Who is he anyhow? An actor? No. A dentist? No. He’s a gambler? Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly. He’s the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919. Fixed the World Series? I repeated. The idea staggered me. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of 50 million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
How did he happen to do that? I asked after a minute. He just saw the opportunity. Why is knee in jail? They can’t get him. Old sport. He’s a smart man. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. In 1919, no team played better than the Chicago White Socks, penant winners in the American League.
And few teams were paid as poorly or got along as badly. Players deliberately crossed each other on the field. During infield practice, no one threw the ball to second baseman Eddie Collins, Chicago’s highest paid player, all season long. Teammate Chick Gandall had not spoken to Collins since 1915. “I thought you couldn’t win without teamwork,” Collins said later.
“Until I joined the White Sox. Yet somehow we won a 100 games and the penant that year.” “The White Socks were heavy favorites to beat the better paid but far weaker Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. The Chicago owner was the old Roman Charles A. Kamiski himself a former player but now among the game’s most parsimmonious executives.
They were abused horribly by Charles Kamisky who was a man of of of a small mind, a tight fist and and and nasty temperament. Um the climate was too good uh for it not to happen. >> It certainly was a kind of have and have not thing. The baseball players were very expendable. if you got hurt, you were gone.
There was no pension or anything else like that. And uh they saw people making money hand over fist. Um the owners in in Kamisk’s sake uh case, he owned the ballpark. He bottled his own soda in the basement. You know, he was making a nickel on everything that went, you know, that that moved in that ballpark. And there they were.
You know, they were nicknamed the Black Socks even before they threw the World Series because uh one year he started charging them for laundering their uniforms and they went on strike by saying, “Okay, then we won’t launder them.” And they got dirtier and dirtier and dirtier until the sports writers called them the Black Socks.
And then in fact, Kamisky said, “Okay, I’ll launder your uniforms.” And then he took it out of their World Series bonus. Kamisk’s first baseman, Chick Gandal, a former hobo and one-time club fighter, was tired of it. He was nearing the end of his career and wanted one shot at some really big money. For the right money, Gandal let it be known, he would be willing to talk some of his teammates into throwing the series.
There was nothing new in working closely with gamblers to throw games. Many players supplemented their incomes that way. The brilliant infielder Hal Chase had made something of a career of it. But throwing the World Series was something else again. Still, Gandal was determined. And now the right money was found.
An exboxer, A Battel, and Sleepy Bill Burns, a one-time White Sox pitcher, served as gobetweens. But behind it all was New York’s most notorious gambler, Arnold Rothstein, who was said to be willing to bet on anything except the weather because there was no way he could fix that. Roststein was basically a guy who never gambled.
You know, he’s known as a gambler and he never gambled on anything in his life, which is why he got very, very wealthy. He only put money ostensibly gambling on things that he knew were a sure thing or that he had covered so well that there was no way that he couldn’t make a profit. I don’t think he really cared about sports. I think he really did cynically feel like, well, these guys are schmucks.
They’re going to be old men and I’m still going to be making money off this game when they just have to pay to get into the stadium. The proposition to throw the World Series was first brought to me in New York City in front of the Ansonia Hotel. Chick Gandal came to me and said he wanted a conference.
He asked me if anybody had approached me on the 1919 World Series with the purpose of fixing. I told him not yet. He asked me if it was fixed, would I be willing to get in and go through with it. I told him I would refuse to answer right then. >> Lefty Williams. >> Gandal recruited six teammates. Pitcher Claude Lefty Williams.
Outfielder Oscar Happy Felch. Third baseman Buck Weaver. Shortstop Swede Risberg. right-handed pitcher Eddie Sicotti and the idol of school boys all over the Midwest, Joseph Jefferson Jackson. In two years, he had risen from a poor millboy to the rank of a player in the major leagues. The ignorant millboy had become the hero of millions.
Out on the hot prairies, teams of Joe Jackson’s battled desperately with the Thai Cobbs. There came a day when a crook spread money before this ignorant idol, and he fell. For a few dollars, he sold his honor. New York World. A South Carolina country boy, he had learned how to bat from a Confederate veteran who had learned his baseball from Union soldiers in a northern prison camp.
