After World War ended the owners in the country were gearing up for
the 1919 season.
The Chicago White Sox team was stacked with talent, was one of the great teams of
that era and it was picked as a favorite for the upcoming 1919 World Series.
But trouble was brewing for the White Sox.
The owner, Charles Comiskey was notorious for skimping on players wages and
meals and their laundry bills, hence the team was nicknamed the Black Sox.
Not at a corruption, but when they decided not to launder their own socks and
just played in dirty socks.
Comiskey's White Sox turned out to be rather expensive to build as well.
Although not totally out of ordinary for high priced teams at the time,
the White Sox still cost him,
until 1915 Comiskey used minor leaguers but few made good his players.
So he started buying up some name players.
One Eddie Collins cost him $65,000 that he
had to pay Philadelphia athletics owner Connie Mack for.
Collins was a star, a second baseman in a career that lasted from 1906 to 1935
with a career 333 batting average and it was a future hall of fame as well.
Another player was Shoeless Joe Jackson,
perhaps the most famous player of the Black Sox scandal and
also he also cost Comiskey $65,000 to be bought from Cleveland.
An outfielder and perhaps one of baseball's greatest hitters,
Pure Hitters in a career from 1908 to 1920,
54 home runs and a 356 batting average a year.
He wouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, but
Shoeless Joe is still considered one of the greats.
Happy Felsch, came from Milwaukee was bought for $12,000 as a center fielder.
His career lasted just about five years.
By 1917, Comiskey had his pennant in the American League and
a World Series victory and
the 1919 American League pennant came on his 60th birthday as a present to himself.
Now he was ready for the World Series of 1919.
But as that World Series began against the Cincinnati Reds, the underdogs.
His gift was damaged by rumors of bribery and fixing of games.
Comiskey had some top players in the game, but he refused to pay them well.
And so some of them turned elsewhere to gamblers.
Eddie Cicotte E in 1917 and 1919 was the league leader
in pitching wins, but he made only $5,000 in 1919.
He had a career, a decent earned run average with 209 career wins.
He was a good pitcher but was underpaid, Joe Jackson, by the way,
was also fairly low paid relative to others.
Honest Eddie Collins was the highest paid at $15,000, but
it was Chick Gandel who had a big grievance.
He got only $6,000 in salary as a journeyman first baseman who
had traveled the league and had been around the league for a while.
He hit 11 career home runs with a middling to 77 batting average in 1919,
but he earned so little that he was ready to look for more money.
Still, if you compare these players to a Ty Cobb,
the star who was the highest paid player in baseball at the time,
$20,000, these guys didn't do so badly and certainly not Collins.
The Georgia peach by the way, Ty Cobb, as he was called, was famous already and
one of the great players of all time and an early Hall of Famer.
The center fielder hit 117 home runs in a career that lasted from 1905 to 1928.
Most of it with the Detroit Tigers and was the most valuable player and always
hitting champion and was known especially for his grit on the field of play.
He was also a very tough guy, an all time great,
other White Sox though, compared well to other players and salaries.
Certainly some could have gotten more, Gandel as I said,
it was just a journeyman.
So he only got $6,000 but scotty took a long time to reach stardom, but
he got a $2,000 bonus in 1918 and would have gotten that and more in 1990.
Joe Jackson compared to the American League's Al Sizzler of the St louis browns
and its first basement.
Compared okay, as well as to Frank Baker or Hal Chase and Edd Roush,
a center fielder from Cincinnati in the National League.
So we've got to ask about the players having legitimate grievances because
their salaries were relatively low or were they just greedy?
They thought their salaries were low or were they just asking for too much?
Whatever it was, Chick Gandal, that first baseman for
the White Sox came up with a plan to gamble on the upcoming 1919 world Series.
He recruited gamblers through Bill Burns and A Battle both low level
crime figures and gamblers and connected to the underworld of gambling.
And recruited also some of the best players on the team,
specifically the team's best pitchers who could control the game.
One was Eddie Cicotte who had grievances.
Another was Lefty Williams, a very solid picture behind Cicotte,
Williams recorded 82 wins over a seven year career.
Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chicago's best hitter was also in on the fix,
Happy Felt also the center fielder.
Shortstop Swede Rensburg, who was the first and third baseman also and
had a three year career from 1979 to 1920.
