Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (15 page)

Gandil looked up at him, almost a little amused. "So did you, Kid!" he replied.

Gleason leaped at the big first baseman, actually got his hands on the ballplayer's throat. Immediately he was pulled off by several players, his whole body lifted from the floor and carried a few feet away.

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He shook them off and retreated to his little dressing room. Gandil wouldn't say a word, Gleason knew.

He wouldn't dare.

Schalk showered and dressed hurriedly. Since they were heading back to Chicago on the sleeper that night, he had to pack his catcher's gear.

When he got outside, he walked slowly down the ramp, under the grandstand, toward the exit. The empty ball field was messy, littered with discarded programs, old newspapers, and candy wrappers. He looked out at home plate and at the spot behind it where he had squatted through the nine tortured innings.

He stood there waiting for Lefty Williams.

When Williams came out, momentarily alone, Schalk called to him. Lefty turned, nodded impassively, and walked toward the catcher. Schalk grabbed him firmly by the arm and drew him away from the ramp, a few yards under the grandstand that slanted above them. Then he spun him around, and slammed into him, both fists flailing in inept fury. Williams cried out in shock and backed away from this wild onslaught, instinctively covering up to protect himself. Others heard the cry and hurried to stop Schalk. They pulled him off, but not in time to prevent the little catcher from getting in a few licks.

Sleepy Bill Burns had watched the second game with considerable respect for Lefty Williams. Burns, ex-pitcher himself, knew a masterful job when he saw one. Williams had lost that ball game in one inning, but had looked brilliant in the process.

Along with Billy Maharg, Burns went to Attell's room at the Sinton to pick up the $40,000 for the players. Out of this, the ballplayers would pay him a commission. Though the exact amount had not been determined, Burns assumed 10 per cent was not unreasonable. Secretly, he was prepared to accept less.

Attell's room was full of money. Money was being laid out in neat piles, stashed in suitcases, packed in bundles, stored under the mattress. Burns had never seen so much money. He had no idea how much there was, but it gave him a warm, glowing feeling.

Until he asked Attell for $40,000 of it.

Again Attell refused. He simply turned away, not even bothering with an excuse. The man named Bennett moved into the breach. "To hell with them," he snapped. "What do we need them for!"

Burns was staggered, so staggered that he couldn't say anything. How could you answer a man like that!

He moved past him and grabbed Attell. He insisted that the money be paid. He even spoke of the masterful job Williams had done. The ballplayers had worked for their dough; they deserved to be paid.

Attell didn't think he could strain their loyalty any further, did he?

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Attell finally summoned Bennett and the Levi brothers, Ben and Lou, to a private conference. There was a brief discussion out of Burns's earshot, and when it was over, Attell lifted up a mattress and withdrew a pile of bills. He handed them to Burns, who counted $10,000.

"That's not enough!"

Attell shrugged. "That's it. That's all they can have!"

"They won't accept it, Abe. For Chrissakes, there's eight of them!"

"They'll take it," Attell replied.

Burns exchanged glances with Maharg. This time, he sensed, there was going to be trouble. Attell was threatening the whole set up with this kind of greed and stupidity. Burns also gave more than a passing thought to his own finances. He had won a bundle for himself—so far, close to $12,000. From where he was sitting—on the inside—it could be much, much more. Unless Attell rocked the already shaky boat too severely.

Burns looked at the cash in his hand and wondered how he was going to hand it to Gandil. Almost involuntarily, he held it out to Maharg. "Here, you give it to them!"

Maharg recoiled, as if the money was poisonous. Sensibly enough, he didn't want any part of that assignment.

In the end, Sleepy Bill acquiesced. It was $10,000 or nothing. He would do what he could to keep the ballplayers happy. Maybe he could get $500 out of it himself. He started to leave.

"Wait a minute!" Attell snapped. Burns stopped. He could see Attell's mind racing with new manipulations. "Tell the ballplayers that they should win the third game. Much better for the odds, that way…."

Burns had to smile. Attell's gall was incredible.

With the package of bills hidden under his shirt, Burns made his way to Gandil's room, on a different floor. En route, a door opened and a familiar figure stepped out. It was Kid Gleason. He saw Burns and scowled. Burns smiled in return. "Hya, Kid," he said.

Chick Gandil was not surprised. This confirmation of his suspicions, however, did not mitigate his anger. When he saw the paltry $10,000 Burns tossed on the bed, he was ready to blow up.

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"Goddam double cross!" he barked. Risberg and McMullin chimed in. They were drowning men grasping at $10,000 straws.

Burns once again assured them that it was only a delay, that they would be paid in full. Immediately Gandil began thinking how he, too, could play this game. It was not without irony that Burns himself supplied him with an idea by casually suggesting that the ballplayers think in terms of winning the third game. It would level the odds again.

Gandil said he'd think about it. He took the $10,000 and put it in the lining of his suitcase. It was time to start packing again. They were all making the 11P.M. sleeper back to Chicago.

For a thirty-four-year-old, Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was doing fine. He was an established writer whose column appeared in newspapers throughout the country. He could write about pretty much anything he chose; he was not confined to sport. Readers liked his sardonic style, his amused cynicism, and increasingly emerging in his columns, his bitterness. Three years earlier, he had published his first collection of short stories, some of them about baseball.

Lardner was a tall, dark-haired, neat-looking man. His somber face seemed never to smile, though his friends knew this was only a façade. Hugh Fullerton described him as wearing "the look and manner of Rameses II with his wrappings off." If Lardner didn't laugh much himself, he made others roar.

Like Fullerton, he was a great baseball fan. He found in the game the finest expression of competitive athletics. In 1919 ballplayers were heroes. He constantly thought of them as big men and himself as a kid. A major-league star was someone who had used his talent to get to the very top. And when, as a result of his work, Lardner became friendly with them, even then he could not get over his adulation. It was a strange thing to see this bright, cynical, misanthropic writer hanging around the lobbies and pool halls, just to be with a bunch of rather slow-witted ballplayers.

