Black Sox Scandal and Who

¶ … Black Sox scandal and who is guilty?

"Say it ain't so Joe." Scandals about steroids and other dubious practices in professional sports have become common in the modern era. However, it is easy to forget that the ideal of the 'clean' American ballplayer has been shattered many times, ever since the apocryphal little boy begged his idol, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, to say that it wasn't so that the Chicago White Sox had accepted a bribe from the Mafia to throw the 1919 World Series. The Black Sox scandal tarnished the image of the sport for years as well as the legacy of what was considered to be the greatest team in baseball at the time.

While it is easy to see parallels between the scandal and today's steroid controversy, there is one critical difference: the status of players during the early days of professional baseball. While baseball players today are paid millions and routinely chase high salaries from team to team, "at that time, players were bound to their teams with the reserve clause, binding a player in perpetuity with a team at the owner's control. This lack of free agency produced a problem for many of the White Sox. Despite having the most talented team in baseball, owner Charles Comiskey paid his players sub-standard wages compared to any other winning team" ("Black Sox Scandal," Eastland Memorial Society, 2000). Although the Sox became known as the 'Black Sox' because of the 1919 scandal, there was another reason for the nickname: Comiskey forced his players to pay for the laundering of their own uniforms, and they refused to wash them for weeks, in protest.

This friction between the talented and hard-working team and its callous management helps explain why eight of the team's baseball players would risk their reputations -- as credible players as well as honest men -- and throw the World Series. "In 1919, the owners cut salaries across the league after World War I had reduced baseball attendance in 1918. Even while extending the 1919 season, the owners feared the same. But attendance went up while salaries remained the same" ("Black Sox Scandal," Eastland Memorial Society, 2000). However, the most egregious example of unfairness was when Comiskey told the widely-respected pitcher Eddie Cicotte that he would get $10,000 if he won thirty games, a supposedly impossible task. When Cicotte won twenty-nine games, Comiskey benched him. As the owner was clearly putting his own financial interest above the good of the team as well as his players, Cicotte cracked and agreed to throw the series for $10,000 in cash.

Class friction and personality conflicts on the team contributed to the scandal. The White Sox star, Columbia-educated Eddie Collins had demanded a $14,500 salary when he was bought from the Athletics in 1915. This was considerably more than most of the other players were making. Many members of the team had no education at all, and were far less 'clean-cut' in their lifestyle than Collins. Because of his hatred for Collins, Arnold 'Chick' Gandil was instrumental in making sure Ciotte, Jackson, and the other players that eventually agreed to throw the series 'kept' their part of the bargain.