Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

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#3- The Black Sox

This chapter was placed here as it seemed to fit in the

flow of problems the “Great American Pastime” has overcome. For

those not familiar; the “Black Sox” is the name given to the

1919 White Sox. It was either the result of their having thrown

the World Series; or the minority opinion which says that they

had been given that name prior to the Series as they stopped

having their uniforms cleaned when the owner started charging

them for it.

One huge reason the story of the Chicago White Sox throwing

the 1919 Series became as big and memorable as it did was that

in 1919 America there was still something sacred about the World

Series in particular and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. Illiterate Joe

was a hero to many kids, and he put up the third highest

lifetime batting average of .356, behind only Cobb and Hornsby.

Perhaps more importantly, once when Babe Ruth was asked where he

got his swing he replied; “I copied it off Shoeless Joe

Jackson.”

Near the entrance to the Roaring Twenties the average

American would have spat into the collection tray before

considering taking money to lose the hallowed World Series. The

story, as it originally unfolded, contained contradictions which

were the source of baseball’s biggest mystery, not only at the

time, but for years to come.

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According to the 1963 book and 1988 movie; when the notion

of the possibility of the series being thrown, primarily due to

the under-compensation of the White Sox stars got in the air,

even fabled gambler Arnold Rothstein wanted no part. It was

known that on occasion, during the regular season, White Sox

first baseman Chick Gandil did a bit of a dance around the bag

and made it appear as if the throw was bad. There were no

instant replays then. These are a few of Eliot Asinof’s

unprovable contentions in my favorite baseball book, then film;

“Eight Men Out.” His “unprovable” ideas tied the whole thing

together in a logical way it might have happened. He further

suggested that without authorization, one of Rothstein’s

subordinates poorly arranged the fix; and then scammed the

players; working through Gandil. Acting on his own he didn’t

have access to the funds necessary to do the job right. His

failure to deliver on his promises made the Sox players not

deliver on theirs at times, resulting in a confusing-to-the-

outsider back and forth.

To confuse my ostensible point, what is generally not known

today, but was common knowledge back then was that regular

season baseball games were often thrown. In an attempt to

restore baseball’s good name Commissioner Landis not only banned

for life eight of the Sox players, but several others who were

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“known” to frequent with gamblers, and do some strange failing

things on the field at key times.

So, what we have here is a mass morality or religion which

in essence said; “It’s all right to sin from Monday to Saturday,

but never on Sunday.”

 

It has been said of the 1919 Chicago White Sox; "No team

played better and few teams were paid as poorly or got along as

badly.” Players deliberately crossed each other on the field.

During infield practice no one threw the ball to Hall of Fame

second baseman Eddie Collins, Chicago's highest paid player, all

season long. Teammate Chick Gandil had not spoken to Collins

since 1915. Owner Charles A. Comiskey was a former middling

player but was now among the game's most stingy executives.

Eddie Collins said; “I thought you couldn't win without

teamwork, until I joined the White Sox. Yet somehow we won a

hundred games and the pennant that year.”

One thing I always found questionable was the way it was

presumed that the White Sox talent was so superior that they

could just turn it on and win anytime they chose to. Statistics

do not bear this out. Maybe Collins’ quote sheds some

incalculable light on the matter.

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In the vein of trying to keep with fresh impressions

articulated, here are some more circumstances and quotes from

those present at the time.

 

“There was a marked difference between owners and players;

as the latter was viewed as expendable. If one got hurt, they

had as much chance as a truck flattened dog. There was no

pension or benefits. And they saw people making money by the

bushel. Comiskey owned the ballpark. He bottled his own soda in

the basement. He was making money on everything that moved in

that ballpark and the players got little more than they might

have in an unskilled factory job. They were nicknamed the Black

Sox before they threw the 1919 World Series because one year

Comiskey started charging them for laundering their uniforms. So

the players stopped laundering them, and they got dirtier and

dirtier until the sportswriters named them the Black Sox. Then

Comiskey said; ‘Okay, I'll launder your uniforms.’ He then

proceeded to take the cost out of their World Series bonus.”

