Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (23 page)

The ensuing trial revealed that Magee, along with Chase, had been involved in betting against his own club in 1919. The jury decided against Magee who was promptly chased out of baseball forever. If he knew anything about the 1919 Series, it never came out at the trial. Significantly, the Chicago Cubs's attorney, Murray Seasongood, scrupulously avoided bringing that matter up.

It was the first public exposure to crookedness in baseball. To many, it seemed to threaten exposure of any number of other, comparable incidents. But baseball was not so inclined. Once again, business was booming. Attendance figures for 1920 were soaring higher than 1919.

Baseball Magazine
had a curious word for it all, and in the process took another random pot shot at its favorite enemy, Hugh Fullerton: "Magee, after all, has not hurt the game in which he will no longer have a part. The greater harm was done by sensational writers like Hugh Fullerton, men for whose actions there was not the slightest excuse."

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The logic of this tack was, at best, devious. The editorial casually dismissed Magee as a crooked ballplayer, but condemned Fullerton for trying to expose him.

The owners, meanwhile, began to attack the disease by picking a few pimples. Plain-clothes men circulated around notorious gambling centers at various ball parks. Ban Johnson announced that the American League had engaged a specially trained squad of detectives. To make a public show of their efforts, forty-six petty gamblers were arrested at one game. They were fined $1 each and told to keep away from the bleachers.

Chicago
Tribune
sportswriter, Jim Cruisenberry, made mockery of this whole procedure: There was a time when some of the bleacherites "would stake nickels or dimes on batters as they stepped up to the plate. 'A dime he does!' or 'Five he don't!' Detectives in the bleachers have arrested a number of these boys. But the big gamblers were still operating in the boxes almost directly behind the players' bench…."

Actually, as everyone knew, nothing had changed from the previous year. Rumors had remained rumors over the winter. There was, however, one important difference: the gamblers had something big to hold over the seven players. If there was any doubt as to the extent of their power, that doubt was quickly dispelled. Their persistent aim was to control key ball games at the most advantageous odds. Their weapon was blackmail.

Opportunity presented itself quickly as the season opened. The White Sox got off to a rousing start.

Cicotte was hot again. Williams even hotter. Red Faber had regained his strength and was destined for a great season. Dickie Kerr was even sharper than he had been in 1919. Jackson was hitting .400 and leading the league. Buck Weaver was close behind. The great ball club moved to Cleveland for a long series after winning six straight games. The odds, of course, were strongly in favor of the White Sox.

At this point, the good gentlemen from St. Louis seized the moment and took control. Joe Pesch and Carl Zork, Attell's partners of the year before, made contact. The contact man was Fred McMullin. The instructions were familiar enough: they were to lose the first game at Cleveland.

Immediately, the odds shifted, just as they had before the opening game of the past World Series. And once again, the betting skyrocketed, the odds ending up at 6-5, with Cleveland favored.

It was a close ball game, with Chicago leading 2-1. White Sox pitcher Red Faber was having a great day. He seemed unbeatable; it was going to be up to the fielders to take his victory away from him. They did, in the eighth inning. A fly ball was hit over Jackson's head in left. Swede Risberg went out to receive Jackson's throw and make the relay throw in. Risberg threw so badly that neither Buck Weaver nor Red Faber, who was backing up, could get their hands on the ball The run scored, tying up the game, which Cleveland went on to win the ninth.

The pattern was repeated periodically throughout the summer. The ballplayers accepted the action as a matter of course. They were paid off in small sums on no definite basis; a few hundred here, another few file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

hundred there. (There is no record of these figures.) If they remained loyal to these commitments, it was less out of greed than out of fear. Gamblers had an ominous way of keeping their victims in line by emphasizing the need for both allegiance and silence. In a way, this simplified the problem for the ballplayers: it was a lot easier to accept dirty money if you were going to be butchered for turning it down.

