Here's my paper. I got a 195/200 on it.
Black Sox, Greedy Gangsters, and an Ambushed America
Throughout history, there have been some basic attributes indigenous to all cultures. These include the instinct to survive, propagation of the species, securing of nourishment, and competitive spirit. The inception of man’s competitive spirit was the Olympics, a series of physical competitions between athletes in the same nation and different nations. Some cultural feelings derived from successful competition were superiority, feeling of well being, team spirit, and self worth. It was only natural that this spirit of competition would be inherited by the United States, not only in the form of participation in the Olympics, but also in the formation of professional sport leagues, such as baseball. The affects of professional sports on culture are felt not only by the spectators’ sense of camaraderie and team spirit, or by the athletes’ sense of accomplishment, but also by youth culture. Done in a moral, honest, and ethical way, pro sports can have a great positive affect on the youths of a society. Conversely, great damage is done by scandals such as the Black Sox incident. Childhood heroes undergo metamorphosis into criminals. The message is sent that the criminal way is the way to success, rather than hard work and honesty. In this instance, the players that participated in the scandal disregarded moral integrity. People are emotional and make rash decisions based on feelings of oppression and anger, without foreseeing any possible consequences. Such was the case for the 1919 Chicago Black Sox. Frustration among a divided ball club, desperation to increase wealth, oppression from a miserly owner, and naivety towards organized crime led the Black Sox players to their involvement with gangsters to throw the 1919 World Series.
Lefty Williams is the starting pitcher for the Chicago White Sox in game eight of the 1919 World Series. The Reds need only one more win to clinch the title. The count is one ball and one strike in the first inning, with the Reds’ Pat Duncan at the plate. Edd Roush is on second base, with Heinie Groh on third. Williams winds up and launches a fastball right over the plate. Smack! Duncan lines the ball past Chicago’s outfielders, while Roush and Groh score easily, giving the Reds a three to nothing lead. White Sox manager Kid Gleason removes Williams after only fifteen pitches. Winning by a score of ten to five, the Reds win the 1919 World Series. It appeared to all that the game and, consequently, the Series was decided in that first inning. Unbeknownst to all, the series’ outcome was decided much earlier than that.
Just as World War I ended with a victory for the United States, the country was pulled back into its prevalent domestic struggles and emotional upheaval. In the years following the war, mass unemployment, labor strikes, and inflation rocked the U.S. economy (Nathan 13). Race riots occurred in a country that grew uneasy regarding race relations, the increasing audacity of women, and urban and population growth (14). A Red Scare swept across the nation as the Bolsheviks increased their power in Russia. It seemed that the country was coming apart at its seams (145). The seams of a baseball, no pun intended, gave cohesiveness to the United States. More than ever, baseball brought all people from various backgrounds and ethnicities together. Teaching traditional American values such as hard work, teamwork, courage, and honesty, baseball became America’s pastime (15). The nation was shocked, therefore, when the Black Sox scandal proved to be the antithesis of such values.
In 1913, the Chicago White Sox were a few building blocks away from being a contender. Losing happened far too often, and their owner, Charles Comiskey, vowed to ascend the team to prominence. The Old Roman, Comiskey went on a binge of signing high-caliber players, such as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Carney 19). By acquiring promising minor league players in Lefty Williams and Swede Risberg, the team appeared to be set for greatness. Four years later, the White Sox, vastly improved, defeated the Giants to win the 1917 World Series (1919 Black Sox). However, Comiskey decided to build upon a new cornerstone. That cornerstone would be manager Kid Gleason, who, in his rookie year of coaching in 1919, led the team to the American League Pennant.
Good team chemistry amongst the players and coaches is often what separates the winners and losers. Keeping this in mind, the White Sox would have been immeasurably more successful if only the players would have found a way to get along (Carney 77). Starting in 1917, the team slowly divided into two rival factions. One group consisted of the more educated players who received elevated pay. Led by Eddie Collins, the group was made up of pitcher Dickie Kerr, and catcher Ray Shalk, among others (1919 Black Sox). The lower educated and more poorly paid players, such as Chick Gandil, Lefty Williams, Joe Jackson, and Eddie Cicotte, rounded out the second faction (1919 Black Sox). The latter group had a legitimate complaint- they were elite ballplayers that were paid as poorly as the worst (Asinof 15).
