Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (9 page)

Then he began the difficult and expensive-process of putting together a ball club worthy of the new stadium. Up to 1915, Comiskey had spent a fortune for a quantity of minor-league players (hoping to pick up promising young players cheap). Few made good. Then he decided to go for the best. He started by buying Eddie Collins from Connie Mack and the Philadelphia A's for $65,000. Then he sent Harry Grabiner to Cleveland with a blank check. "Bring me back this fellow Jackson!" Jackson cost him another $65,000. For $12,000 he picked up Happy Felsch from Milwaukee. By 1917, he finally had his pennant—and the World's Championship. He suffered a setback in 1918 during the war, but his tremendous pride in his club was justified again in 1919. "It's a wonderful combination—the greatest team I ever had…. It's the best bunch of fighters I ever saw. With them, no game is lost until the last man is out."

The 1919 pennant was a glorious topping to Comiskey's sixtieth birthday.

"Why not run for mayor of Chicago?" he was asked by a V.I.P. who knew exactly how possible this was. Comiskey's objection was indicative of his real ambitions: "I'd rather win a pennant than an election!"

But now, on the morning of October 1, Comiskey had heard the disquieting rumors. While he didn't believe them for a minute, somehow they had given him a restless night. It worried him that he was even worried at all, setting off a kind of chain reaction; strange, since he was convinced it was all based on nothing. Wasn't there a report from the gamblers in New York that the odds had shifted because Eddie Cicotte, supposedly had a sore arm?

After breakfast, Comiskey left the Sinton Hotel dining room fo the ball park, attributing his bad night to a routine pre-game nervousness.

In the dugout, the manager of the Chicago White Sox watched his ballplayers warm up for the game. He file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

was William Gleason, known for years as "The Kid." Although he was almost fifty-three years old, it still seemed an apt nickname. Small, open-faced, simple, direct, Gleason was a youngish type. He wore his cap slanted on the left side of his head and his emotions on his baseball sleeve. On this dramatic morning, his frown betrayed his anxiety. Gleason, in the past twenty-four hours, had heard enough to choke a horse.

As he looked from one to another of his ballplayers, he could not believe the rumors. He had convinced himself that after a year as wonderful as this one, they just didn't make sense.

But he couldn't deny everything he had heard. Aside from the innate ludicrousness of any scheme to throw the Series, Gleason had instincts that had always guided him. Any good baseball man knows how much they are part of the game. A manager can play the so-called percentages, make dope sheets, analyze till his brains ache. But his decisions, likely as not, will be conditioned by some irrational component. A hunch. Leave a pitcher in, or take him out? Try a bunt? Try a hit-and-run? Change the batting order? A dozen decisions a day. Reasoning was fine, but instinct won ball games.

Gleason had spent his entire life in baseball. As a big-league pitcher, he had won 129 games and lost the same number. Then, for fourteen more years, he played second base, a total of twenty years as a major-leaguer. Six years more as a White Sox coach, helping out where he could, nursing sore arms, teaching rookies, settling disputes, assuaging tempers. He was tough, singleminded, always fair. The ballplayers had to respect him, whether they liked him or not. No one ever spoke harshly about him; they knew no one would believe them if they did.

When Cincinnati took its turn on the field, Gleason went back to his dressing room. It disturbed him to note he was not alone: the newspaperman, Ring Lardner, was sitting there, a pencil between his teeth.

Gleason liked Lardner, though he was a little afraid of him. Lardner was a bright young guy, a real writer, not like a lot of these bums who covered baseball. Lardner loved the game as much as Gleason did. He had the same deep respect for talent, got the same glow from a brilliantly pitched game or the sight of a great hitter having a great day. Lardner gave baseball class, just by being part of its world.

But Gleason didn't want to see him now: he dreaded what Lardner might be asking….

"Hello, Kid," Lardner offered.

"Hya," Gleason returned.

He moved to his locker, fumbling through his gear for a lighter sweatshirt. It had gotten real hot out there. He felt Lardner's eyes on him, but nothing was said for a long moment.

Then Lardner spoke: "Just came to wish you luck, Kid. That's all."

