Black_Sox_Scandal

The Best Team that Money Could Buy Got Bought Americans’ morale for baseball— their favorite sport—plunged in 1920. America lost all the faith that they originally had in the game. While baseball boomed in the early 1900s, the World Series gained momentum and attracted great crowds of followers. It seems that baseball had finally reached its late teens and nothing was able to hinder its rapid growth. Support and fanfare skyrocketed until one of the most influential events in baseball occurred—the “Black Sox Scandal” for which money controlled game outcomes. This scandal turned the baseball world upside down and was alluded to in many pieces of great literature such as The Great Gatsby. Though baseball was developed from an amalgam of English games, it quickly became the archetype for American athletics. From games such as “stoolball” and croquet, Abner Doubleday (Everstine), along with other individuals, started to develop and formulate the concept and the rules for what we know today as “baseball”. Within 15 years of development, the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, emerged; more and more professional and semi-professional teams soon followed Cincinnati’s lead (Everstine). With unprecedented growth in the numbers of aficionados, baseball became a profitable business by the turn of the century. As a result, the originally played-in-a-park-sport evolved into the World Series, an annual contest between top two teams, which too, became one of the most anticipated events in America. Everything operated smoothly until a few Chicago White Sox players engaged in gambling affairs and purposely lost the Series. Clearly, when underpaid baseball players met large sums of money that flowed around on the gambling table, the idea of “fair play” would be lost among these players. The loss of 1919 Chicago White Sox, comprising mostly of the same players who won the World Series two years earlier, to the Cincinnati Reds, a young team composed of less experienced players, was not a result of luck disfavoring them nor an inadequacy in their skills. In fact, White Sox lost intentionally because of mutual distrust and distaste between players and the team’s stingy owner, Charles Comiskey. According to Bruce Lowitt from St. Petersburg Times, “they [Chicago White Sox] were among the American League’s best player but Charles Comiskey paid most of them no more than the worst” (Lowitt). Furthermore, prior to the 1919 season, Comiskey promised Eddie Cicotte, pitcher, an extra $10,000 reward if he won 30 games. Yet, when Cicotte won his 29th game, Cosmiskey benched him (Lowitt)—purposely stopping him from 30 wins. The players were furious at Comiskey. Evidently, Comiskey’s parsimony made his players more vulnerable to the lure of money. And because of Comiskey’s character, a few of his players decided to accept some extra cash that affluent gamblers were willing to forfeit in order to win big-time bets. On September 18th of 1919, Arnold “Chick” Gandil, first baseman for the Chicago White Sox, met with Joseph “Sport” Sullivan, a gambler, to convince him that the World Series that year could be bought (“Eight White Sox Players…”). Within two days, Gandil and his accomplice influenced Charles “Swede” Risberg, shortstop, Fred McMullin, infielder, and Eddie Cicotte, pitcher, George “Buck” Weaver, third baseman, Claude “Lefty” Williams, pitcher, Oscar “Happy” Felsch, center fielder, and “shoeless” Joe Jackson to involve in the fix (Garringer et al). Just two days after his involvement, Cicotte ran into Williams “Sleepy Bill” Burns, a retired baseball player-turned-gambler, who expressed his interest in the fix. Because of this, Burns and Bill Maghar, a retired professional featherweight boxer, approached Arnold Rothstein, an infamous gambler of the time, and Rothstein’s associate, Abe Attell to finance the fix. Having little to none respect for Burns, Rothstein declined the offer. Just three days after Rothstein turned down Burns, he accepted to provide money to Sullivan, for who had more of Rothstein’s respect. Once being involved, Rothstein sent $40,000 to Sullivan to distribute it to the players. However, Sullivan only gave $10,000 to Gandil and put the rest to gambling. Another $40,000 was placed in a safe at the Hotel Congress in Chicago to be paid out after the Series, too, supplied by Rothstein. Among $80,000 deal, $50,000 was available to pay the entire eight players, and rest $30,000 was used by Sullivan for gambling. On the players’ side, things were not proceeding as previously planned and promised. According to Cicotte’s confession in court, his demand for $10,000 paid in advance was only given to him because “I [Cicotte] stood pat” (“Eight White Sox Players…”) and that it was the result of “arguments [that] went on for days” (“Eight White Sox Players…”). Other players were much less fortunate. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, for example, was promised with $20,000 but only received $5,000. When he tried to fight for the other $15,000, Williams, Gandil, and Risberg said: “you poor simp, go ahead and squawk. Where do you get off if you do' We’ll all say you’re a liar…You’re out of luck” (“Eight White Sox Players…”). Additionally, the trio also told Jackson that: “Some of the boys were promised more than you, and got a lot less” (“Eight White Sox Players…”). Even worse, according to some other reports, Williams, the starting pitcher, and his wife were threatened with physical harm if Williams makes it past the first inning in the finals. The White Sox players “double-crossed” Cosmiskey but in the process of holding up the deal, they got “double-crossed” by the gamblers. As a result of the fix, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of baseball, suspended all the eight players involved. Of which included “shoeless” Joe Jackson. According statistics, Jackson might be innocent of the fix, due largely to the fact that he hit a 0.375 in the Series, 0.019 higher than his average (“Baseball’s 1919 World Series…”). Nonetheless, because of the rules, Jackson was suspended for life and