Infamous America - BLACK SOX Ep. 3 | "The Bankroll"

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

As the regular season winds down, the talk of a World Series fix heats up. Chicago White Sox players meet with two sets of gamblers and name a price to lose the Series. The gamblers weave a complicated web to raise the money before the Series begins. One group secures the help of the biggest gambler of them all, Arnold Rothstein. On the eve of Game One, the deal is done and everyone waits to see if the players will go through with the fix... Special thanks to the SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With 100 years of scientific research behind us, we think we have a decent guess as to how it began. We'll never know for sure, but we have a good theory. We know that human influenza viruses and bird influenza viruses can infect hogs. If both viruses infect the same hog at the same time, they can mix together inside the animal and combine with the hogs cells to mutate into a new virus. If this new virus spreads back to humans, it can be done. devastating. Imagine if a farmer kills a hog and turns it to ham or bacon for his family. Or maybe he simply interacts with the hog and he catches the virus. He gives it to his family

and they become sick. The neighbors come over to help and they catch the virus. Their family members come over to nurse them back to health and they catch the virus. Their kids play with other kids and spread the virus without knowing it. Soon they're all sick and now the virus is racing through the population at an uncontrollable speed. Now imagine a young man catches the sickness right before he joins the military. He's sent to a huge training camp with thousands of soldiers. He passes the sickness to them. Some of them get transferred to other bases and they carry the sickness with them. It spreads to naval bases on the coasts. Soldiers carried on board massive ships as they steam across the ocean. They land in other countries and mix with other soldiers. They live in

in dirty, cramped conditions. They fight a bloody hellish war across thousands of miles and a dozen countries. In just a couple weeks, the sickness has spread across a continent, across an ocean, and across the largest landmass on Earth. It's a global nightmare. That was the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. Most researchers now believe it began in the farms of Haskell County, Kansas. Local farm boys joined the military as America entered World War I.

They carried the sickness to Camp Funston in Kansas. From there, it spread to 24 of the 36 largest military bases in the country. It traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with American soldiers. Those soldiers infected the soldiers in Europe. The soldiers infected the civilians around them. And in record time, it spread across the entire planet. Before anyone even had a clue what was happening, the damage was done. But the scientific community rallied to fight the new invader.

Hospitals and laboratories and colleges all over the world worked together to dissect the sickness. They developed new technologies and new standards and practices to fight it. And eventually, like all the pandemics that came before it, the sickness burned itself out. But the destruction was difficult to comprehend. It's estimated that 500 million people caught the influenza virus. That meant that one-third of all humans on Earth got sick. It's estimated that 20 to 50 million people died from it. The low end of that estimate would be more than all the estimated deaths in World War I combined, military and civilian.

And at this point, you might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with the Black Sox scandal? It might have had everything to do with it. White Sox star pitcher Red Faber had been the hero of Chicago's 1917 World Series victory. But he caught the flu before the 1919 season. He was sick all year and did not play in the 1919 World Series. White Sox Hall of Fame catcher Ray Shalk said for the rest of his life, if Red Faber had been healthy for the 1919 series, the scandal never would have happened. it wouldn't have been possible.

But the only season of Red Faber's Hall of Fame career that he wasn't healthy was 1919. From Black Barrel Media, this is Season 2 of the Infamous America Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling the story of one of the most infamous events in Major League Baseball history, the Black Sox scandal. In the first two chapters, baseball evolved into America's favorite sport. but even as its popularity and professionalism rose, it couldn't shake its connection to gambling.

During the turbulent year of 1919, the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds emerged as the best teams in baseball. Now, as the season winds down and the teams prepare for the fall classic, a few Chicago players begin to conspire with groups of gamblers. For the right price, the players say they'd be willing to lose the World Series. This is Chapter 3, The Bank Roll. In September 1919, three quarters of the Boston Police Department went on strike to demand higher wages, fewer hours, and better working conditions. And they were not alone in their protests.