Chicago Sun Times, newspaper

 

“First baseman Chick Gandil, a former hobo and one-time

club fighter, now near the end of his career, let it be known

that, for the right money, he would be willing to talk some of

his teammates into throwing the series. An ex-boxer, Abe Attell,

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and Sleepy Bill Burns, a one-time White Sox pitcher, connected

Gandil to New York's most notorious gambler, Arnold Rothstein.

‘Who is he, anyhow? An actor?’ ‘No.’ ‘A dentist?’ ‘No. He's a

gambler.’ Gatsby hesitated, and then added coolly, ‘He's the man

who fixed the World Series back in 1919.’ ‘Fixed the World

Series?’ I repeated. The idea staggered me. It never occurred to

me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty

million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a

safe. ‘How did he happen to do that?’ I asked after a minute.

‘He just saw the opportunity.’ ‘Why isn't he in jail?’ ‘They

can't get him, old sport, he's a smart man.’”

F. Scott Fitzgerald; writer, “The Great Gatsby”

 

“The proposition to throw the World Series was first

brought to me in New York City in front of the Ansonia Hotel.

Chick Gandil came to me and said he wanted a conference. He

asked me if anybody had approached me on the 1919 World Series

with the purpose of fixing. I told him, not yet. He asked me if

it was fixed would I be willing to get in and go through with

it. I told him I would refuse to answer right then.”

Lefty Williams, White Sox pitcher

 

“Gandil recruited six teammates: pitcher Claude ‘Lefty’

Williams, outfielder Oscar ‘Happy’ Felsch, third baseman ‘Buck’

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Weaver, shortstop ‘Swede’ Risberg, right-handed pitcher Eddie

Cicotte, and outfielder Joseph Jefferson Jackson. Reserve

infielder Fred McMullin later demanded in on the fix, making

eight. The smart ones insisted on their money up front.

The meeting was held about eight o'clock in the evening. I said,

there's so much double crossing stuff, if I went in the series I

wanted the money put in my hand. I went back to my room at

eleven thirty and the 10 grand was under my pillow.”

Eddie Cicotte, White Sox pitcher

 

“Shoeless Joe Jackson, a South Carolina country boy, had learned

to bat from a Confederate veteran who had learned his baseball

from Union soldiers in a northern prison camp. He had hoped to

be a pitcher until he broke a batter's arm with a wild pitch.

Jackson could neither read nor write, but he could hit; .408 in

his rookie year, .356 lifetime; the third highest average in

history. His home runs were called Saturday Specials because

most of the textile workers' games in which he got his start

were played on Saturdays, and he hit them with a special 48

ounce bat, Black Betsy, made for him by a local lumberman from

the north side of a hickory tree and darkened with coat after

coat of Jackson's tobacco juice. As for the nickname; he was

said once to have been spotted in the minors playing in his

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socks when new shoes proved too tight. The greatest natural

hitter I ever saw.”

Ty Cobb, Tigers center fielder

 

“In two years he had risen from a poor mill boy to the rank of a

player in the major leagues. The ignorant mill boy had become

the hero of millions. Out on the hot prairies teams of Joe

Jacksons battled desperately with the Ty Cobbs. There came a day

when a crook spread money before this ignorant idol, and he

fell. For a few dollars he sold his honor.”

 

New York World, newspaper

 

“There is no alibi for Cicotte. He pitched a great game, a

determined game, and one that would have won nine times out of

ten, but he brought the defeat crashing down upon his own head

by trying to do all the defensive work. He made the wild throw

that gave the Reds their opening, the only real one they had,

and he followed that up by grabbing a ball thrown from the

outfield and deflecting it past the catcher. A high fly to left

blown by the wind over the head of Jackson, who was playing

close in, followed, and Chicago was beaten.”

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Hugh Fullerton, sportswriter on Game 4

 

“After the game was over I went up to my room; I was ill. I was

sick all night. Felsch was in the room with me. I believe I

discussed the matter with him and said, ‘Happy, it'll never be

done again.’ I don't believe he even answered me.”

 

Eddie Cicotte, White Sox pitcher

 

“They aren't hitting. I don't know what's the matter. But I do

know that something's wrong with my gang. The bunch I had

fighting in August for the pennant would've trimmed this

Cincinnati bunch without a struggle. The bunch I have now

couldn't beat a high school team.”