Newspaperman Jim Cruisenberry of the Chicago
Tribune
was not blind to the state of affairs; he had heard enough talk and seen enough devious action to guess the truth. There was even something special about the way the seven "suspected" ballplayers formed a separate faction on the club, even more isolated than in 1919. On road trips, they were always by themselves, eating apart from the others. There was a solemnity about them that was certainly not typical of their volatile personalities.

Cruisenberry had revealed all this to the
Tribune
sports editor, Harvey Woodruff. But what was there to print? The tale of a suspicion? Another few words of hearsay? Woodruff told him to stay with it, in hopes of coming up with something solid—a real expose based on legitimate evidence.

Late in July, there was a moment that seemed like an opening: Cruisenberry was in a New York hotel room with Ring Lardner, idling away a wet afternoon. The White Sox and Yankees had rained out.

The phone rang. It was Kid Gleason.

"Come over to Dinty Moore's." Gleason spoke quietly. "I'm at the bar with Abe Attell. He's talking, and I want you to hear it. I won't let on that I know you."

Lardner and Cruisenberry agreed that Attell would not recognize them. It took them only a few minutes to get to Dinty Moore's. A great sporting hangout, it was a likely place for Attell and Gleason to have encountered each other. The two writers ambled up to the bar, casually ordered a drink and listened.

Gleason began pumping the Little Champ for their benefit.

"So it was Arnold Rothstein who put up the dough for the fix…?"

Attell nodded. "That was it, all right. You know, Kid, I hated to do that to you, but I thought I was going to make a bundle, and I needed it…."

When Cruisenberry returned to his hotel, he immediately sat down to write the story.

Lardner laughed. "Who do you suppose is going to print that?"

Cruisenberry quickly learned that Lardner was right. In the office of the
Tribune
, Woodruff canceled the story. Attell, the editor noted for Cruisenberry's benefit, had access to powerful attorneys, all very adept at libel suits.

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To Gleason, who never saw in print his attempt at exposure, the suppression only added to his confusion. Previously he had deferred to Comiskey's wish to keep the scandal quiet. Now having given futile voice to his own urge to air the whole mess, he could well wonder whether the truth about the Series would ever come out and just how long anyone could ask him to remain silent.

Meanwhile, the Chicago White Sox continued to win enough ball games to stay on top—or close to it.

They jumped in and out of first place like a fast-moving yo-yo. The Cleveland Indians were showing more power than they had in years. The Yankees, bolstered by the incredible Babe Ruth, kept close behind the leaders. By August 15, it was a wide-open pennant race. The interest it generated was phenomenal. All around the league attendance at ball games in 1920 almost doubled the surprisingly high figures of 1919.

For the gamblers, conditions were never better. As long as they could keep the White Sox from breaking loose, as long as they could get them to throw key ball games, holding the final pennant victory in doubt, they could reap a rich harvest. They had driven the ballplayers to the point where they could play ball with one eye on the scoreboard, checking inning-by-inning scores of Cleveland or New York. If Cleveland was winning, the White Sox would turn on the pressure to win. If Cleveland was losing, the White Sox would follow suit.

Charles Comiskey, during this period, found himself helpless before the fantastic profits of the 1920 gate receipts. Any residue of anxiety about the preceding World Series was smothered under this unprecedented pile of money. If Cicotte and Williams blew up in key innings, they also won over 20

games each, some of them brilliantly. And Jackson, the amazingly colorful Shoeless Joe, was having his greatest year since he came to Chicago, battling for the American League batting crown with a .385

average. The dirty rumors of last fall had been buried in the excitement of the pennant race. Comiskey counted his money and let them lie.

Bancroft Johnson, however, was not so inclined. Though he had refused to participate in Comiskey's abortive effort at exposure on that anguished night after the first World Series game in Cincinnati, he had since changed his tune. By now, the American League President had absorbed enough information to realize its significance. When he sensed how it might be used against his adversary, Charles Comiskey, he plunged into a thorough investigation of the 1919 Series and all its ramifications. As a result, by late August, he was also aware of the continued corruption of the White Sox during this 1920

season.

