Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (3 page)

Baseball lost its gentlemanliness. It was quickly learned that a boy from the coal mines or the lumber mills could hit, run, and throw as well, if not better, than the son of the rich merchant. Pay him, and he would play harder, certainly be more tolerant of broken fingers (there were no gloves in those days) and vicious spike wounds (there was no end to them).

Though rising in popularity, baseball became corrupted with almost incredible rapidity. There was hardly a game in which some wild, disruptive incident did not occur to alter the outcome. An outfielder, settling under a crucial fly ball, would find himself stoned by a nearby spectator, who might win a few hundred dollars if the ball was dropped. On one occasion, a gambler actually ran out on the field and tackled a ballplayer. On another, a marksman prevented a fielder from chasing a long hit by peppering the ground around his feet with bullets. The victims had no chance to appeal: there was nothing in the rules to cover such behavior.

There were, of course, more subtle techniques for controlling ball games. Bribery became a common weapon, more widespread than baseball historians are wont to acknowledge. In 1878, just two years file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html after the founding of the National League, the St. Louis weekly,
The Spirit of the Times
reported:

"Baseball, as a professional pastime, has seen its best days in St. Louis. The amount of crooked work is indeed startling, and the game will undoubtedly meet the same fate elsewhere unless some extra strong means are taken to prevent it."

The Buffalo
Express
indignantly suggested that the local club should "fold up if they can't play a square game."

So widespread were these ruinous practices, it seemed impossible to contain them. A famous attempt was made by President William Hulbert, founder of the National League: In 1876, the Louisville Club had the pennant all but clinched. They moved eastward for a final six-game series with Hartford, a team that had been no real competition all season. The series was played in Brooklyn, on neutral grounds, and much to everyone's amazement, the great Louisville Club seemed to fall apart. Four players made innumerable errors in game after game. So staggering were these defeats that Louisville's President, Charles Chase, began an investigation. Struck by the numerous telegrams that one player, Al Nichols, was receiving daily, he demanded a written authorization to open them.

The messages were coded, but the repeated appearance of one word "sash" provided the key. "Sash" was the code for a fixed game. Chase shrewdly questioned his suspects. One of them was Jim Devlin, a star pitcher who had won 35 games. Another was George Hall, star outfielder and home-run hitter. Chase, playing one off against the other, got them to break down and confess. President Hulbert had them thrown out of baseball for life.

Curiously, perhaps, few seemed to take the expulsion seriously. Hulbert, however, did not relent—even though Hall was said to have appeared in the President's office some months later, with his toes exposed through torn boots, begging for a chance to earn bread for his wife and baby.

Significantly—though seldom noted—the four players who had accepted bribes (no more than $100 or so each) had done so because the Louisville Club had not gotten around to paying them their salaries!

In time, organized baseball grew up. Corruption dwindled as the status of the game rose in the public mind. Like the freewheeling roughhouse morality of the American frontier, excessive drinking, wildness, brawling, and contempt for umpires came to be ruled out. Baseball became a highly organized, respectable institution.

It was also becoming big business; in fact, by 1917, it was the biggest entertainment business in America. It could be said that its bigness rendered it blind. A consequence of its bigness was the inevitable appeal to all the promoters and opportunists who gathered like leeches to feed on its success.

One promotion scheme was the baseball pool, which was a kind of lottery. Tickets would be printed each week on which anyone, with ten cents or more, could bet on a team to score the most runs per file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html inning or game, the most victories per week, and so on. A typically famous pool, known as the Keystone, distributed over 165,000 such tickets each week. It employed 50 agents who, in turn, had 300

subagents. Since this kind of gambling was frowned upon in many communities, it was necessary to pay police protection that totaled $17,000 per week. Yet the Keystone Pool could boast a weekly profit of over $50,000.

