The debate is largely dormant, kept alive by a handful of historians who bicker among themselves. The film “Eight Men Out” is 17 years old and beyond the memory of most current White Sox players.
After 86 years, there are still more questions than answers regarding the darkest period in baseball history–the “Black Sox scandal,” in which eight members of the 1919 White Sox were banned for life for allegedly conspiring with gamblers to throw that year’s World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
Like Al Capone, the Black Sox scandal remains deeply embedded in Chicago lore, a tale that, with age, grows more intriguing.
Donald Gropman, author of what some consider the definitive book on the Black Sox, “Say It Ain’t So, Joe,” is not surprised by the continued fascination with a team then considered the greatest in baseball.
“I published this book 26 years ago, and like a pit bull, it just won’t let go of my cuff,” Gropman said Monday.
The eight “Black Sox”–outfielders Shoeless Joe Jackson and Happy Felsch, infielders Buck Weaver, Swede Risberg, Fred McMullin and Chick Gandil and pitchers Ed Cicotte and Lefty Williams–were acquitted of criminal charges by a Chicago jury in 1921. But the bombastic and autocratic Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had been hired as baseball’s first commissioner specifically to clean up the game, banned them anyway.
“It remains a sore point for people–no one really knows what happened . . . maybe we’ll never know what happened with certainty,” Gropman said. “But if this is still an issue–and I have a drawer full of petitions–then why hasn’t Major League Baseball, which has had [nine] commissioners since then, looked at it? All these people say is, `Let us present a case, let us have a hearing,’ and they keep ignoring it.”
Over the last decade four states, including Illinois and Jackson’s native South Carolina, and the Chicago City Council have passed resolutions urging baseball to reinstate Jackson for Hall of Fame consideration. Gropman estimates “tens of thousands” of Jackson supporters have signed petitions.
“Basically, everyone gets a response from the commissioner saying `Thank you very much.’ They blow it off,” Gropman said.
Memories still vivid
The principals are all gone, but at Sunrise Assisted Living of Flossmoor, Ed Hofeld, a 102-year-old retired attorney and South Side native, remembers well the team that captivated Chicago.
Naming the starting lineup and each player’s position, Hofeld says he was 16 when the story of the scandal broke.
“It hit us right between the ears,” he said. “I went to some of the games with my father and we were very surprised they lost to Cincinnati. They were a great team in those days. Everybody realized something was wrong.
“When Judge Landis barred them for life, we were very, very happy. It was the right thing to do.”
Landis believed such draconian penalties were necessary if he was to rid baseball of the gambling and other shady dealings that were fairly commonplace in the era. And he succeeded. Baseball did not have another gambling scandal until the late Commissioner Bart Giamatti banned Pete Rose in 1988.
“Baseball almost died in 1921 because of gambling,” Giamatti said in an interview a week before his death.
Players hated Comiskey
The White Sox of 1919, managed by William “Kid” Gleason, were considered an easy mark for gamblers, a good enough team to guarantee high odds in the World Series against Cincinnati. The club was also splintered by factions: the hard-living vs. the self-righteous.
And much of the team despised owner Charles Comiskey, a penurious man who made his players launder their own uniforms, denied them promised bonuses and rewarded them with cheap champagne when they clinched the pennant.
Although New York mobster Arnold “the Big Bankroll” Rothstein has long been linked to the fix, the extent of his involvement remains unclear. It was small-time gamblers William “Sleepy Bill” Burns, a former major-league pitcher, and Billy Maharg, a one-time boxer with ties to the underworld, who first approached Gandil and Cicotte.
Gandil was the ringleader among the players, and he eventually brought in Risberg and Felsch, as well as McMullin, a reserve who was Risberg’s friend. Jackson was by far the team’s best hitter, and his involvement was considered critical, along with Cicotte and Williams, who won 52 games between them.
Weaver went to his grave maintaining his innocence, but Landis found him culpable because he’d been to a meeting and had knowledge of the fix and didn’t report it.
After a jury cleared the players of criminal charges in the summer of 1921, Judge Landis handed down his ruling, which read:
“Regardless of the verdict of the juries, no player who throws a ballgame, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, 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.”