expelled from the Hall of Fames. As Landis said: “regardless of the verdict of the juries, no player that throws a ball…will ever again play professional baseball” (Everstine). The players were “double-crossed” and banned from playing ball, but those gamblers, especially the “big fish” got loose. In court, nevertheless, there was not enough evidence to charge Arnold Rothstein, the financial supporter of the fix, with a crime. The tragic ending of Jackson’s baseball career is remarkably controversial; even today, baseball fans are debating over Jackson’s suspension. Raised in Greenville, South Carolina, a small agricultural town where men and women of all ages worked in cotton mills, Jackson received very little education. These denizens of Greenville all played baseball, which helped stimulate community spirit. At the age of thirteen, Jackson went into the fields to work alongside with his brother and father. It was there did he first learn baseball (“Shoeless Joe Jackson”). Very quickly, be became the best in the local community. By age sixteen, Jackson was the best player and became the local hero. He was a natural player who was able to hit homeruns and catch seemingly impossible high flies. His dream was to become the best player in the world and be recruited in the Hall of Fames for baseball. Every game he played pushed him closer to his goal—that was, of course, before the Black Sox Scandal occurred. The Black Sox Scandal turned Jackson’s life around. It was true that he was underpaid, like his fellow teammate, but he was unlike the other seven players that got banned from playing baseball for that Jackson was initially reluctant to conspire. Jackson first turned down a $10,000 bribe. When price doubled to $20,000 Jackson still stood his ground and declined. It was not until Gandil told Jackson that he could either “take it or leave it, that the fix was going forward with or without him” (“Joseph ‘Shoeless Joe’ Jackson…”). Having considered his circumstance, Jackson ultimately agreed. He did not know that such agreement ended his baseball career. In many aspects are the 1919 World Series related with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. First, we see direct allusion of the fix in the book. In the novel, a character named Meyer Wolfsheim was also said to have “fixed the World Series.” More importantly, Fitzgerald used the narrator of the book to express his attitude on this subject matter: “It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people – with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe” (Fitzgerald, 4.113). Fitzgerald employed the 1919 World Series in the book to reflect the idea that money could purchase anything and everything in the American society. This, then, portrays the theme that morals were lost when in the face of money. In another aspect, the fate of Gatsby was almost identical to that of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. At the end of the book, the narrator commented: “He [Gatsby] had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him,” (Fitzgerald, 9.180). For his whole life, Gatsby had been chasing to gain Daisy’s affinity. But for Gatsby, he didn’t know that his dream could only stay as dream: when it was about to be fulfilled, it disappears. To Jackson, it was the same. Jackson’s skills improved drastically through the period of his baseball career. He was on the way in being brandished in the Hall of Fame. But it just so happened to be then, his teammates talked him into the conspiracy. Gatsby’s story and Jackson’s reflected the concluding sentence of The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald, 9.180). This helplessness of desiring something but unable to attain it in reality was exemplified in both the book and the Scandal. It is now clear that the American Dream had became an inevitable nightmare that haunted all those who dared to dream. In conclusion, the “Black Sox Scandal” served as a cautionary bell that awakened many Americans who were numb to America’s over-materialistic culture. The scandal could not have possibly occurred at a worse time. Just a year after World War I, America suffered from a post-war depression; racial discrimination was still severe; and public cynicism was vulgar. Even Americans’ favorite pastime was controlled by money. Perhaps, the fix of the 1919 World Series does not only reflected the slow, inexorable, decay of the American Dream, but also remind everyone that no matter how the ambiance of society is like, sports shall always possess a spirit of mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity, and most importantly, fair play. Works Cited "Baseball’s 1919 World Series: The Black Sox Scandal." Baseball’s 1919 World Series: The Black Sox Scandal. NewsBank. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . "Black Sox Scandal." Wikipedia. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . "Eight White Sox Players Are Indicted on Charge of Fixing 1919 World Series; Cicotte Got $10,000 and Jackson $5,000." The New York Times. 29 Sept. 1920. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . Everstine, Eric W. "1919 World Series." 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Montgomery College, 2 Dec. 1999. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print. Garringer, Patti, and Traci Peterson. "The Black Sox Trial: A Chronology." UMKC School of Law. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . “Joseph ‘Shoeless Joe’ Jackson - Black Sox Scandal.” Web. 8 Jan. 2012 < http://sports.jrank.org/pages/2238/Jackson-Joseph-Shoeless-Joe-Black-Sox-Scandal.html> "Key Figures in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal." David Pietrusza. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . Lowitt, Bruce. "Black Sox Scandal: Chicago Throws 1919 World Series." St. Petersburg Times. 22 Dec. 1999. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . "Says 1919 World Series Was Fixed." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 23 Sept. 1920. Web. 1 Jan. 2012. . “Shoeless Joe Jackson.” Chicago Historical Society. 1999. Web. 8 Jan. 2012. .