In addition to a season of race riots called Red Summer and a sweeping fear of communism called the Red Scare and the constant concerns over radical anarchist groups, there were labor strikes from the West Coast to the East Coast all year long. On the baseball field, fans were treated to a preview of what was in store in the coming decades. Red Sox pitcher Babe Ruth broke the Major League home run record by hitting 28 homers in a single season. Three days later, he broke it again by hitting 29. The next day, the New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6 to 1 in the fastest Major League game ever played. It took just 51 minutes. As the regular season drew to a close,

the Chicago White Sox continued to battle for the American League title. When they finally won it, it was in historic fashion. The White Sox had raced ahead of the other American League teams in April and May and then slumped in June. They rebounded in July and maintained a steady lead in August, but they started to wane a little bit in September. The lack of pitching depth was taking a toll. But even so, Chicago manager Kid Gleason began to look forward to a World Series appearance.

He had to maintain a careful balance with his pitching staff. The Sox still had to win the American League pennant, but if they did, they would need their starting pitchers rested and ready to go for the World Series. So Kid Gleason rested starting pitcher Eddie Seekot for two weeks in the middle of the month. The move has spawned controversy for a hundred years and given rise to one of the most, popular myths of the Black Sox scandal, that owner Charles Kamisky ordered his manager to bench the pitcher so he wouldn't have to pay Eddie a bonus for winning 30 games that season. The move and the lost bonus have been cited as major reasons why Eddie participated in the

upcoming scandal. The myth is a convenient way to explain Eddie's actions in October, but it is just a myth. In reality, Eddie struggled in his final start before his period of rest. He won the game, which was his 28th of the year, but he admitted later his arm was sore after a long season. And even if it wasn't, even if Eddie was perfectly healthy, he was going to be expected to start three games of the upcoming World Series. At the beginning of September, the three-man National Commission that governed baseball made a proposal. They wanted to extend the World Series to nine games.

The owners approved the measure, and virtually overnight, two extra games had been added to the series. And because Cincinnati and Chicago were relatively close together, all nine games would be played consecutively. There would be no days off during the World Series, which meant Eddie might have to pitch three games in six days, so Kid Gleason decided he needed rest. But even with 12 days off, Eddie still had a chance to win 30 games.

He won his first start after the break to earn his 29th victory, and he started the game in which the Sox finally clinched the American League title. But after getting shelled through seven innings, Kid Gleason was forced to replace him with Dickie Kerr. With the rookie on the mound, the Sox rallied for a memorable win. Shoeless Joe Jackson stepped to the plate in the ninth inning with the game tied five to five. He smashed a line drive into deep right center field that sent in the winning run. Joe's teammates mobbed him in celebration.

It was the first time in the short history of the American League that a pennant had been clinched by a walk-off victory, and it wouldn't happen again for another 25 years. The Sox won the game in the American League title, but Eddie did not get his 30th win. He finished the season 29 and 7, but he was still paid a bonus by owner Charlie Kermiski. Recent investigations by the Sabre Black Sox Scandal Research Committee revealed that he was Kamski paid Eddie $3,000 after the season, in addition to his regular salary of $5,000. The extra money might have been a holdover from the 1918 season that was shortened by the war. But either way, with his salary and the bonus, Eddie Seacott was the second highest paid pitcher

in all of baseball, behind only future Hall of Famer Walter Johnson. The socks had limped to the finish line, winning just two of their final nine games, The 1819 season was now complete. The Chicago White Sox were American League champs, and three days after the season ended, they began the World Series versus the National League champs, the Cincinnati Reds. Chicago manager Kid Gleason was likely confident in his hitters, as he had been almost all season. His center fielder, Happy Felch, was on fire in September. Shoeless Joe Jackson had clinched the pennant with a walk-off single. Second baseman Eddie Collins was a rock.

