none of them seemed to be able to form a bond. The team was divided into two separate cliques – one led by second baseman Eddie Collins and the other by first baseman Chick Gandil. The Collins’ ‘team’ were the educated, sophisticated bunch who seemed able to negotiate a fairly decent salary. By contrast, Gandil’s bunch were a far less polished group who were payed a much smaller remuneration – and the resentment grew.

The United States was disrupted by World War I in 1918, and interest in baseball hit an all-time low. The World Series of 1919 was a light at the end of the tunnel and, at a time when the country was starting to return to normal, interest in the sport was being revived. Fans eagerly followed the games and plans were made to make it the best series ever.

The ‘fixing’ of games was not a new concept, as gamblers were often visibly present at the ballparks. It was widely believed that players often supplemented their meagre wages by agreeing to throw single games, but it had never gone as far as affecting a World Series. By 1919, the number of gamblers at the grounds had dramatically increased and Comiskey decided to post signs throughout his park stating:

 

NO BETTING ALLOWED IN THIS PARK

 

Needless to say the signs were ignored and, with player resentment running at an all-time high, several of the team received offers that were just too good to refuse.the fix

By most accounts it appears that Chick Gandil was the ringleader in the ‘fix’. A small-time gambler by the name of Joseph Sullivan had allegedly been making money on inside tips from Gandil for some years. A few weeks before the 1919 World Series, Gandil approached Sullivan about the possibility of arranging a fix for the entire series. He told Sullivan that for a fee of $100,000, Gandil and his teammates would ensure that the White Sox lost. Gandil, who was reaching the age of retirement at 33, decided that he would have one last shot at making some big bucks. Sullivan agreed to his terms, realising that he could make a lot of money out of the fix himself, and set about raising the money.

Gandil had the difficult task of getting his teammates to cooperate. Because the stakes were high, Gandil needed to make sure that he could convince enough players to go along with the fix to make it work. Two of Chicago’s pitchers, Ciccotte and Williams, had won 52 games between them that season, so Gandil was desperate to get them to agree.

Comiskey was the key figure that convinced the players to go along with Gandil’s fix. He had promised to pay Cicotte a bonus of $10,000 if he won a total of 30 games. However, to make sure he wouldn’t reach this figure, Comiskey decided to rest Cicotte for the remainder of the pennant games. This meant that Cicotte only played 29 games and was not therefore eligible for the promised bonus. Cicotte agreed to go along with the fix so long as he received the sum of $10,000 up front. Williams and Risberg were willing participants and a third man, McMullin, demanded a piece of the action when he overheard Risberg talking with Gandil.

The two players whose involvement in the fix is most disputed are Weaver and Jackson. Although many people believe that Jackson was an innocent bystander who got caught up in the fix, as far as the grand jury was concerned he was an equal conspirator. It is alleged that Gandil offered to pay him $20,000 for his part in helping to throw the series. However, Jackson became frustrated when he hadn’t received any money by the end of the third game and flew at Gandil saying that the players were being stitched up by the gamblers. Lefty Williams eventually paid him $5000 in cash at the end of the fourth game. Weaver, who attended several of the meetings of the conspirators, apparently refused to take any part.

Because Sullivan did not have the resources to come up with the money, he had to recruit several other infamous gamblers into the plot – a former featherweight boxing champion Abe Attell, ex-White Sox pitcher ‘Sleepy Bill’ burns and New York Giant first baseman Hall Chase. However, the main benefactor was the infamous businessman Arnold Rothstein, who was also a famous kingpin of organised crime in New York. He was also well known as a big time gambler who would put big money on anything that he could fix.

 

the world series

 

The Chicago White Sox were hot favourites to win the 1919 World Series and the odds against them favoured five to one. The day before the series opened, the rumours of a fix were rife. As the money started to change hands, the odds quickly shifted towards the White Sox opponents, the Cincinnati Reds and the same night Cicotte found the sum of $10,000 in cash in his hotel room.

As arranged the White Sox lost their first game, but the players did not receive the $20,000 in cash that Gandil had promised them. Used to broken promises, the players took a lot of persuading before they would agree to lose the second game, but Gandil promised that the money would be forthcoming by the end of the day. The White Sox lost 4–2.