Money was the primary motivator for the eight ballplayers who agreed to fix the series. That being said, the cause of such motivations was Charles Albert Comiskey. As the owner of Chicago’s Comiskey Park, named after himself, Comiskey saw huge profits. He charged one of the lowest ticket prices, leading to one of the highest attendances in the majors (18). However, he did not see fit to share his wealth with his players. Chick Gandil, who won twenty-eight games for the Sox, was paid less than four thousand dollars (1919 Black Sox). Joe Jackson, considered one of the best hitters of the time, was paid under six thousand (1919 Black Sox). Happy Felsch received four thousand, while Lefty Williams and Swede Risberg each received less than three thousand dollars in salary (Asinof 20). As a comparison, the Reds’ leading hitter, Edd Roush, was paid ten thousand dollars and hit fifty percentage points lower than Jackson (1919 Black Sox). Nowhere in the league were there players of such a high caliber that received such petty pay.
Adding to the fire inside the locker room, team captain Eddie Collins, graduate of Columbia University, earned more than fourteen thousand dollars, more than twice the salary of any other member of the team (Carney 24). The ongoing rivalry became so heated that some players utterly refused to talk to Collins (25). Manager Gleason served as a liaison as the enmity intensified to the point where the two sides had minuscule cooperation and communication with each other. The White Sox were a club full of bitterness and tension (Asinof 6). Collins summed up the team’s success despite its separation best when he stated, “I thought you couldn’t win without teamwork, until I joined the White Sox. Yet somehow we won one hundred games and the pennant” (1919 Black Sox). The competing factions did agree on one subject- their hatred of their miserly owner, Charles Comiskey.
Baseball players, like everyone else, had to pay mortgages, among other cost of living expenses. That is why, in 1918, the Black Sox threatened to strike unless Comiskey agreed to increase their salaries (Asinof 16). Comiskey refused to even discuss salaries and coerced the players out of striking. Force was the norm for Comiskey in that period because free agency in baseball was not yet established. That meant that the owner of a team had the right to a player, and thereby, the renewal of his contract. If an owner refused to re-sign a player, that player could not play for any other team in the majors. Basically, players were property of the owner- subjects to a tyrant, in the White Sox case.
In most cases, to express dissatisfaction, the players would complain to the press, which in turn would cause Comiskey to change his policies. However, the shrewd Comiskey was aware of that fact. For the newspaper reporters whose job was to cover the White Sox, there was a special press box in Comiskey Park with a huge buffet of roasts, wine, and a special chef, ready and waiting to serve them (Nathan 97). Reporters felt as if they were working for Comiskey (97). In return, Comiskey had final approval over what went to press. Regarding any salary issues or complaints, nothing was ever reported. To the fan, the White Sox were a tight knit bunch.
The madness of Comiskey did not cease there. Whereas ball players on all other teams received four dollars for meals while on the road, Comiskey only allowed his players to have three dollars (Asinof 21). Second-rate ball clubs that hardly yielded a profit did not even cut corners as much as Comiskey did (21). On one occasion, Comiskey promised Eddie Cicotte a ten thousand dollar bonus should he win at least thirty games. When Cicotte was close to reaching that goal, Comiskey benched him (22). Also, the team was promised a pay bonus if the White Sox won the pennant in 1917. Not only did they do that, they won the World Series. Their bonus? A bottle of champagne (23). Comiskey even went so far as to cut back on the team’s laundry bill; therefore the White Sox uniforms became dirty. Thus, the name “The Chicago Black Sox” was born.
The aforementioned factors of oppression from Comiskey, a staggering neediness for higher pay, and a divided team all drove the Black Sox players to agree to fix the World Series. The idea originated from Chick Gandil, who met with longtime friend and big-time gambler Joseph “Sport” Sullivan. Gandil met up with Sullivan at Boston’s Hotel Buckminster (Pietrusza 150). They discussed the possibility of the heavily favored White Sox intentionally losing the series, giving the gamblers enormous returns for their bets on the Reds (148). The main issue was Sullivan raising enough money so that the players would agree, and for Gandil to get more players to concur, so they decided to talk again.
Gandil, knowing that a fix was not possible without getting a pitcher involved, attempted to talk star pitcher Eddie Cicotte into participating (Asinof 34). Claude “Lefty” Williams, another pitcher, agreed once he found out that Cicotte reluctantly approved. The best hitters on the team, Buck Weaver, Happy Felsch, and Joe Jackson, all accepted the idea of a fix, and agreed that their asking price would be eighty thousand dollars (Katcher 140). It should be noted that fixing games in professional baseball was very common in that time period, thus, the players never thought about any legal punishment (Carney 76).
One night, Eddie Cicotte ran into Bill Burns, a former player. Baseball talk ensued, with Burns mentioning a fix, as there were always rumors every year. Cicotte surprisingly revealed some details, enough for Burns to want to become involved. Burns contacted Billy Maharg, a former fighter, and together the two attempted to raise the money the players requested. Only one man had a large enough bankroll and political protection- the “Big Bankroll” himself, Arnold Rothstein (Katcher 141).