First baseman Chick-Gandle and third baseman Buck Weaver had been steady all year. And Gleason surely hoped his pitchers would be up to the task, but he was probably less certain about them. Eddie Seacott and Lefty Williams had been arrested as much as possible. Red Faber was given one final tune-up before the series, but he pitched poorly. Gleason knew he couldn't rely on his ace from the 1917 season. Rookie Dickie Kerr would have to shoulder more of the burden than anyone had expected at the start of the year, but there was no getting around it now, because the rest of the pitching staff was a big question mark. William Kidd Gleason had been around baseball for more than 30 years by the time the 1919 World Series rolled around.

He'd been with the socks for the last seven, and he knew the abilities of his squad better than anyone. He fully expected them to beat the Reds. What he didn't know was that the core of his starting lineup had been conspiring with gamblers all month long. Gleason and all the White Sox fans in Chicago were in for a hell of a surprise. By early September, First Baseman Chick-Gandle and pitcher Eddie Seacott had been talking for weeks about the possibility of a big payday in the World Series. The payday could be much bigger than the bonuses they would earn for playing in the event. They'd heard rumors that some members of the Chicago Cubs had been bribes. by gamblers to lose the series in 1918.

The alleged price was $10,000 per player. That was double Eddie's yearly salary and more than double Chick-Gandle salary. An organized baseball had a long history of looking the other way when it came to gambling. Hal Chase had been in trouble because of gambling for years and he'd never been severely punished. In fact, he was with the New York Giants right now. And in another fact, he'd been cold. caught bribing teammates yet again and was not punished. So the odds of earning a big payday were high,

and the odds of being punished were low, and they could make more than their yearly salaries in the space of one week. As the White Sox were on their final East Coast trip of the season, Gandal and Seacott let it be known that they were open for business. At the Ensonia Hotel in New York City, Eddie Seacott and possibly Chick-Gandle met with Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Mahargh. Burns was a former Major League pitcher

who was now in the oil business in Texas, but he was also a gambler. And Billy was a former boxer with connections to gamblers in Philadelphia. Eddie said some of the players might be willing to lose the World Series for the right price. In Boston, there was a similar meeting.

Chick Gandal met his old friend Joseph Sport Sullivan. Sullivan was a lifelong gambler and by 1919, he was arguably the biggest bookmaker in the country. Sports Sullivan received the same message as Sleepy Bill. If he could raise the money, some of the players were interested in a deal. Eventually, the price was agreed upon. It would cost $100,000 to bribe a group of players to lose the series.

With that, Sports Sullivan and Sleepy Bill Burns went to work. Neither man had that kind of cash, so each had to raise. raise the money on his own. And neither knew that the other had been approached about the deal, so now there were two separate schemes in the works. Both men began to assemble networks of gamblers and financiers to help meet the player's price. News of a possible fix spread fast through the gambling underworld.

The two men quickly began to weave a web that would stretch from the east coast cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, to the Midwest cities of Des Moines, Omaha, Indianapolis, and St. Louis. Things were moving fast, and the White Sox still had not won the American League pennant. Then on September 24th, Shoeless Joe Jackson smacked the game-winning hit that secured the American League title for Chicago. The White Sox were now officially in the World Series, which would begin in just one week. Meanwhile, the gamblers were still trying to raise the money. Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Mahargue tried to get the $100,000.

through Billy's contacts in Philadelphia, but they came up empty. Next, they went to the biggest gambler of the mall, the man known as the Big Bank Roll, a man who could single-handedly fund the entire operation if he wanted to. Bill Burns and Billy Mahard met criminal kingpin Arnold Rothstein in New York. They asked him to be a part of the fix, and he said no. They may have approached him multiple times, but his answer never changed. Rothstein said he had no interest in being a part of the fix.