He had hoped to be a pitcher until he broke a batter’s arm with a wild pitch. Jackson could neither read nor write, but he could hit. 408 in his rookie year, 356 lifetime, the third highest average in history. His home runs were called Saturday specials because most of the textile workers games in which he got his start were played on Saturdays.
And he hit them with a special 48 ounce bat, Black Betsy, made for him by a local lumberman from the north side of a hickory tree and darkened with coat after coat of Jackson’s tobacco juice. Taikob himself thought Joe Jackson the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. Blindfold me. Another player remembered half a century later.
And I could tell you when Joe Jackson hit the ball, it had a special crack. He was called Sholess Joe because he was said once to have been spotted in the miners playing in his socks when new shoes proved too tight. When Fred McMullen, Chicago’s reserve infielder, got wind of what was happening, he demanded that Chick Gandal let him in on the fix.
Now, eight White Socks were involved, though Buck Weaver would later claim that he had not agreed to participate. The smart players demanded their money upfront. >> The meeting was held about 8:00 in the evening. I said, “There’s so much double crossing stuff. If I win in the series, I wanted the money put in my hand.
” I went back to my room at 11:30 and the 10 grand was under my pillow. Eddie Sakati. Rumors of wrongdoing were everywhere. You couldn’t miss it. One New York gambler said the thing had an odor. I saw smart guys take even money on the socks who should have been asking 5 to one. Chicago sports writer Hugh Fullerton was joined in the press box by an ailing Christy Matthew to judge if everything was on the up and up.
Matthew and Fullerton would quickly see that it was not. >> Everybody in the game knew it was happening. Nobody was even pretending that it wasn’t happening. No one was admitting it out loud for the public. How could you admit it for the public? What would that mean? >> To boost their gate receipts, the owners decided that the 1919 World Series would be a best of nineame contest.
The first game was held in Cincinnati. Eddie Sakati, ordinarily a master of control, hit the first batter in the back. Then he threw wild, bobbled a grounder, ignored his catcher’s signals. Swedishberg ruined an easy double play by failing to step on the bag. Joe Jackson threw wide from the outfield and seemed to slow down to miss balls near him.
Cincinnati won 9 to one. This contest between the Reds and the White Socks is something that is concentrating the nation’s attention and its faith. What was unsaid was the the horror that existed in so many minds as the baseball establishment watched the series being thrown. It was visible from the very first pitch, the first game when the signal was put in and Eddie Sakat hit the first batter and that was the signal to the Gamblers that the fix had worked.
The only thing that the Gamblers did wrong with that series from their own perspective is that they made the mistake of letting the Reds win the first game because that drove the odds down. And if the White Socks, the Black Sox had won the first game, Rothstein and his cohort would have made a hell of a lot more money. In the second game, it was Lefty Williams turn.
He held the Reds to only four hits, but he uncharacteristically walked six. and Cincinnati won again 4-2. In the stands was judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who was impressed enough with Cincinnati’s play to call them the most formidable machine I have ever seen. The third game was held in Chicago. Dicky Kerr, not in on the fix, threw a masterful threehit shut out and Chicago finally won three to nothing.
But Chick Gandall made a critical error on the base path and reporters continued to grumble among themselves that all was not right with the socks. The public remained unaware of the conspiracy. Cincinnati took the fourth game two to nothing behind the superb pitching of Jimmy Ring. Eddie Sakati had pitched well for the Socks, but once again he made several devastating errors in the field.
There is no alibi for Sycotti. He pitched a great game, a determined game, and one that would have won nine times out of 10. But he brought the defeat crashing down upon his own head by trying to do all the defensive work. He made the wild throw that gave the Reds their opening, the only real one they had.
And he followed that up by grabbing a ball thrown from the outfield and deflecting it past the catcher. A high flightal left blown by the wind over the head of Jackson who was playing close in followed and Chicago was beaten you Fullerton. Three White Socks Felch Gandal and Sholess Joe all of them conspirators had managed hits that afternoon.