The words cut into Gleason like nine little darts: Lardner's tone was funereal.

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To Happy Felsch, pre-game warm-up could be more fun than the ball game. In batting practice he smashed into those fat pitches as if they all had his name written on them. Then he'd cruise around the outfield chasing fly balls fungoed far across the vast expanse of the stadium, a hundred feet from him and then some. He'd dig his cleats into the soft green turf and leg it with the joy of a kid racing down the street to a candy store. The little white pellet soaring through the air was the world itself: he had to catch it before it hit the ground and maybe crumbled.

Felsch had been called "Happy" since he was a kid. He was born laughing, his father had told him.

Laughter was part of his face, and no adversity could rub it off. His father was a tough, hardworking factory laborer with his roots in the old country. Along with immigrant German friends, he had settled in Milwaukee and raised twelve kids.

Happy got as far as the sixth grade, then quit. He got a factory job paying $10 a week, which he'd bring home to his father, who'd give him back a quarter to play around with. The old man would say it was a rotten thing for a boy to have to work like that; in America it should be different. He'd been working all his life and he had nothing to show for it. Now his kids had to start the same rotten grind all over again.

On Sundays, "Hap" played ball. When he got to be good enough he also played twilight ball when the plant closed. There were dozens of factory teams around Milwaukee. First he was an infielder; later he found his real spot in the outfield. He was good. He had a lot of power. At twenty-one, they took him on Milwaukee in the American Association. Ray Schalk was the catcher. Jimmy Callahan, who managed the White Sox, would come to Milwaukee to see Schalk play, and he saw Felsch, too. In 1916, the White Sox brought him to the big town at $2,500 a year. He sent his money home and laughed through the long season that was never long enough for him. On the road, he enjoyed his whisky and the fun of strange big cities. He could go on a rampage and tear up a hotel with the wildest of them. He had showed them that in Boston, back in July.

Now Felsch was twenty-eight. Back home in Milwaukee, everyone treated him like a big shot. He liked that, until he thought about his low salary. The big thing about the World Series was not the glory but the extra money. In the 1917 Series, he made more in one week than he made all season. And this Series would be even better.

Joseph Jefferson Jackson stood lackadaisically in the outfield, catching an occasional fly ball hit his way. He had come a long way in ten short years of ballplaying. He was born on a broken-down plantation run by an eccentric old fire-eater, who drove his tenants to a fury. Joe's father had eked out a mere subsistence from the barren and rocky South Carolina land. It was a county of corn whiskey and ignorance. If a man learned to read or write, he was looked on as a freak.

The Jacksons moved to the environs of Greenville, South Carolina, living in one of the little mill towns that were the mark of Northern ownership of Southern cotton. The town was called Brandon Mill.

Beginning at the age of thirteen, Joe worked in the mill, along with his father, six brothers, and two file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

sisters. The hours were from six to six. The work was unwholesome, even dangerous, but his father told him it was a lot better than the plantation.

The Brandon Mill, like all the others, promoted a baseball team. Among its eight hundred mill hands, young Jackson registered big, right from the start. Even at thirteen, he had something extra special as a ballplayer. He was told to catch because none of the others wanted to risk it. He carried a scar all his life from that experience: a big mill hand let one go so rapidly, Joe didn't have the strength to stop it. It drove his hands back, smashed into his mask so deeply that a metal band cut into his forehead.

He shifted to pitcher, since he had a strong throwing arm. He threw one so hard, he broke his catcher's arm. Both catcher and pitcher quit their posts. Jackson moved out to the outfield.

Joe's brother, Dave, also showed promise as a ballplayer, but life in the mill destroyed his chances. One day he was caught in the whirring machinery and was carried to the roof on a revolving belt. His arm and leg were broken and never properly set. Dave spent the rest of his life bent and malformed.

In 1907, when Joe was nineteen, he was playing against a mill team in Greer, South Carolina. The opposing second baseman was Tom Stouch, an old ballplayer with one fast trip to the major leagues.