None of the eight ever did.
Trial full of double-crosses
The trial, like the scandal itself, was fraught with what one Tribune account described as “double-crossing and double double-crossing.”
Cicotte and Jackson, acting on the advice of powerful Chicago attorney Alfred Austrian, waived immunity, paving the way for their confessions to be used against them in their 1921 criminal trials. Neither player knew that Austrian also represented Comiskey, who was believed to have orchestrated the disappearance of grand jury testimony in order to protect his investment, valued at about $300,000.
Jackson, Cicotte and Williams later sued Comiskey for back pay, and their confessions to the grand jury mysteriously reappeared in Austrian’s possession at that trial. A jury ruled in their favor, but the verdict was overturned by the trial judge, who said Jackson, in recanting his confession during the trial, was obviously a liar.
David Carlson, a Chicago attorney and Evanston resident who has studied the Black Sox scandal closely, believes proof of Jackson’s innocence lies in his .375 batting average in the best-of-nine-game World Series.
“His performance belies the fact that his performance was fixed,” Carlson said.
Gropman agrees, comparing Jackson’s .375 average with that of the .226 turned in by second baseman Eddie Collins, a future Hall of Famer and one of the “Clean Sox.”
Holtzman’s view
But Jerome Holtzman, a Hall of Fame Chicago baseball writer and now Major League Baseball’s official historian, is steadfast in his belief that Jackson was guilty and should not ever be considered for the Hall of Fame.
“Jackson failed in every opportunity [to drive in runs] in the first five games,” Holtzman said. “He left 11 men on base, six in scoring position. He got all six of his runs batted in and his home run in the last three games after the fix had been abandoned.”
Holtzman also cites Associated Press and United Press accounts quoting Jackson as admitting he was guilty of “slow fielding” in the series.
“He definitely was not an innocent bystander,” Holtzman said. “He didn’t know how to read, but he knew how to count, and he was unhappy that he got $5,000 when he was promised $20,000.”
Jackson supporters found an advocate for their cause in the late Ted Williams, who pleaded Jackson’s case to Holtzman over lunch one day, citing evidence from the movie “Eight Men Out.”
“I said, `Ted, it’s just a movie, it doesn’t mean anything,'” Holtzman said. “A movie is going to sensationalize … he was guilty as hell.”
Perhaps ironically, Holtzman’s son Merle played trusted Comiskey associate Harry Grabiner in the film.
Curiosity renewed?
One thing seems certain: With the White Sox back in the spotlight, the curiosity aroused–and the passion inflamed–by the Black Sox scandal isn’t likely to go away quietly.
After Eliot Asinov’s book “Eight Men Out” was published in 1963, a group of Chicago baseball writers invited Asinof here to give a talk.
Catcher Ray Schalk, a Chicago resident and one of the “Clean Sox,” also attended, and when Asinof was introduced Schalk yelled, “Get that [guy] out of here.”
Gropman, while researching his book, called Nemo Liebold, a reserve on the 1919 White Sox who was never implicated in the scandal. When Liebold asked what the book was about, Gropman replied, “Joe Jackson.”
“Yeah, what else?” Leibold said.
“The Black Sox,” Gropman replied, and he was then treated to the sound of a slammed receiver.
Famed Chicago author Studs Terkel, who played sportswriter Hugh Fullerton in the movie version of “Eight Men Out,” said the present-day Sox can end the controversy.
“People forget,” Terkel said. “Even though this became a part of celebrated history, people do forget.
“We have a national Alzheimer’s disease politically, and assuming the Sox win the World Series, the Black Sox will be a memory.”
– – –
Key figures in the Black Sox scandal
THE OWNER
Charles Comiskey,
the White Sox owner and ballpark namesake, was notoriously
tight-fisted when it came to paying his players.
THE COMMISSIONER
Kenesaw Mountain Landis,
a stern and intractable Illinois federal judge, was tabbed to be
commissioner of baseball in 1920 as the Black Sox scandal was
unfolding. In 1921, just after the players were cleared of
criminal charges, Landis banned them from the game for life.