Those players not involved in the fix were starting to get suspicious. After all they were used to winning and couldn’t understand why some of their team were playing so badly. Catcher Ray Schalk and manager Kid Gleason approached Gandil and Williams and chastised them for their appalling performances. After the match Gandil went to see Abe Attell to collect the $40,000 that he owed him and his teammates. Attell only handed over $10,000 and the players started to have second thoughts about continuing to lose their games.

The White Sox won their third game with ease ,which caused many of the big time gamblers to lose a lot of money. This time it was Attell who felt he had been betrayed and refused to hand over any more money. Sullivan, on the other hand, managed to raise $20,000 before the start of the fourth game which convinced some of the players that it was still worth throwing the next game. Cicotte made several serious errors and the White Sox lost games four and five.

By this time, however, the gamblers had missed another payment and the players decided once and for all that it wasn’t worth losing the series if there was to be no money at the end of it. At least they were guaranteed $5000 each if they won, so the White Sox went on to win both games six and seven. The players were all playing to save the series, and it seemed as though at last it was within their grasp.

This is were Rothstein stepped in. He knew that he was about to lose an awful lot of money and he decided to do something about it. With his investment at risk, Rothstein sent one of his henchmen to see Williams, who was set to pitch in the eighth game. He told Williams that Rothstein wanted the series to be over by the end of the day and threatened Williams and his wife with death if the fix didn’t go ahead. Williams was petrified, the threats had worked, the White Sox lost 10–5 – Cincinnati were handed the World Series on a plate.

A sports writers for the Chicago Herald and Examiner, Hugh Fullerton, had been following the series carefully and had kept his ear to the ground regarding rumours of a fix. He decided to drop hints in his newspaper column and urged other club owners to do something about the gamblers’ illegal involvement in baseball. The majority of people believed it was impossible to fix such an important fixture. Club owners, on the other hand, who knew better, refused to acknowledge that there was a problem, believing that their fans would stay away if they got a sniff of any underhand dealings. It is possible that the whole sordid affair would have blown over if the problem had not continued to grow in the forthcoming years. During the next baseball season, other teams started to take advantage of the illicit ‘windfalls’ and rumours spread that major teams such as the New York Giants, New York Yankees, Boston Braves and Cleveland Indians had been throwing games in return for cash.

 

facing the grand jury

 

The White Sox were enjoying a profitable season in 1920 when they were called before the Grand Jury at Cook County, Illinois. Comiskey, who was trying to cover his tracks, suggested that Jackson and Cicotte should be the first people to testify and that they should admit to everything.

By now the scandal had gone public, with the front pages of every tabloid covering the story. They made sure they covered every single detail of the trial, giving their readers something worth reading. At the conclusion of the hearing, indictments were handed down against eight of the White Sox players, together with gamblers Hal Chase, Abe Attell, Joe Sullivan, Bill Burns and quite a few of Rothstein’s henchmen. It is reported that Rothstein made as much as $270,000 on the 1919 Series but, probably because of his underworld connections, he was not indicted. He did, however, get his come-uppance when he was later murdered by a rival gambler who accused him of fixing a poker game.

The White Sox players who had been indicted were immediately suspended for the rest of the season and had to face trial which began in June 1921.

The trial never really answered any questions as it was a farce right from the start. The confessions of Jackson, Cicotte and Williams went mysteriously missing and the facts regarding the fix were carefully manipulated, distorted and sometimes subject to outright lies. After one month the jury, due to lack of concrete evidence, found a verdict of not guilty.

The missing reports peculiarly turned up four years later in the hands of Comiskey’s lawyer, George Hudnall, who offered no explanation as to how he had got hold of them.

After 1920, club owners were scared that baseball might not survive the massive scandal that had erupted and decided to clean up their acts. Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed as an independent commissioner, and was given dictatorial power over baseball to try and restore the public’s faith in the game. Although the White Sox players had been acquitted, Landis decided to give them all a life-time ban and never allowed them to play a professional game again.