The baseball owners had been informed of these practices—or malpractices. They did not really object, for all their public protestations. For one thing, because of the pay-offs, the pools had strong political backing. For another, the owners believed that they generated an even greater interest in big-league ball, especially among the children.

America's entrance into the World War in 1917 brought about notable changes. When the Government shut down the race tracks for the duration (baseball was permitted to continue), gamblers and bookies who lived by the horses were left in limbo. They needed a place to hang out, some sport to talk about, an outlet for their need to bet. They simply converted their vast machinery of operation from horses to baseball. They applied themselves to doping ball games with the same diligence they'd used in handicapping horses.

In the process, they intruded themselves into the most intimate circles of the baseball world. The lobbies of major-league hotels were full of Sport Sullivans, operating around-the-clock schedules. Nice guys, one aid all; friendly guys, ready with the warm hello and the funny yam. They got to know the ballplayers well. The biggest of the gamblers had long since moved into higher social circles; many of them had become intimate even with the owners.

Inevitably this led to tampering with the outcome of games. Artfully, gamblers would find the likely players—preferably pitchers, the key men in any ball game. Who was getting on in years? Who was bitter about his dwindling paycheck? Who was getting along badly with his wife or with his manager?

Such situations might be exploited by a little tasty extracurricular procurement while on the road.

Gamblers were masters in the use of women and whisky: they seemed to have an endless supply of the choicest of both. Was there something "messy" in a ballplayer's life that could be held over his head?

Then, finally, there was always the threat of violence to fall back on.

By 1919, gamblers openly boasted that they could control ball games as readily as they controlled horse races. They even went so far as to put a few choice players on weekly salaries. Exploiting their own talents, bribed players learned to become adept at throwing games. A shortstop might twist his body to make a simple stop seem like a brilliant one, then make his throw a bare split second too late to get the runner. An outfielder might "short-leg" a chase for a fly ball, then desperately dive for it, only to see it skid by him for extra bases. Such maneuvers were almost impossible for the baseball fan—even for the most sophisticated sportswriter—to detect.

Only the ballplayers would know—sometimes. It was their profession and they weren't entirely blind.

There were many who hated the corruption, but it soon became apparent that there was nothing they file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html could do to prevent it. For one thing, how could anyone prove it? Even an honest, courageous newspaperman, tipped off to some specific sellout, could do nothing. Newspapers had to be careful because of libel laws.

But mostly, the cloak of secrecy was maintained by the power of the owners themselves. They knew, as all baseball men came to know. They knew, but pretended they didn't. Terrified of exposing dishonest practices in major-league ball games, their solution was no solution at all. It was simply an evasion.

Whenever there was talk of some fresh incident, they would combine to hush it up. The probing sportswriter would be instructed—or paid off—to stop his digging. Ballplayers would be thanked for their information—and disregarded. Always, the owners claimed, for the good of baseball. Their greatest fear was that the American fan might suspect there was something crooked about the National Pastime.

Who, then, would pay good money to see a game?

The official, if unspoken, policy was to let the rottenness grow rather than risk the dangers involved in exposure and cleanup. So all the investigations were squashed. This was business, pure and simple, for all the pious phrases about the nobility of the game and its inspirational value for American youth. In fact, that, too, was part of the business.

The story of Hal Chase illustrates the temper of the times. Chase was a superb first baseman, a dangerous hitter, an incorrigible troublemaker. He enjoyed the company of gamblers, if not for pleasure, then certainly for business. An enterprising man, he quickly learned that he needn't wait for gamblers to approach him before selling out a ball game. He'd arrange it himself and bet accordingly. He became adept at making faulty plays around first base so that everyone looked bad but himself. In the process, the outcome of the game would be altered.