Stouch recorded his first confrontation with Jackson's ability: "…This tall skinny-looking kid stepped up to the plate, he didn't appear to have much in him, but he drove the ball on a line to a spot where I was standing, like a bullet out of a gun. I thought to myself, if this rube hits 'em like that every time, he must be some whale. He was. He hit three times that game, twice for extra bases, and when he hit, he left a trail of blue flame behind them as they shot through the air. We played five games in all with that outfit, and he kept hitting 'em. The last time, he hit the ball at the pitcher's head. The pitcher looked at the ball for a 100th of a second then ducked as if he were facing a shell out of a Krupp mortar.

"'Did you discover his weakness?' I asked him.

"'No, but he discovered mine!'"

When Stouch became manager at Greenville, he hired Jackson at $75 a month, almost double what he was making at the mill.

At Greenville, playing every day, he began to realize his true potential as a ballplayer. And there, he also picked up his nickname: Jackson had bought a new pair of spikes, and they'd raised a few blisters. He wanted to sit out the next day's game, but his club turned up short an outfielder, and he had to play. He put on his old shoes, but the soreness made it impossible to wear them. In desperation, he went out to play in his stocking feet. Nobody seemed to notice until the seventh inning when he blasted a long drive to right center and had to leg it hard. As he pulled into third, a leather-lunged voice from the opponent's bleachers blasted at him: "You shoeless bastard, you!"

The crowd laughed and picked it up. They started calling him "Shoeless" Joe around the league, and it file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

stuck.

Toward the end of the season, Tom Stouch called his friend Connie Mack in Philadelphia to say that he had a few good prospects Mack might want. Mack sent a scout down to Greenville and bought Jackson, along with two others. The price for Shoeless Joe was $325.

But Jackson was timid. He actually seemed unhappy about going to the big leagues. "I hardly know as how I'd like it in those big Northern cities," he told Stouch. The manager reassured him, not believing what he'd heard.

Stouch took the trouble of escorting Jackson on the trip to Philly, fed him supper on the train, and even put him in his berth. But when the train arrived in the morning, Jackson was not on it. He had slipped off at Richmond and caught the first train back to Greenville. A telegram reached Philly that explained everything—and nothing:

Am unable to come to Philadelphia at this time. Joe Jackson.

Mack was flustered by this kind of conduct. Stouch explained that Jackson just didn't want to leave home, that big cities frightened him. Mack turned to Socks Seybold, a coach: "Go down to Greenville and get this fellow's brothers and sisters and whole family to come with you if necessary…but bring him back!"

This time, Jackson came all the way. He played in the game the day he arrived and got two hits. Then, it began to rain…. By the time the rain stopped a few days later, Jackson had sneaked home again. His teammates had been ribbing his illiteracy unmercifully.

In 1909, Connie Mack farmed him to Savannah. Jackson hit a powerful .358 and, perhaps more significantly, met his wife there. Late in the season, he was recalled to Philadelphia and she went with him. But again he didn't like it. He didn't know how to conduct himself. His ignorance made him the butt of everyone's jokes. He became sullen, difficult, irresponsible. One afternoon, on his way to the ballpark, he passed a burlesque show. He had never seen one, so he hopped off the streetcar and spent the afternoon in the theater. Connie Mack jumped all over him for that. One day in Detroit, perched on third base after a tremendous triple, a raucous fan jeered at him: "Hey, Jackson, can you spell 'cat'?" The crowd laughed derisively as Jackson glared back, squirted a stream of tobacco juice to indicate his contempt, and roared, "Hey mister, can you spell 'shit'?"

Mack tried to get close to the boy. He offered to get him a companion who would teach him to read and write, but Jackson was stubborn and stuck to his ways. Mack eventually gave up on him, sold him to Cleveland.

Jackson came up with the Indians in midseason after spending the early months in New Orleans. In 20

big-league games, he hit .387. In 1911, his first full season, he hit .408, losing the batting title to Ty file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

Cobb's .420. By 1912, he had begun to adjust to big-league life. Perhaps too well. The glamour of the cities lured him into new and exciting dissipations. The rube had opened his eyes. Fortunately, his ballplaying wasn't affected. Jackson had too much natural talent and too much drive for that.