Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The 1919 Chicago Black Sox Scandal (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. In October 1919, the champions of the National League, the Cincinnati Reds, faced the champions of the American League the Chicago White Sox in the World Series. While Cincinnati won the championship on the field, five games to three, the series will forever be remembered because of the events surrounding it. Even a hundred years later, it remains one of the most significant events in American professional sports history. Learn more about the 1919-Chicago Black Sox scandal and how it almost destroyed the

Starting point is 00:00:33 of baseball on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. In case you're not a sports fan or know nothing about the sport of baseball,

Starting point is 00:01:19 This story really doesn't have anything to do with sports per se. It does involve athletes in a sporting event, but that isn't the real story. The story is one of economics, greed, and crime. To understand what happened, you need to know the state of baseball in the early 20th century. Baseball began as a professional sport in 1869 with the establishment of the Cincinnati Reds. This step, from amateur to professional, was a big step, but it didn't mean that the men playing baseball for money were making very much at it. Over the years, baseball grew and more professional teams were created. Different leagues appeared and died. Eventually, there were two major baseball leagues, the American League and the National League.

Starting point is 00:01:57 And in 1903, they eventually agreed that the winner of each league would meet in an annual championship dubbed the World Series. Despite bigger stadiums and crowds, baseball still wasn't a huge moneymaker for most players. If you were a major league baseball player, you still probably needed to get a job during the off-season. Now, the owner of the Chicago White Sox was Charles Kamiski. Kamisky was a former player, and actually one of the leaders in a player revolt that took place in 1890. In 1894, he purchased a team in Sioux City, Iowa named the Sioux City Cornhuskers. He moved the team to St. Paul, Minnesota, where it was renamed the St. Paul Saints,

Starting point is 00:02:32 and then moved the team again to Chicago to join the new American League. He renamed the team the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox under Kamisky were reasonably successful. They won the American League five times in 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, and 1919. And they won the World Series in 1906, and most recently just two years earlier in 1917. So the Chicago White Sox were doing pretty well, and in 1919, they did very well. However, there was a thing in baseball at the time known as the Reserve Clause. The Reserve Clause basically prevented any baseball player from playing for any other baseball team

Starting point is 00:03:08 if they didn't come to terms with the team that signed them. If their contract expired, the team that signed them still retained their rights. In fact, it was the elimination of the reserve clause in 1975 that was largely responsible for the explosion in player salaries that came after. Charles Kamisky had a reputation for being very cheap. He was perceived as not paying his players very well, even though later analysis showed that he was about average for a team owner of that period. Regardless, the players didn't like him.

Starting point is 00:03:36 On the team, there were two groups of players. One was a group of straight-laced players, and the other was a group of, how shall I say, more morally flexible players. The two groups from all accounts didn't particularly like each other and kept to themselves, but baseball is a team sport that doesn't require a lot of cooperation, and they did have one thing in common. Neither of them liked Kamisky. It was in this atmosphere of player resentment and low salaries that the events of September and October 1919 took place. Gamblers and mobsters always floated around the periphery of major league teams at that period. Low wages of players made them easy targets for bettors who wanted to fix games, or who at least wanted to get inside information.

Starting point is 00:04:15 However, fixing an entire series of games requires more than just one or two players. You really need to get a whole bunch of players involved, otherwise it just wouldn't work. The idea for fixing the World Series was hatched between the White Sox First Baseman, Arnold Chick-Gandle, and a Boston gambler by the name of Joseph Sport Sullivan. Both of them knew that they had to get other players on board, so on September 21st they held him. meeting at the Ansonia Hotel in New York City. There were a small group of players in this meeting who heard the pitch from Gandal and Sullivan. In addition to Gandal, the initial players who were in on the fix were the pitchers Eddie C. caught in Claude Leffey Williams, shortstop Charles Swede Riseberg, and outfielder Oscar Happy

Starting point is 00:04:54 Flesh. Third baseman Buck Weaver attended the initial meeting, but didn't take any money and refused to take part. The deal was that Sullivan would give them a total of $100,000, which back in 191919 was worth about $1.6 million. One of the bench players, an infielder named Fred McMullen, was added to the plot when he overheard the scheme and threatened to turn them in if he didn't get a cut. The final player they allegedly approached was the star player on the team and arguably one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Shulis Joe Jackson. More on him in a bit.