What he didn't tell them was that he had no interest in being a part of their fix. He was going to work a plan of his own. But now, Burns and Mahargh were really struggling. Time was slipping away and they were no closer to their goal. Billy Mahard went back to Philadelphia, dejected and resigned to the fact the fix wouldn't happen. But Bill Burns stayed in New York and tried one last contact. If anyone would know how to raise the money now that Rothstein had turned them down,

it would be this guy. New York Giants' first baseman, Hal Chase. After years of betting on games and bribing players, Hal Chase might have had more connections to gamblers than any other player in baseball. He connected Burns to Abe Attell, the little champ. Abe had been the featherweight champion of the world, but now he was a hustler.

He was a part-time game. and a part-time bodyguard for Arnold Rothstein. When Hal Chase and Bill Burns met Abe Attell, Abe wasn't alone. He was with a man who introduced himself only as Bennett. If Burns was suspicious of this mystery man, he probably wasn't for long because Abe had great news for him. Abe said Arnold Rothstein had reconsidered. He now agreed to finance the fix, and he would do so through his old pal Abe. Abe told Burns he'd better hurry up and get to Cincinnati before game one

so he could tell the players that the fix was a go. Burns quickly sent a wire to Billy Maharg in Philadelphia telling him of the great news. They hopped on trains to Cincinnati, probably smiling to themselves with visions of dollar signs in their heads. They thought the fix was in, and they were about to make a small fortune. There were just two little problems, and they didn't know either of them yet. The fix wasn't in, and they were not going to make a fortune.

The people who live in Des Moines, Iowa today would probably be shocked to hear that it used to be a raucous, rowdy town. A hundred years ago, it had a reputation as an open city, a city where anything went. Illegal booze, illegal gambling, and pretty much anything else. And Des Moines, Iowa was the home of David Zelser. Zelser ran a business called Success Sales System. He billed himself as a merchandise broker, which on the surface looked like your basic traveling salesman. But what exactly he sold was never really defined. In fact, the generic business concept was strategic.

The business was a front, because his real business was gambling. For 17 years, he'd traveled the country betting on sporting events or anything else that caught his eye. In September 1919, he heard talk of a possible fix of the world's season. series, probably from his friend Abe Attell in New York. The rumored price to buy the series was $100,000. Zelser began to rally his gambling cohorts. He received some money from a local Des Moines realtor, and he hurried across the Midwest to enlist the help of other contacts.

In Omaha, Nebraska, he brought Ben Franklin on board. In Indianapolis, he got brothers Ben and Louis Levi into the scheme. And in St. Louis, he reached out to Carl Zork. Zelser then rushed to New York City to attend an important meeting. When Sleepy Bill Burns and Hal Chase met Abe Attell in a last ditch effort to secure the fix, Abe had a man with him who called himself Bennett. Bennett was David Zelser, the Midwest ringleader. Abe Attell and David Zelser assured Burns that Arnold Rothstein had bankrolled the fix.

They were ready to go. The World Series was right around the corner, so Burns and Maharg had to hurry to Cincinnati before game one to inform the players of this new development. Abe Attell and David Zelser would rendezvous with Burns and Maharg in Cincinnati, and the four of them would meet with the players to seal the deal. This was probably the last confident moment for Sleepy Bill and Billy Mahargue. After they arrived in Cincinnati, very few things went right. While Burns and Mahargh were trying to get money in Philadelphia, and then from Arnold Rothstein, and then finally from Abe Attell, Sport Sullivan was putting his own plan into motion from his home base in Boston. Sullivan had met his old friend Chick Gandal in the middle of September while the White Sox were on their final East Coast trip of the season.

The first baseman had told him the same thing he'd told Sleepy Bill Burns. The total price for the fix was $100,000. $1, Sullivan was a very successful and well-known gambler, but even he didn't have that kind of money laying around. But he knew who did. Arnold Rothstein Sullivan approached Rothstein about financing the fix, and this time Rothstein said yes, to some extent.

We'll probably never know how much money Rothstein contributed to the effort, or specific amounts he gave to Sullivan and A. Battell, or why he supported one more than the other. but we know he was involved, and this is how we think it went. Rothstein gave Sport Sullivan a large chunk of money, somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000. He sent Sullivan to Chicago to meet with the White Sox players before they left for Cincinnati.