He was also known for his fist fights as well as with arguments with umpires and
opposing players.
And a utility infielder, a guy who played all over Fred McMullin was in on it.
He was pulled in because he threatened to expose the plan if he wasn't let in
on the scam and then was admitted into this group of eight.
Finally, there was third baseman Buck Wever, he was pulled in because he
happened to be in the room when the deal was being discussed and
he had good friends among the other seven players.
Wever was a versatile switch hitter in the midst of an eight year career.
So those were your eight men on the gambling fix.
Gandel, Cicotte, the two ringleaders and Jackson Felsch, Williams,
Risperdal, McMullen and Wever,
throwing the games is going to be a challenge, but it could be done.
Here's how the eight players decided to throw the games or
specifically Circadian Gandel the two leaders.
While the White Sox were in New York to play the New York Yankees, near the end
of the season, Gandel met with gamblers to recruit financing for the fix.
The biggest New York gambler was Arnold Rothstein who funded the fix, Rothstein
was the silent partner though behind the deal and was known as The Big Bankroll.
He was the underworld.
But small time gamblers like a battle Bill Burns and others handled the money and
communications across the country.
Because the whole nation would be hopefully in on the fix or
at least conned into thinking that the White stockings were going to win,
while Rothstein hung back to avoid being caught up in the scandal.
The Big Bankroll was thus very interested in this deal, but
he had other gambling interests as well.
So here was the key, the White Sox were the favorite.
But all of a sudden gambler started seeing that the money was on Cincinnati.
The white Sox lost the first two games of the series shockingly,
but small time gamblers flipped and used the money one at the white sox losses to
bet on the reds to make it look like the gamblers have now switched.
They were so sophisticated with the gambling that it wasn't necessary for
the reds to win all the time.
So it was better to cover up the arrangement.
Gamblers sometimes bet on the reds, sometimes on Chicago.
It didn't matter.
The key was that Chicago had to lose the overall series in Game one.
Sick Adi who had finished the regular season with an incredible record of 29
victories in just seven losses and a one 0.82 earned run average, lost 9 to
1 in that first game, he made an error on a ground ball that gave the reds a run and
actually signal that the fix was on when he hit the first batter in the back.
That was a signal that the eight men on the white sox were ready to throw the game
or lose it, Chicago's shot.
He played for the next several games.
Now raised eyebrows in Game two lefty Williams in on the fix pitched great, but
he walked three batters in the fourth inning that handed the reds three runs and
a four to victory in Game two.
Game three though was pitched by Dickie Kerr who was not one of the eight men not
in on the fix.
And he pitched a brilliant three nothing shutout to cut the World Series
deficit to two victories for Cincinnati against one for Chicago.
In game four, Cincotti pitched again and made two errors in the fifth inning to
give the Reds there only two runs of the game and they won.
In Game five.
Lefty Williams pitched again and
lost again as the Reds won a five nothing shutout.
And now Cincinnati had a four game to one lead in the best of nine series.
Had to do is win one more in game six and seven.
Current psychology one.
So now there were questions about the fix,
especially if scotty was still in on it in Game six and seven.
Psychology and Gandal had gotten angry with the gamblers who had withheld on what
they agreed would be their down payment payout.
They didn't get their money so they decided to play great and they won.
But that's when Lefty Williams got a death threat, a visit from gamblers this
against his wife that if he didn't lose the next game his wife would come to harm.
This was a world series,
the first since 1903 to be played in the best of nine format.
And Cincinnati won it in eight games when Williams lost his game,
it was a stunner and thinking hard about things.
It was clear to journalists that things were amiss.
For example, on the eve of the first game, there was a sudden shift in the betting
odds in Cincinnati's favor and it led to a buzzing about a fix.
Cincinnati was a decent team but didn't compare at all to the white stockings.
How could gamblers be favoring Cincinnati In game eight, the night before,
Williams allegedly was approached by a hit man and told he was not to last
through the first inning or his wife would be hurt, gave up four hits and
three runs before being pulled and the Reds won that game 10 to 5 in the series.
The reds would win that series.
He mentioned as mentioned in eight games, five games to three.
But again, rumors are now circulating that there were real corrupt
problems in Major League Baseball