Lardner lived in Chicago, and as a consequence, his great admiration centered on the White Sox. Among them, his favorite was Eddie Cicotte. Lardner believed him to the finest pitcher around. He liked Cicotte's cleverness, his artful use of the knuckle ball, the incredibly deceptive "shine ball." He saw Cicotte as the image of the "little man," once abused and discarded, then rising above the conventional prejudice of small-minded baseball owners against lack of size and power. Besides, Cicotte was a colorful character. A funny guy, capable of rare pranks and wisecracks, adept at the hilarious banter of locker rooms and hotel lobbies. He could almost make Lardner laugh.

For the past few days, however, Ring Lardner had been swallowing all the rumors. He had seen his hero destroyed in the first game, other idols smashed in the second. No matter how much he hated to admit it

—especially to himself—it was not in him to resist the logic of his cynicism. The sellout was on. He could smell it. Nothing more; just smell it.

But like all the others with sensitive noses, he could not be certain. The situation rendered him helpless.

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After that first game, Lardner had asked Cicotte to come up to his room for a drink. Cicotte came, and the writer put the big question to him. It was childish and naïve of him, and Cicotte had to laugh. No, the great pitcher had sighed, he was merely off form, that was all. There was nothing going on out there.

Just off form.

Lardner wanted to believe it, but he couldn't.

After the second game, he returned to the Sinton and started drinking. He wrote his daily column with a bottle beside the typewriter: "…There's a wild rumor going around that Mr. Gleason wants the fourth inning removed for the rest of the Serious, and I don't care which inning they do cut out or maybe even two, but if they eliminate an inning the Sox maybe will win a game which will merely elongate the Serious so whatever happens we are the losers."

That night, Lardner was aboard the train heading west to Chicago, along with the entire personnel of both clubs. His bottle went with him. He sat there drinking with other newspapermen, letting the pinochle, poker, baseball, smoke-filled, whisky-lined, dirty-joke jabber swirl around him. Others barely noted how untypically silent he was. Then he rose from his seat, slightly unsteady on his pins, and moved through the rattling train to a certain Pullman.

Here, members of the Chicago White Sox were playing a few hands of poker before getting into their berths. Lardner moved conspicuously into the car and started reeling down the aisle. Any of them who had not noticed his arrival, quickly became aware of it. Lardner burst loudly into song:

"I'm forever blowing ball games,Pretty ball games in the air.I come from Chi I hardly tryJust go to bat and fade and die;Fortune's coming my way,That's why I don't care.I'm forever blowing ball games,And the gamblers treat us fair…."

Nobody even told him to shut up.

On Friday, October 3, there was a message from Abe Attell waiting for Bill Burns when he checked into Chicago's Hotel Sherman around 8:40 in the morning. Attell wanted to see him. Burns had his bags placed in his room and called Attell's.

The Little Champ, it seemed, was worried. What did Burns think the players were going to do for the third game? Burns laughed. How in hell did
he
know? Attell acknowledged that he understood why the players might be annoyed, but he asked Burns to bear with him. It would all come out okay, and Burns would be well taken care of. If only they could be sure of the ballplayers….

It all boiled down to one thing: how were they going to keep this deal going and the big dough rolling in? Attell wasn't willing to give the players any more than the paltry $10,000 of the previous night.

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Burns had to weigh the alternatives. Either he went along with Attell or he pulled out completely. He hated both. But it was glaringly apparent to him that there was no possible money to be gained by pulling out.

Attell was smiling as if he had known this all along. He suggested that Burns go see the ballplayers again. After all, they knew him, trusted him, liked him. Wasn't that his function in this whole setup?

Much revolved around the third game: just what were the ballplayers planning to do with it?

Burns said he would find out. He went to his room and called up Gandil at the Warner Hotel. "What about the game today?" he asked. Gandil replied that the boys had talked it over and that it would go exactly like the first two. Burns thanked him and went back to tell Attell.

But Attell was skeptical. Did Burns believe that? After all, Dickie Kerr was going to pitch, and Kerr was not in on the fix. Burns, of course, knew that. But he also remembered the ballplayers saying that they wouldn't win behind Kerr because he was a "busher." They'd save their victories for Cicotte and Williams. Burns could understand that: these boys were real cliquish.

Burns left hurriedly to join his partner, Billy Maharg. Together, they scraped together every dime they could, anxious to parlay their previous two wins into a huge pot. The Sox were going to lose number three!

Chick Gandil had lied. If he could, he was going to make Burns and Attell sweat. And he was going to force Sport Sullivan out of the woodwork. The ballplayers had not met and talked things over. Nor did they have any intention of letting the third game "go exactly like the first two." Their anger at the failure to receive payment was enough to preclude any further discussion. As for the third game, they would go to Comiskey Park without any clear idea as to what was expected of them or what they expected of each other.

The truth was,
nobody
knew how the third game would go.

Comiskey Park was decorated for the occasion. It was a fine-looking, double-tiered ball park, with a pleasant background of trees, church steeples, and new public buildings—this despite its reputation of being located in the stockyards region of the South Side. To add to the festivities, two brass bands paraded through the aisles, one from Cincinnati, playing the old tunes, and a sharper band from the big city of Chicago, playing the new. Several thousand Cincinnati fans had made the all-night trip, and set up headquarters at Chicago's huge Congress Hotel. They'd spent a blustering morning parading through the streets with giant red pennants. In hoarse voices, they sang of their victories like a bunch of drunken college kids. Chicagoans saw them and heard them and found them silly. They took their baseball seriously in Chicago.

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