And he also sent his right-hand man, Nat Evans, to supervise the deal on his behalf. Evans had worked with Rothstein for years on deals both big and small, and this was a big one. Evans was worried, though. Too many people had already heard rumors of a fix, and once the heavy betting started, suspicions would only grow. But Rothstein told him not to worry, and they went ahead with the plan anyway.

Sullivan and Evans took a train to Chicago armed with Rothstein's money. They were about to make the first payment in the scheme that would eventually ruin the careers of eight Chicago White Sox players. While the two separate groups of gamblers worked on their first, finances, pitcher Eddie Seacott and first baseman Chick-Gandle recruited other players to go through with the fix if the gamblers came through with the money. Fred McMullen and Charles Swede Risberg were two early entrants. They had alternated at shortstop for the second half of the year, and some sources say McMullen was involved in discussions of the fix from the very beginning. But regardless

of exactly when it happened, he and Swedes said yes early in the process. Next to the next came Oscar Happy Felsch and Claude Lefty Williams. Happy was the star center fielder from a working class family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He had a great year in the field and at the plate in 1919. He tied a major league record with four assists from the outfield in one game, and in the final month of the season, he was on fire with the bat in his hand. Lefty was from Missouri, and he was close friends with Shulis Joe. He had been the starting pitcher on opening day, and together with Eddie Seacott, they were the only two experienced and reliable starters on the team. Lefty had the same price as Eddie, $10,000 to lose the series. And like Chick

Gandal, the price was more than double his yearly salary. Finally, there were third baseman George Buck Weaver and left-fielder shoeless Joe Jackson. They're the two most difficult cases to diagnose in the scandal. Joe never attended a single meeting with gamblers, but he did accept a payoff. And Buck attended a couple meetings, but he never accepted a penny. This would all get revealed down the road, but for now, these eight players represented one of the two main factions in the Chicago White Sox Clubhouse. These guys were the more hard-scrabble working-class players. The other faction was made up of the more straight-laced players. Second baseman Eddie Collins, catcher Ray Shulk, pitcher Red Faber,

an outfielder Shano Collins, and Nemo Leibold. The two factions worked well together on the field, but they rarely interacted off the field. At the end of September, just before the team departed for Cincinnati, many of the players associated with the Fix gathered in a room at the Warner Hotel in Chicago. They met Sports Sullivan and a man who went by the name of Brown. For years, Mr. Brown's identity was a mystery, but now we're pretty sure he was Nat Evans, the right-hand man of Arnold Rothstein. The exact discussions that took place that night are still not entirely known, but the biggest

development came from Eddie Seacott. He demanded his share of the total, $10,000, up front before he would make a single move to go through with the deal. After he made his demand, he walked out of the room, leaving his teammates and the gamblers to handle his ultimatum. Later that evening, he returned to his hotel room and found $10,000 under his pillow. The first payment had been made,

and now the Sox boarded the train for Cincinnati, where they would meet a second crew of gamblers. The Senton Hotel in Cincinnati must have been a spectacle on the eve of the 1919 World Series. All the White Sox players and team officials were staying there. Sports writers were crawling all over the place, and at least one of the two big groups of gamblers was also there. Seven White Sox players waited in the room shared by Chick Gandal and Swede Risberg.

Everyone who would later be accused of the fix except Joe Jackson. Sleepy Bill Burns walked in and told them he had the money $100,000, and it was time to finalize the deal. Chick Gandal demanded to know who had provided the money, so Burns left for a few minutes and returned with Abe Attell and David Zelser. Attell told the players that Arnold Rothstein had put up the money for the fix. The players would receive $20,000 total after each game they lost. Now the meetings were complete.