It was a situation loaded with high explosives. The problem was not a new one, but it was certainly a dangerous one. At the moment, Johnson chose to play it safe. If there was to be an explosion, he would be ready for the cleanup that followed. He would step in with the power of his position and root out the evils of professional gambling in baseball. That was, indeed, a stand both righteous and selfishly gratifying: Comiskey would be destroyed in the process.

On August 30, 1920, the White Sox arrived in Boston for a crucial three-game series. Though they had file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

lost two games to the Yankees in New York earlier in the week, they were still a half game in first place over Cleveland. The Red Sox, enfeebled by years of dissension and the recent loss of Mays and Ruth, seemed no match for the pennant winners from Chicago. In the first game, however, the Red Sox shut them out 4-0, Lefty Williams taking the loss. In the second game, Cicotte held a 1-0 lead until the third inning when Jackson errored and two runs scored. In the seventh inning, Cicotte blew completely and the White Sox lost, 7-3. Boston
Globe
sportswriter Jim O'Leary spoke ominously to a friend: "Why, they're playing just like they did in the World Series!" "Brick" Owens, umpiring behind the plate, noted that Cicotte would show good stuff for several pitches, then, with two strikes on the hitter, he'd groove one with nothing much on it. He had never seen so many base hits with two strikes on the hitters. And he had never heard a catcher tear into a pitcher the way Schalk tore into Cicotte. Then, in the third game, Boston knocked them out of first place. The White Sox had lost six games in a row!

Immediately upon return to Chicago, Captain Eddie Collins presented himself to Comiskey. His contention, though recounted with anger, was simple enough: the Boston series had been sold out!

Comiskey heard him out, neither shocked nor dismayed. This was tired information to the Old Roman, another chapter in the endless story. He looked at Coffins in complete futility, knowing there were no foolish platitudes he could possibly toss at this brainy pro. All he could do was thank him for coming in.

He would take no action.

Then, on August 31, seemingly from out in left field, the snowball of exposure started rolling. In the National League, the Chicago Cubs were hosts to the last-place Philadelphia Phillies in a routine end-of-season ball game. In the locker room under the stands, Chicago pitcher Claude Hendrix was relaxing before warm-up time while the Cubs took batting practice. In the grandstands above, a few thousand people were slowly drifting in, die-hard baseball fans who had little else to do. Upstairs in his executive offices, President William L. Veeck was completing some correspondence when a telegram was delivered to him. He interrupted his work to read its startling message: Detroit: Commissions of thousands of dollars being bet on Phillies to win today. Rumors that your game is fixed. Investigate.

Mitchell B. Stevens

Veeck was thoroughly baffled. Why should there be any gambling interest in this totally insignificant ball game? Especially as far away as Detroit, strictly an American League city. The suggestion of a fix shook him up, doubly so when similar telegrams and phone calls followed. What did it all add up to? A gambler's plot to get him to change pitchers? Why? To reshift the odds? Or had they gotten to Hendrix, the scheduled pitcher? A hurried phone call to Detroit informed him that there
was
a tremendous amount of money getting down on the Phillies today: the odds had shifted from 2-1 on the Cubs to 6-5 on Philadelphia!

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Veeck was sufficiently alarmed to take precautions. The Cubs were battling for a spot in the first divisions, and every game mattered. He discussed it with his manager, Fred Mitchell. They decided to use their ace, Grover Cleveland Alexander, who had already won well over 20 games this season. As an added inducement, since Alex would be working ahead of his usual turn, Veeck offered him a $500

bonus if he won. He also requested that nothing be said to anyone.

Despite this, the Cubs lost, 3-0.

Veeck was worried. He had been through one serious incident with the Lee Magee affair earlier in the year. Another such incident now was going to hurt. The problem was how to take investigatory action without stirring up trouble. He had learned this procedure well by observing his fellow Chicagoan, Charles A. Comiskey.