He also tried to bribe his teammates, and one such incident eventually worked toward his undoing: In 1917, while Chase was playing with Cincinnati, a young pitcher, Jimmy Ring, was called in from the bull pen to save a game. The score was tied, two runners on base. As Ring was warming up, Chase walked over from first base and with incredible gall told him, "I've got some money bet on this game, kid. There's something in it for you if you lose." Ring snubbed him, but ended up losing anyway. The following morning, Chase found him seated in the lobby and deftly slipped him $50 without saying a word. Ring reported this to the new Red's manager, Christy Mathewson, formerly the great right-handed pitcher of the New York Giants. Matty immediately brought it to John Heydler, President of the National League. A hearing was held and Chase was conveniently acquitted. The evidence, according to Heydler, was insufficient.

Mathewson, a man of principle and a real lover of baseball, was disgusted. He wanted nothing more to do with Chase and got rid of him. But John McGraw of the New York Giants was not so touchy. By 1919, Chase had merely changed his base of operations to New York.

And so it went, incident after incident, year after year. If a man can sin with impunity, he will continue to sin—especially if he gets paid for it.

file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html
4

Chick Gandil had been thinking about the coming World Series for a long time. It could be said that he'd been thinking of little else. His problems would be manifold, and he was thoroughly aware of them all.

How many ball players were necessary to insure the fix? Five? Six? And more significant than the number—who? First, pitchers. Impossible to fix the Series without them. He had to start lining up pitchers.

In July, the first door opened for him: the White Sox almost went on strike.

During the 1918 season, the war had cut into baseball's attendance figures. Wary of another financially difficult year after the war ended, the club owners had agreed to cut the ballplayers' salaries to the bone, despite the fact that they extended the season. Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, had been especially loyal to the agreement. His ballplayers were the best and were paid as poorly as the worst. By mid-July, however, it became startlingly clear that the fears of the owners had been completely unfounded. Baseball attendance topped all expectations, especially at Comiskey Park.

Aware of simple arithmetic, the White Sox ballplayers griped. In the face of higher attendance, the lowered salaries angered them. They were winning ball games, burning up the American League. Their brilliance on the ball field added fuel to the fire. It was time to make demands.

There was an angry clubhouse meeting, and it was agreed that action should be taken. William "Kid"

Gleason, serving his first year as manager, was to take their plea to Comiskey. Gleason could be trusted as sympathetic: the year before he'd had a salary dispute with Comiskey and had refused to accept terms.

It had been Gleason's first season out of baseball since he'd broken in in 1888.

On the following day, Gleason returned empty-handed. Comiskey had refused even to discuss salaries!

The ballplayers heard this while dressing for a game. Enraged, they threatened to strike, but Gleason talked them out of it, promising to persuade Comiskey to give them bonuses. However, Gandil had noted one ballplayer who was so furious that Gleason thought better of playing him that afternoon.

He was Chicago's number one pitcher, Eddie Cicotte.

The more Gandil thought of him, the more he sensed he was ripe for plucking. Cicotte was thirty-five years old. He had pitched big-league ball for fourteen seasons. In 1917, he had won an incredible 28

games, leading his team to a pennant and world's championship. In 1919, he was on his way toward winning 29 games. Yet Comiskey saw fit to pay him less than $6,000! Many players of less stature got almost twice as much on other teams. Cicotte was not the type to show his bitterness, but he knew full well he would be dumped after his first poor season. Old men, it was said, don't make comebacks.

file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html By mid-August, Gandil was openly talking "fix" to him. He posed as a fellow conspirator; together they would hatch a brilliant plot. But Cicotte wasn't buying. He had no arguments against the proposal: just scruples. Gandil kept after him, day after day, baiting the hook with the one bait that could overshadow a man's conscience: money. Cicotte was the type who always worried about money. He had bought a farm in Michigan and saddled himself with a stiff mortgage. He had tried to give his family a social status commensurate with his professional reputation, but his salary never justified it. There would be no pension waiting for him, only memories of his greatness. Memories, Gandil reminded him, didn't pay mortgages. He could promise Cicotte a tremendous sum of money. Cicotte could even name his own figure! hie could make more in one week than he made all year.