Starting point is 00:05:26 Sullivan began working with organized crime figures around the country to raise money for the fix, including the New York City crime boss, Arnold Rothstein. The fix of the World Series quickly became a very poorly kept secret in the underworld. The White Sox were initially three-to-one favorites over the Reds, but a sudden flood of money on Cincinnati to win quickly and dramatically shifted the odds. The scheme got a lucky break when the starting pitcher for Game 1, Red Faber, came down with the flu. Faber wasn't in on the plot, so the pitchers for the first two games were Eddie Seacott and Lefty Williams, both of whom were part of the conspiracy. On the second pitch of the first game, Eddie Seacott hit the Reds leadoff hiter,

Starting point is 00:06:02 Morrie Rath. This was the signal to the gamblers that the players were going to go through with the plan. The fix was such a poorly kept secret that during game one it was already being discussed in the press box, and writers were already on the lookout for plays which seemed suspicious. The White Sox lost their first two games with their two crooked pitchers. They won game three and then lost games four and five. And I should note that the World Series at this time was a best of nine series, not a best of seven series as it is today. Now, according to the original agreement, the players were supposed to receive $20,000 after every loss,

Starting point is 00:06:34 so they would have the full $100,000 after the loss of the fifth game. However, by the time they were down 4 to 1, they hadn't been paid what they were owed. The players then wanted to renege on the deal and proceeded to win the next two games to bring the series to 4 to 3 going into Game 8. At this point, some of the players started getting threats against their families from mobsters. And in Game 8, Williams was the starter, and the Reds ended up winning 10 to 5, clinching their very first World Series. The rumors of the World Series being fixed kept circulating after it was over. A writer by the name of Hugh Fullerton wrote an article for the New York Evening World titled Is Big League Baseball being run for gamblers with players in the deal?

Starting point is 00:07:16 However, for the most part, the powers that be in baseball were happy to ignore the rumors and just let the issue rest. The event which broke the dam on the story occurred in August of 1920, when evidence of a fixed regular season game between the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies came to light. A grand jury was convened to investigate gambling and baseball, and their attention soon turned to the 1919-World Series. As the end of September 1920 rolled around, the White Sox were once again contention for the American League title. They were in a race with the Cleveland Indians, and if they won their last three games, they could win the American League again. However, on September

Starting point is 00:07:51 28, Eddie Seacott testified to the grand jury that he received money for throwing the World Series. After this, the floodgates opened, and more players and gamblers confessed. Khamisky suspended all of the remaining seven players who were still on the team, which resulted in the White Sox losing two of their next three games, and coming in second in the American League. Gandil, the ringleader of the whole thing, had been sent to the minor leagues by this point. Kamisky also gave each of the ten players who didn't take a bribe $1,500, which was the difference between the winners and losers' bonus from the World Series.

Starting point is 00:08:24 The players who took bribes were all put on trial in July of 1921. The funny thing was, all of their signed confessions for the grand jury disappeared while in police custody, as well as much of the other evidence that was collected. All eight players who were put on trial were found not guilty after just three hours of deliberation. However, the legal aspect of this case wasn't what has had a lasting impact. Prior to the 1921 season, the Major League Baseball owners hired someone to serve as a commissioner for all of baseball. He would be responsible for the rules of the game and for cleaning it up to protect the game's public image. His name was Kennesaw Mountain Landis.

Starting point is 00:09:03 One of his very first acts as commissioner was to ban all eight players who received money or knew about the deal for life. They were ineligible not just to play baseball, but they couldn't even attend a professional baseball game as a spectator. For the most part, seven of the men who were banned were middling ball players at best. But one of them, Joe Jackson, was great, and his role in the scheme has always been in doubt. If he tried to throw the series, he did a horrible job. He hit the only home run in the World Series. He batted 375, which was the highest for any regular player in the series. He had 12 hits, which stood as a World Series record for 50 years.

Starting point is 00:09:44 He had 30 chances in the outfield, throwing out five runners, and had zero errors. Moreover, as great of a player as Shulis Joe Jackson was, he was illiterate, and he wasn't very smart. Also, he was never in on the initial meeting, and all of the implicated players admitted that they only brought his name up to make the deal seem more impressive to the betters. Jackson admitted to taking $5,000, but it was said it was given to him without any conditions. Collectively, the Eight Men Band became known as the Black Sox. They became the subject of popular movies such as Eight Men Out and Field of Dream. dreams, and it even had a mention in the novel The Great Gatsby. There is an apocryphal story which is attributed to a child who walked up to Joe

Starting point is 00:10:25 Jacks and outside the courthouse and asked him, Say it ain't so, Joe. This has now become a popular phrase used whenever heroes let you down. After suspending many of their best players, the White Sox sunk to seventh place and didn't win another World Series until 2005. It became known as the curse of the Black Sox. The scandal and the discovery of other regular season games which were fixed threatened the integrity and popularity of baseball.

Starting point is 00:10:50 One of the things that saved it was the incredible popularity of a single player by the name of Babe Ruth. Schulist Joe Jackson died in 1951, still banned from baseball. Despite having the third highest career batting average in baseball history, his ban extends to today,

Starting point is 00:11:07 resulting in him not being eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day.

Starting point is 00:11:30 And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere or Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The 1919 Chicago Black Sox Scandal (Encore)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.