Only at bat did Jackson evidently forget the script. He would bat 375 in the series. And Buck Weaver was having the series of his life. By the time it was all over, he would collect 11 hits. It was enough to suggest that the series was on the level after all. But the heavier than usual betting convinced most seasoned reporters that something was still terribly wrong.
After the game was over, I went up to my room. I was ill. I was sick all night. Felt was in the room with me. I believe I discussed the matter with him and said, “Happy, it’ll never be done again.” I don’t believe he even answered me. Eddie Sakati. >> In game five, Lefty Williams pitching for the White Socks gave up only four hits, but three of them came in a four-run Cincinnati sixth.
Happy Felch made a throwing error and the Reds won easily five to nothing for their fourth victory. Cincinnati needed only one more win to clinch the best of nine game series. White Sox manager kid Gleason was stunned. They aren’t hitting. I don’t know what’s the matter, but I do know that something’s wrong with my gang.
The bunch I had fighting in August for the pennant would have trimmed this Cincinnati bunch without a struggle. The bunch I have now couldn’t beat a high school team. Well, >> I was at all the Chicago games and Eddie Sikotti, one of our pitchers who had won 29 games and lost seven during the season, lost his two games.
And Lefty Williams uh lost his two games. I’ve forgotten what his 1919 record was, but it was great. And it was just virtually impossible for those two men to lose two games each. And be honest, the two teams traveled back to Cincinnati for game six. Ring Lardner, who was covering the series, he would walk up and down the the uh train singing, “I’m forever blowing ball games, pretty ball games in the air.
” And the players all knew what he was saying, and they were seething with rage. Christy Matthew sat in the press box with Huey Fullerton, the great Chicago baseball writer, and Fullerton said, “I want you to point out to me things that uh aren’t kosher, the plays that look like the that these guys are not trying their hardest.
” And Matthew had a string of them throughout the series. Uh it wasn’t subtle, but now the conspirators rebelled. They had not received all the money they had been promised. And the Black Socks now resolved among themselves to play all out. In game six, Chicago came from behind to win on dramatic 10th inning hits by Jackson and Gandel.
In game seven, Sakati again pitched well and this time made no errors. Jackson and Fel drove in all of the socks runs. Chicago won again 4 to one. The series now stood four games to three in Cincinnati’s favor. Chicago fans, battered by their team’s poor play, now began to hope. Game eight would be held in Chicago and Lefty Williams was scheduled to pitch.
Humiliated by his poor play and angered at not being paid all the money he was owed, he was now determined more than ever to win. But the night before the game, gamblers sent by Arnold Rothstein came to his room and threatened to harm his wife if he did not cooperate. Game eight. Chicago had to win. The entire city held its breath.
Lefty Williams walked to the mound. As he had in game two and game five, Williams pitched miserably. >> He gave up four runs and was replaced before the first inning was over. Home runs and extra base hits by Joe Jackson and Chick Gandal did little to stop the inspired Reds who won the game going away and the World Series five games to three.
The Cincinnati Reds are the champions of the world. There’ll be a great deal written about the World Series. There’ll be a whole lot of inside stuff that never will be printed. The truth will remain that the team that was the hardest working one. The team which had the ability and individuality was beaten. The fact is the series was lost in the first game.
Hugh Ferton. >> It was actually a sickening feeling because this was the pure sport. This was the pure sport. You you you didn’t cheat because you know a kid would tell you at that time is is is if anything say that’s not fair. That was the main word. That’s not fair. I was 15 years old at the time of the Black Sox and I was the most disappointed kid in the city of Chicago.
I think I couldn’t at the age of 15 I couldn’t understand it. You know, this was just a terrible thing to happen. I I didn’t know about gambling or anything else of that kind. I was just heartbroken. And the stats show that that certainly uh Shoulless Joe and and Buck Weaver on third base had better series stats.
Uh and thinking it was crooked, no. Terribly disappointed. Yes. That winter, in an article for the New York World, Hugh Fullerton suggested the series had been fixed. The baseball establishment was outraged. They didn’t want to believe it. Certainly, the baseball establishment, even the ones who knew that was probably something to it, just said, “Oh, no.
