Today, the idea of a professional sporting event being fixed seems ludicrous. Imagine Floyd Mayweather Jr. taking a dive when his purse is $45 million dollars or Kobe Bryant shaving points when one calendar year will bring him about $60 million dollars. It feels like these insane contracts have been around forever but it wasn’t until 1980 when Major League Baseball saw its first million dollar a year payday, given to star pitcher Nolan Ryan. Even the greatest player the NBA has ever seen, Michael Jordan, is ranked 87th on the list of “Top 100 NBA Career Salaries of All-Time”. If we really go back, however, it’s not at all hard to imagine why a player would be desperate enough to throw a game for some extra money. In 1919, Ty Cobb, considered by many to be the greatest baseball player who ever lived, had a salary of ,000 dollars. If you adjust that amount for annual and total inflation, in today’s dollars it would be roughly 2,483.63, a great salary no doubt but a far cry from the million that Alex Rodriguez earns. Like today’s athlete’s a pro in 1919 would also have income away from his sport but instead of endorsing sneakers or doing commercials he would work full time at a back breaking job including anything from dockworker to milkman. It just so happens this is the year that the World Series was fixed. It became known as the “1919 Black Sox Scandal” and is easily the most famous scandal in the history of baseball. The eight players are often referred to as “The Eight” and while they were all acquitted of criminal charges each of them including Eddie Cicotte, Claude “Lefty” Williams, Arnold “Chick” Gandil, Charles “Swede” Risberg, Buck Weaver, Oscar “Happy” Felsch , Fred McMullin, and of course, the superstar, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson were banned from professional baseball for the rest of their lives. It was front page news back then but let’s not forget that the year was 1919, a year before Prohibition began. These were very corrupt times in America. There are a hundred stories about what really happened and who was really involved. Truth be told, if we took a little from each of one of those stories, we would probably have ten percent of the real facts. It wasn’t hard to bury things in 1919. And all of these factors set the stage for the fix. It didn’t help any that the 1919 White Sox were a dysfunctional team who were essentially divided amongst each other. Certain players such as Red Faber and Eddie Collins were more conservative and the remainder of the players took exception to this. The opposing sides of the same team barely spoke to each other at all. While the players disagreed on most matters, they did agree on one thing and that was their disdain for team owner Charles Comiskey who was known as being a terrible cheapskate. Even “Shoeless” Joe Jackson”, the team’s star and one of baseball’s all-time greats was only paid ,000.00 in 1919 despite having just returned from serving his country in World War 1 and finishing the season with a .351 batting average. It is believed that Arnold “Chick” Gandil, the White Sox first baseman, was the mastermind behind the fix. While Gandil was known as a player with a strong work ethic he also had a history of criminal activity dating back to his childhood years including being arrested for stealing money from a former team’s coffers. It was no secret that Gandil was a tough guy with a mean streak and connections to several underworld figures. One of those underworld figures, Joseph “Sport” Sullivan was who Gandil allegedly went to first when he hatched the scheme to fix the World Series although whether he or Sullivian initiated the contact has always been up for debate. Sullivan was a bookmaker and helped Gandil formulate the plan for the fix which included getting the resto of the Sox on board with the plan. Sullivan’s first order of business was to put together the money for Gandil to spread around to his teammates but he likely didn’t have that much cash just lying around. When he decided who he would turn to for financial backing the scheme went from a half-cocked plan to serious business. The man who allegedly put up the money was Arnold “the Big Bankroll” Rothstein, easily the biggest gangster in New York City, a man who was worth tens of millions, and would go on to be instrumental in the formation of the American Mafia through his tutelage of young gangsters such as Meyer Lansky and Charles “Lucky” Luciano. He used one of his top lieutenants, Abe Attell, as a buffer between himself and Sullivan. With the money in place, it is believed that Gandil held a meeting to plan the fix. Some of the players who were on board with the plan from the beginning included Oscar “Happy” Felsh, Charles “Swede” Risberg, Claude “Lefty” Williams, and Eddie Ciccote. Things really started to fall into place for Gandil and company when the conservative Faber came down with the flu. This not only kept him out of the loop but out of the pitching rotation as well. Between the fix being in motion and it being a nine game series it was doomed from the beginning. The Cincinnati Reds routed the Sox in Game 1, 9-1. The Reds also took Game 2, 4-2. The Sox managed to shut out the Reds in Game 3, 3-0. Games 4 and 5 would have much different out comes as the Sox were shut out in both, 2-0 and 5-0. The Sox won the next 2, 5-4 and 4-1. On October 9th the Reds put the nail in the coffin with a game 8 win beating the Sox 10-5 and. The White Sox did their best to deflect any suspicion by playing very solid defense. Buck Weaver, the third baseman for the sox, had attended the meeting but had made in clear he would not participate. He batted .324 in the series, an average that was significantly better than his career batting average. One of the main questions was whether or no “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was involved in the fix. He led all players batting .375 and hitting the only homerun of the series in Game 8. Many believed Joe possessed too much integrity to take part. Others pointed out his superior performance. However, many experts believed that Joe was easily good enough to make it look like he was having a great series without actually doing much. He could pull this off by being very productive when games were clearly out of reach. Rumors continued to swirl all throughout the 1920 season and it didn’t help that Gandil was off the team and playing minor league ball. The Sox were having a great season but a Grand Jury would investigate the incident. Eight players were implicated but all were acquitted of any wrong doing but as was stated earlier all were banned from baseball for life. The extent of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson’s involvement is still a controversial subject. Jackson once said, “God knows I gave my best in baseball at all times and no man on earth can truthfully judge me otherwise.” As for Arnold Rothstein, he testified in front of the Grand Jury: “The whole thing started when Attell and some other cheap gamblers decided to frame the Series and make a killing. The world knows I was asked in on the deal and my friends know how I turned it down flat. I don’t doubt that Attell used my name to put it over. That’s been done by smarter men than Abe. But I was not in on it, would not have gone into it under any circumstances and did not bet a cent on the Series after I found out what was under way.” Rothstein stuck to his story and never got in any trouble over the incident at all. One thing that is almost certain is that Rothstein spread enough money around to make sure he got off the hook. He was later killed at the age of 46 leaving a more lasting legacy than any of the eight Black Sox players.
Article By: Jon DaBove