The players had made deals with two separate groups of gamblers. They had one deal with Abattel's crew and another with Sport Sullivan. Everything appeared to be in place, and with that, the gambler started to gamble. Rumors of a fix cranked up a notch, and now, they were propelled further thanks to a meeting in the hallway of the Sinton Hotel later that evening. Hugh Fullerton was a longtime sports columnist in Chicago, and in 1919, he worked for the Herald Examiner newspaper. He had followed the socks for years, and in those days, sports writers socialized with players much more than they do today. It was completely normal for sports

writers to hang out with players, owners, league officials, and even gamblers in hotels and restaurants and train cars throughout the season. Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, was famous for treating sportswriters really well. He gave them food and drink in a style that's way beyond anything we can imagine today. So as Hugh Fullerton cruised the halls of the Sinton Hotel on the eve of the series, he probably wasn't surprised to meet gambler Bill Burns. But he probably was surprised. But he probably was surprised when Burns told him the Reds were going to win the series. Like many people, Fullerton had confidently predicted the White Sox would win, but now Burns was telling him that the Reds were a sure thing, and the gambler's confident tone was alarming. Hugh Fullerton filed the

information away and kept it in mind when he took his seat in the press box at Redland Field. On Wednesday, October 1st, 1919, 30,000 fans cramined. into the home stadium of the Cincinnati Reds to watch Game One of the World Series. Before the season, Major League owners had worried about the effects of World War I on the nation's interest in baseball. It turned out they had no reason to be concerned. People were desperate for baseball. Crowds had been strong all season, and if the attendance for game one was any indication, profits would be great for the series. On the field, the controversy began in the bottom of the first inning.

The socks failed to score in the top of the first, and now they were in the field, and Chicago pitcher Eddie Seacott stood on the mound. Catcher Ray Shulk crouched behind home plate, giving Eddie the signal for his first offering. Cincinnati's second baseman Morrie Rath waited in the batters box. Hugh Fullerton studied the matchup from the press box, along with a horde of other riders that included Ring Lardner and Grantland Rice. Somewhere in the stands, Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Mahargh watched intently as Eddie went into his wind-up. Eddie reared back and fired the first pitch straight down the middle.

It smacked into Ray Shalk's glove and the umpire shouted Strike One. In New York, Arnold Rothstein likely kept track of the play-by-play via telegraph line. In cities across the country, fans gathered in town squares or city centers or in front of bars or restaurants to follow the action on huge boards shaped like baseball fields. Before radio and TV, this was the only way to watch the games in real time. A man stood next to the board and shouted the plays to the crowd as they came across the telegraph wire. If the board was fancy, light bulbs lit up to show the positions of the players on the diamond. If the board was more simple, someone shoved little pieces around the board to

reflect the base runners. These scoreboards were called playographs. And now, everyone waited for Eddie's second pitch. Eddie went into his wind-up and delivered the pitch, and it drilled Mori Rath in the back. The umpire told him to take his base, and he trudged up the line toward Chick-Gandle. In popular history, this is the moment when the gamblers knew the fix was a go. In that version, the gamblers and the players had agreed that Eddie would hit. hit the first batter as a signal of the fix.

It's a fun story and it makes for great drama in a movie, but we have no idea if it's true. And ultimately, it doesn't really matter. There were far more controversial moments to come, and not all of them benefited the gamblers. The military has had an expression for generations that essentially says, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

More commonly, people say the plan goes to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. And that's what happened in the 1919 World Series. The first shot had just been fired, and the plan went all to hell. Next time on the show, the series turns into a fiasco, both on and off the field. White Sox fans watch in shock as their team falls apart. Betters are stunned when Chicago looks terrible. The gamblers renege on their payments to the players,

and a rookie pitcher puts the entire plan in jeopardy. The 1919 World Series plays out next week on Infamous America. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. This story is produced with the help of the Sabre Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. If you want to know more about the people and events you've heard here, go to saber.org for a wealth of articles. That's SABR.org. For more details, please visit our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, and check out our social media pages. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrel Media on Twitter.

Thanks again. We'll see you next week.