THE GAMBLERS
Bookmaker Joseph “Sport” Sullivan, who was a friend of Sox first baseman Chick Gandil, hatched the scheme with the help of “Sleepy” Bill Burns, a former big-league pitcher who knew many of the players.
Burns and Sullivan turned to noted gambler Arnold Rothstein to
provide the upfront money. Abe Attell, a former prizefighter who worked for Rothstein, was the alleged go-between who made payments to the players.
THE `EIGHT MEN OUT’
Eight Sox players were banned from baseball for allegedly conspiring with gamblers to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series:
Eddie Cicotte, pitcher; Chick Gandil, first baseman; Happy Felsch, outfielder; Shoeless Joe Jackson, outfielder; Fred McMullin, infielder; Swede Risberg, shortstop; Buck Weaver, third baseman; Lefty Williams, pitcher.
Sources: “Eight Men Out,” by Eliot Asinof, news reports (Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times)
Chicago Tribune
– – –
Case timeline
Late September, 1919
– A group of disgruntled White Sox players contacts representatives of New York gambling boss Arnold Rothstein and offers to throw the upcoming World Series in exchange for $80,000.
Oct. 1-9, 1919
– The White Sox lose the World Series, 5 games to 3, amid rumors that the games are fixed.
September 1920
– A Cook County grand jury convenes to investigate allegations of gambling in baseball, including the 1919 World Series. Sox players Eddie Cicotte, Claude “Lefty” Williams and Joe Jackson confess to their roles in the scandal but later recant. The eight players under investigation are suspended by Sox owner Charles Comiskey.
Oct. 22, 1920
The grand jury indicts the eight White Sox players on conspiracy charges.
June 27, 1921
– The trial begins in Chicago.
Aug. 2, 1921
– A jury acquits the players on all charges.
– Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis bans the eight players from baseball for life.
Sources: “Eight Men Out,” by Eliot Asinof, Tribune archives.
Chicago Tribune
– – –
The 1919 World Series game by game: How the White Sox became the `Black Sox’
Two Sox starting pitchers were among the eight players conspiring with gamblers to lose the Series, which at the time was a best-of-nine series.
Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams started three games apiece. Cicotte lost two of his three starts; Williams lost all three of his starts.
GAME 1
At Cincinnati
WHITE SOX 1, REDS 9
Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte gives up five runs during a fourth inning in which he and shortstop Swede Risberg botch a double-play opportunity.
GAME 2
At Cincinnati
WHITE SOX 2, REDS 4
Sox pitcher Lefty Williams’ three walks lead to three fourthinning runs for Cincinnati; Shoeless Joe Jackson has three hits.
GAME 3
At Chicago
REDS 0, WHITE SOX 3
Rookie pitcher Dickie Kerr, who is not in on the fix, shuts out the Reds while Chick Gandil delivers a key double and Risberg contributes sparkling defense.
GAME 4
At Chicago
REDS 2, WHITE SOX 0
Cincinnati scores twice in the fifth inning, aided by two Cicotte
fielding errors, as the White Sox manage just three hits.
GAME 5
At Chicago
REDS 5, WHITE SOX 0
Williams loses again due in part to poor fielding, including a catchable ball dropped by outfielder Happy Felsch for a triple.
GAME 6
At Cincinnati
WHITE SOX 5, REDS 4
The Sox rally from a 4-0 deficit, with Gandil’s 10thinning single
scoring Buck Weaver for the game-winning run.
GAME 7
At Cincinnati
WHITE SOX 4, REDS 1
Cicotte rebounds from two bad performances while Felsch and
Jackson each contribute two RBIs; the Series stands at 4-3 in
Cincinnati’s favor.
GAME 8
At Chicago
REDS 10, WHITE SOX 5
Williams surrenders four runs in the first inning and a Sox rally falls short despite a solo home run and RBI double by Jackson.
“Red are new World’s Champions,” Chicago Daily Tribune edition.
Source: “The White Sox Encyclopedia” by Richard Lindberg
Chicago Tribune
———-
misaacson@tribune.com