This is total fabrication.” And you know, there’s a famous quote from uh one of the baseball magazines about that we should take the pressure off our boys in the field and and aim it toward the you know, thick lipped, big-nosed gambling elements, you know. So, there was a certain kind of racism in in the reaction of how dare you even mention something so unpatriotic as that this might be possible.
>> There’s always some scandal of some kind following a big sporting event like the World Series. These yarns are manufactured out of whole cloth and grow out of bitterness due to losing wagers. I believe my boys fought the battles of the recent World Series on the level. And I would be the first to want information to the contrary.
I would give $20,000 to anyone unearthing any information to that effect. Charles A. Kamiski. Charles Kamiski, afraid of losing his best players, did not want to admit the truth and refused to investigate, even after several players from other teams told him what they had heard. And after a letter arrived from the wife of Joe Jackson himself, suggesting that the series had not been on the up and up.
But American League President Ban Johnson hated Charles Kamiski. He pursued the case without letup. It took almost a year and the White Socks were in close contention for the 1920 penant when a grand jury finally indicted players and gamblers alike for conspiracy. Eddie Sakati confessed before the grand jury.
So did Joe Jackson. What is your name? >> Joe Jackson. Where is your home? In Greenville, South Carolina. Did anybody pay you any money to help throw that series in favor of Cincinnati? They did. How much did they pay? They promised me $20,000 and paid me five. Now, >> who paid you the five? >> Lefty Williams brought it in my hotel room and threw it down.
Does Mrs. Jackson know that you got $5,000 for helping throw these games? She did that night. Yes. What did she say about it? >> She said it was an awful thing to do. leaving Kamisky Park one afternoon, Jackson was surrounded by a crowd of men and boys. One boy called out, “It ain’t true, Joe. It ain’t true.
” Others joined in. Jackson kept walking to his car. The fans followed at a distance. Jackson never said a word. Professional baseball is in a bad way. Not so much because of the Chicago scandal as because that scandal has provoked it to bringing up all the rumors and suspicions of years past. The general effect is to wrinkle the noses of fans who will quit going to ball games if they get the impression that this sort of thing has been going on underground for years.
New York Times. October 7th, 1920. Fix these faces in your memory. These are the White Socks players who committed the astounding and contemptable crime of selling out the baseball world. They will be remembered from now on only for the depths of depravity to which they could sink. The Sporting News In the end, no one went to jail.
Arnold Rothstein indignantly denied knowing anything about any fix. He loved baseball. He said it was the national game. He moved on to bootlegging, drug pedalling, and labor racketeering, and was eventually shot to death by a rival gambler whom he had accused of fixing a poker game. A Battel and sleepy Bill Burns were freed for lack of evidence, but were no longer welcome at ballparks.
All eight ball players were acquitted by a jury after the transcripts of Sicatis and Jackson’s confessions mysteriously vanished from the court file. They were tried and found innocent, a travesty really. But it came out that uh Arie Rothstein and the rest of them were crooked gamblers and uh were able to persuade the boys to throw the games even though some of them I guess never got a dime.
And they weren’t most of the black socks were not crooks. They were dumb farm boys who didn’t know anything about finance or anything else. Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, 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.
The day after the Black Socks were acquitted, Judge Landis barred all eight players for life. None of them ever played Major League Baseball again. Had he any sense of the consequences, there’s no way that he would have taken part in that. But I don’t think that any anyone could guess that a man as basically simple as Jackson would have could have known really what it meant, what he was doing.
Um, his livelihood was taken away after the 1920 season and with it really his life. Uh, he lived another 30 years, but not very happily. Joe Jackson played outlaw baseball in South Georgia for a time, then ran a liquor store in Greenville, South Carolina. Ty Cobb once came in for a fifth of bourbon.
Jackson did not seem to recognize his old rival. Cobb finally asked, “Don’t you know me, Joe?” “Sure, I know you, Tai,” Jackson answered. “I just didn’t think anyone I used to know up there wanted to recognize me again.