 

Kid Gleason, White Sox manager

 

"Game 8 would be held in Chicago and Lefty Williams was

scheduled to pitch. Humiliated by his poor play, and angered at

not being paid all the money he was owed, he was now determined

more than ever to win. But the night before the game, gamblers

sent by Arnold Rothstein came to his room and threatened to harm

his wife if he did not cooperate. The Cincinnati Reds are the

champions of the world. There'll be a great deal written about

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the World Series; there'll be a whole lot of inside stuff that

never will be printed. The truth will remain that the team that

was the hardest working won. The team which had the ability and

individuality was beaten. The fact is the Series was lost in the

first game.”

 

Hugh Fullerton, sportswriter

 

Winter 1919. Before anything was publicly known, in an

article written for the “New York World,” Hugh Fullerton

suggested that the Series had been fixed and that the baseball

establishment was outraged. American League President Ban

Johnson, who hated Charles Comiskey, pursued the case for almost

a year. Comiskey said; “There's always some scandal of some kind

following some big sporting event like the World Series. These

yarns are manufactured out of whole cloth and grow out of

bitterness due to losing wagers. I believe my boys fought the

battles of the recent World Series on the level, and I would be

the first to want information to the contrary. I would give

$20,000 to anyone unearthing any information to that effect.”

I don’t believe that he made good on this promise either.

 

Sept 1920; eight players are indicted by a grand jury.

Eddie Cicotte and Joe Jackson give sworn confessions. All are

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suspended, ending the White Sox' 1920 pennant bid. Rothstein is

exonerated of any blame.

 

October 7, 1920. “Fix these faces in your memory. These are the

White Sox players who committed the astounding and contemptible

crime of selling out the baseball world. They will be remembered

from now on only for the depths of depravity to which they could

sink.”

 

“The Sporting News,” a newspaper

 

“Professional baseball is in a bad way, not so much because of

the Chicago scandal, as because that scandal has provoked it to

bringing up all the rumors and suspicions of years past. The

general effect is to wrinkle the noses of fans, who will quit

going to ball games if they get the impression that this sort of

thing has been going on underground for years.”

 

“New York Times,” a newspaper

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“Baseball is something more than a game to an American boy. It

is his training field for life work. Destroy his faith in its

squareness and honesty and you have destroyed something more:

You have planted suspicion of all things in his heart.”

 

Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Baseball Commissioner

 

“You know, they needed a commissioner and they looked down the

first base line and there was this old guy who was always

sitting there so they decided to give him the job.”

 

Will Rogers, comedian

 

March, 1921; Landis places all eight players on the ineligible

list for the 1921 season. August, 1921; all eight players are

acquitted of conspiracy charges by a jury after the transcripts

of Cicotte's and Jackson's confessions mysteriously vanish from

the court file. Commissioner Landis immediately bans the eight

men for life. “Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player

who throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to

throw a ball game, no player that sits in conference with a

bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means

of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his

club about it, will ever play professional baseball.”

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Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Baseball Commissioner

 

Joe Jackson played outlaw baseball in south Georgia for a time,

then ran a liquor store in Greenville, South Carolina. Ty Cobb

once came in for a fifth of bourbon. Jackson did not seem to

recognize his old rival. Cobb finally asked; “Don't you know me,

Joe?” “Sure, I know you,” Ty, Jackson answered, “I just didn't

think anyone I used to know up there wanted to recognize me

again."

 

Arnold Rothstein moved on to bootlegging, drug peddling and

labor racketeering, and was eventually shot to death by a rival

gambler whom he had accused of fixing a poker game.

 

“A game of baseball is a clean, straight game, and it summons to

its presence everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics.”

 

William Howard Taft, US President, 1909-1913

 

I believe that the aforementioned adequately describes the

mood of the times from varying viewpoints. With the benefit of

hindsight the only small discrepancy is in whether or not

Rothstein himself was involved in the fix. It strikes me as

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rather inconsequential. The pertinent dynamic didn’t involve

what was behind the scenes. It involved what went on on the

field. If it was a farce, at best the game would likely become

an early incarnation of pro wrestling. At the worst it would

become disdained and totally ignored. It would have been

difficult for baseball to find a more dire situation.

 

It is worth mentioning that Shoeless Joe Jackson led all

players with a .375 batting average in the Series; and hit the

only home run.