Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (42 page)

Someone cornered Felsch and asked him if it was true that Jackson couldn't read or write. And Happy recalled a time when a fan came up to Joe as they were all going for a beer, and asked him to autograph a baseball. Joe took the ball and the kid's pen and said he'd meet Hap inside the tavern. Felsch claimed that he had four slow beers and that, when he came out, Jackson was still trying to write his name.

Then there were three loud knocks on the jury-room door, indicating that a verdict had been reached. It wasn't even ten o'clock! They hurried into the courtroom, which once again was jammed with several file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:47 AM

hundred spectators who had sweated through the hours just to be on hand for the finale.

But there would be another wait: Judge Friend had gone home to the Cooper Carlton Hotel. It would take a half hour or so for him to arrive.

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?"

"We have, your Honor."

The Judge nodded. The Court tensed. Chief Clerk Edward Meyers was handed a slip of paper from the jury foreman. He read slowly. "We the jury find the defendant Claude Williams not guilty…."

A roar went up in the courtroom; it was as if a pitcher had slipped a third strike passed Ty Cobb in the ninth inning. By the time the jury had read the complete list of acquittals, the courtroom was a bedlam of rousing cheers. The bailiffs kept pounding for order, until they saw Judge Friend smiling and waving at the ballplayers. Immediately, they abandoned any further efforts at austerity and joined in the jubilation.

Hats sailed into the air, papers were torn up and thrown as confetti. The room was a scene of wild confusion unheard of in a court of law.

Cicotte leaped across the room and grabbed the juror William Barrett, the foreman. He shouted his thanks above the din. Jackson and Williams were close behind, pounding the jurors' backs. The jurors themselves joined in the cheering, then lifted the ballplayers to their shoulders, parading them around the room before a battery of popping flash bulbs. The spectators joined them, slapping the jurors' backs in congratulations and approval.

Weaver and Risberg grabbed each other by the arms and danced around. Felsch and Williams could not stop laughing. When Cicotte was asked to make a statement, he laughed, replied, "All I want to do is get home to Detroit. Talk? You say, talk? Not here, buddy. I talked once in this building-never again!"

Never again.

Risberg came by to join Cicotte, and the two rushed out to send telegrams to their wives.

Buck Weaver was all smiles. "I knew I'd be cleared. And I'm glad the public stood by me until the trial was over." Felsch played it lightly: "I never had anything to do with any so-called conspiracy." Defense Attorney Henry Berger said, "The verdict is a complete vindication of the most mistreated ballplayers in history." Gandil shook hands with everybody and bellowed a magnificent farewell message to the court:

"I guess that'll learn Ban Johnson he can't frame an honest bunch of ballplayers!"

Only George Gorman and his staff were silent.

The ballplayers joined to celebrate their victory. They chose an Italian restaurant not far from the file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:47 AM

Criminal Courts Building, set up a huge dinner table in a private room, and began a night of eating and drinking. By some strange coincidence—or so it was reported—the twelve good men who had acquitted them were celebrating in like fashion in the adjoining room of that very same restaurant! The door between them was flung open and the party, now doubled, lasted through the balance of the night.

As the party broke up, the early morning newspapers were rolling off the Chicago presses. The front pages noted the official ending of the celebration. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis had issued a statement:

"…Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, 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 ands does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball!"

The Inquiring Reporter of the Chicago
Tribune
went out into the streets and interviewed seven random Chicagoans. Did they believe the eight ballplayers should be reinstated? Five of them said they did.

Meanwhile, a Southside petition was circulated, calling for the reinstatement of Buck Weaver. In one day, 14,000 fans signed it.

There were others who thought differently. The men in power were unanimous about it. The club owners feigned shock at the acquittal and trumpeted righteously: "These men must be barred from the national game at all hazards!" William "Kid" Gleason obediently shook his head: "If those boys are allowed to play organized ball again, then I am through with the game!" Ban Johnson pontificated: "The trial uncovered the greatest crime it was possible to commit in baseball. The fact that they were freed does not alter the conditions one iota or minimize the magnitude of the offense."

The respectable public press, meanwhile, heaped its righteous scorn on the workings of the law. The editor of Chicago's
Herald and Examiner
wrote: "…The law and the jury seem to say that the question in such a conspiracy is not what you do but what you can get away with…. This is a time of great issues, affecting profoundly the future of the country. A case like this might seem unimportant in comparison with disarmament, or world commerce, or the race problem, or prohibition. But at the bottom of every issue lies the national character…."

The New York
Times
was angry and sardonic: "The Chicago White Sox are once more whiter than snow. A jury has said that they are not guilty, so that settles that. The Court instructed the jury to determine whether the defendants intended to defraud the public and others and not merely to throw ball games. To the lay mind, this sounds very much like asking whether the defendant intended to murder his victim or merely to cut his head off!"

As for the Illinois State's Attorney's office: "The case is closed!" said Robert Crowe. "We will quash any file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:47 AM

remaining indictments." What he really meant was that there would be no further re-examination of the scandal by the Grand Jury, the matter of the stolen papers would be forgotten, and Arnold Rothstein would neither be summoned for questioning nor indicted, despite Ban Johnson's ringing accusation and George Gorman's pledge.

So, in the end, organized baseball won its battle. They had rescued the ballplayers from the clutches of the law, only to make victims of them on their own terms. Baseball, the club owners could boast, had cleaned its own house. "Regardless of the verdict of juries…"Judge Landis repeated for America to take note. It was a pronouncement that sent the status of the Commissioner of Baseball skyrocketing. Landis was hailed as a hero, a savior, a mighty power for the forces of honesty and clean sport. To Comiskey and the other owners, his effectiveness was not to be denied. If the public would respect the integrity of Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the dignity of his Commission, he was worth every penny of the $42,500

they were paying him.