Rothstein, a shrewd, money-loving, self-made Jewish mobster and big-shot gambler, had more than enough funding for the fix to occur (Pietrusza 151). However, he denied Maharg’s request, thinking there were too many people involved. At this point, there were two groups vying to complete the fix. Then, Sport Sullivan requested a sit-down with Rothstein. Arnold Rothstein accepted and heard Sullivan’s plan. Rothstein liked the idea of working with Sullivan more than Maharg and Burns, for Sullivan was a pro gambler. Ironically, now Rothstein reveled in the fact so many people were involved, saying, “If nine guys go to bed with a girl, she’ll have a tough time proving the tenth is the father!” (Asinof 30). Rothstein sent his associate, Nat Evans, under the alias “Brown,” to Chicago to meet with the players (31). Sullivan, “Brown,” and the players agreed on a fix, with the players set to receive twenty thousand dollars after each loss, for a total of one hundred thousand dollars (1919 Black Sox).
In the next coming days, Rothstein placed over two hundred and seventy thousand dollars in bets on the Cincinnati Reds (Pietrusza 160). A splurge of bets on the Reds caused the odds to shift rather quickly from five to one for Chicago to eight to five for Cincinnati (1919 Black Sox). Sport Sullivan, who was to deposit forty thousand dollars in a safe at a Chicago hotel to store for the players, ended up betting thirty thousand and later had to face the players with only ten thousand (Pietrusza 155). Already, the players were getting short-sided, with much more underhandedness to come.
Wednesday, October 1st was the date of game one of the 1919 World Series. Thousands packed Cincinnati’s Redland Field to see the action. Eddie Cicotte, to signal the gangsters the fix was on, hit the Red’s leadoff batter, Morrie Rath, in the back (Carney 20). The Reds went on to win, nine to five (1919 Black Sox). Before the game, Joe Jackson, already penitent, asked Comiskey to be benched for the series. Comiskey quickly denied his request (Carney 66).
Cincinnati also won game two, with the White Sox conspirators having not received any of their promised money (1919 Black Sox). The players then confronted the gamblers, but were told the money would arrive soon. In game three, Dickie Kerr pitched for Chicago. Unbeknownst to the scheme, Kerr dominated the Reds, as the White Sox won, three to nothing (1919 Black Sox). Before the start of game four, Gandil demanded twenty thousand from Sullivan. Threatening to end the fix, Gandil finally walked away with his request (Asinof 101). Cicotte pitched again in that game, with the White Sox losing, this time, two to nothing (1919 Black Sox). Lefty Williams made his second start of the series in game five, as Chicago lost once again, five to nothing (1919 Black Sox). The White Sox were down four games to one at this point. Being a best out of nine series, the Reds needed only one more win.
Proceeding game five, Sullivan did not give the players another twenty thousand. Naively, the eight conspirators called off the fix, thinking the gangsters would not mind (Pietrusza 166). Playing now to win, the White Sox won games six and seven by scores of five to four and four to one, respectively (1919 Black Sox). Now, the gamblers were worried. With the White Sox now having the momentum and large bets at stake, Arnold Rothstein demanded the White Sox lose in game eight (Pietrusza 167). He contacted the Chicago mob to make Chicago’s game eight starter, Lefty Williams, an offer he could not refuse.
At around seven the night before game eight, Lefty Williams and his wife were returning home from dinner. As they were leaving the restaurant, a member of the Chicago mob pulled Williams aside. Williams was confidently assured that he will lose game eight, or that he or his wife would be in danger (168). To make matters worse, the mobster demanded Williams lose the game before the end of the first inning (168). Fearing for his family’s safety, Williams complied.
The following day, the White Sox lost the 1919 World Series and received forty thousand dollars to divide amongst the eight conspirators. Cheated out of most of the money, the White Sox immediately knew they made a terrible decision to participate in the fix. Their decision impacted the game of baseball much more than they could have ever known. It not only affected the White Sox organization, the fix affected the fans’ view of baseball as a whole and how honestly it was played. Right after World War I, America needed heroes, not zeros, to bolster the country’s morale and pride. The eight Black Sox players broke the hearts of millions, as America’s pastime was proven to be dirty and corrupt. Baseball had become big business, a money game, just what corporate America became as well. To quote Steven Riess, “if baseball was no good, what hope was there for the rest of our culture and society?” (Nathan 145).
In summary, the eight Black Sox players that conspired to lose the 1919 World Series fell victims of their own society. Oppression from their miser of an owner, Charles Comiskey, frustration from their divided team, and naivety towards gangsters were the primary motivators in their desperate attempt at bolstering their meager incomes. However, in doing so, the Black Sox disappointed an America that greatly needed a distraction from its domestic problems. In the minds of many Americans, baseball just struck out.
Excellent paper! Great job! 