So desperate had been their fears, it was even worth the risk of having created a potential threat to their own domination!

Baseball, then, was ready for a new era. If Landis was the image of its new purity, it was Babe Ruth who gave it excitement. In terms of dollars and cents—the measure of a magnate's mind—the great home-run slugger was worth a million.

"Say they made a great ball club and let it go at that.Say it all once, a score of long years after.Then, let it go at that…"

Nelson Algren

"Don't bring up Buck WeaverOr how he looked that last time you saw himBegging a reporter six months out of high schoolTo clear his name so he could play again,'I'll play for nothing, tell 'em. Just one season, tell 'em!' "

Nelson Algren

Early in December, five months after his acquittal, Buck Weaver walked into the offices of Commissioner Landis. "Sit down, sit down!" The Judge was warm and friendly. He offered Weaver a chew of his special cut of tobacco. Weaver smiled: at least they had that in common. It relieved his nervousness and relaxed him. This was going to be a crucial hour for him.

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To Buck Weaver, there was only one reality: he had played eight games in the 1919 World Series to the best of his great ability. He had not taken one dime of dirty money. He had stood trial and was acquitted of any crime. He was thirty-one years old and reputed to be the best third baseman in the game.

He was, above all, ready to play ball.

He proceeded to tell Landis how he'd been approached by Gandil back in 1919, how he was offered $10,000 to get in the fix. He'd just opened a drugstore with his brother and he needed cash, but he couldn't go through with a thing like that. Landis listened, told him that since he had knowledge of the fix, he should have done something to stop it. Weaver cringed. Talk? He couldn't have talked. It was not in him to talk. He'd thought about doing it, to protect himself, but those men were his friends. Besides, he explained, he never really knew which of them got any money from it. He never really knew if they actually went through with it. Nobody ever said anything. He hadn't known enough to talk, even if he'd wanted to!

Landis nodded with apparent sympathy, but would not give him an answer. He would review the case and write Weaver a letter with his decision.

There was no letter. Just a blunt statement to the press:

"Birds of a feather flock together. Men associating with gamblers and crooks could expect no leniency."

This was Landis's reply. Weaver choked on it and bided his time.

Like Jackson, Weaver had signed a three-year contract in 1920, calling for $7,500 a year. Having received no money in 1921, he sued for the balance of his contract. The case dragged on for four years, until in Federal Court, it was dismissed when it came to trial: Weaver's lawyers had failed to appear. To add substance to the defeat, he was ordered to pay court costs. Nevertheless, he continued to pursue the matter relentlessly. And finally, in 1924, he forced Comiskey into a settlement out of court. To Buck, it was more than the few thousand dollars he so sorely needed: it was a statement of Comiskey's admission of guilt.

Again, Weaver appealed for reinstatement. Landis's reply this time was another frustrating distortion of reality: "…On the trial of this case, Burns gave a detailed account of his meeting with the indicted men and arranging with them for the throwing of the World Series games. Weaver was present in the Court during the testimony of this witness who most specifically stated that Weaver was present at the conference, and yet the case went to the jury without any denial from Weaver from the witness stand….

If the incriminating evidence was false, the public had a right to Weaver's denial under oath."

The Commissioner made argument impossible. How could Weaver have denied anything if he was denied the right to take the stand? How could he have testified if the best defense for the group was a united silence? Did he not ask for a separate trial? Was it not denied him? Was he not told by Judge file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:47 AM

Friend himself that on the basis of the evidence presented there was no chance for his conviction? Must he be punished for all that, too?

Weaver spent the years running his drugstore. He could be found there jerking sodas or passing out cosmetics over the counter. He also spent a lot of time at the race track, playing the horses. By 1927, he realized that his desire to play ball could no longer be repressed. He announced he would play semipro ball with a local club. More than three hundred local owners, managers, and players voted unanimously to let him play. It was the first opportunity for Southside fans to see him in action after seven years.

They turned out in the numbers. It was a moment of joy for Weaver—but it was not enough, nor was it the real thing. He lived constantly with a sense of his guilty status in the eyes of others, the stigma of banishment that marked him lousy. He avoided social events where prominent sporting people gathered because he did not wish to be the subject of either their sympathy or their contempt. He would pass his time with a group of friends playing pinochle in the back room of a saloon. He never drank or caroused.

His wife was devoted to him and he to her. They had no children of their own, but raised two children of relatives.

As time passed, Weaver grew too old to play. Ray Schalk, another Southsider whom he saw around town over the years, became manager of the Sox. Red Faber, also of Weaver's neighborhood, ran a tavern and bowling alley outside of Chicago. Faber was the last of the 1919 aggregation, and retired in 1933. Weaver worked at the parimutuel windows of the race track. Later, he organized and managed a girl's softball team. But he wanted to get back into organized ball. He could coach rookies, as Gleason had done. He could coach at some college, as Schalk would do at Purdue University. If only Landis would reinstate him, he would again feel like an honorable man.

He appealed repeatedly, maybe a half-dozen times, always with the same result. When Landis was replaced by Happy Chandler in 1946, Weaver appealed to Chandler. He went to visit Judge Hugo Friend, who was convinced of his innocence. The Judge was sympathetic and wrote the Commissioner of his knowledge and opinion, reviewing the 1921 trial, recommending a special leniency in Weaver's case. But Chandler and his successor, Ford Frick, turned it down.

Thirty-five years passed and they were all the same. When James T. Farrell met Weaver he found, "…a thin, pale, gray man in his sixties. He dressed on the sporty side, and there were small red blotches on his face. He smiled easily and readily." The single, dominating thought on his mind was still to clear his name. More than anything else, he wanted that. He wanted to bring that to his now-ailing wife whom he took care of, and to his cronies with whom he played pinochle….