Baseball’s ‘Black Sox’ scandal a century ago reminds us how much our expectations have changed

Major League Baseball loves to celebrate its history. The league and individual teams have had celebrations to mark the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first appearance as a Brooklyn Dodger,(1947), the anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s heartbreaking farewell to the Yankee players and fans as he was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (1939) and the anniversary of the once-hapless New York Mets’ world championship season (1969).

But there will be no celebration this October of the 100th anniversary of one of the most remarkable events in the history of the game: the 1919 World Series, which eight members of the Chicago White Sox, immortalized as the “Black Sox,” fixed in exchange for gamblers’ cash. The fix — poor pitching, anemic hitting, lapsed defense — allowed the underdog Cincinnati Redlegs to defeat the heavily favored Sox and become world champions.

The eight were investigated, dragged before a grand jury, tried in a Chicago courtroom (for defrauding the owner of of the Chicago club, Charles Comiskey) but never convicted of any offense. Yet baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis saw enough evidence to ban them from American professional baseball. Landis’ intervention, lacking even a whiff of due process, apparently satisfied the public’s desire for justice.

The players changed their accounts of what happened many times over many years. In one version, they never took a dime. In another, they met with gamblers but the fix never went through. In a third, they played hard, just didn’t play well enough to win. In a fourth, some of the players took money, others did not — and perhaps several of the players who took money double-crossed the gamblers and played straight up. The longest-living member of the Black Sox, shortstop Swede Risberg, stopped talking about the Series long before he died on his 81st birthday in 1975. He made no deathbed confession — or denial.

We know star pitcher Eddie Cicotte told a grand jury he received a payment of $10,000 cash and that outfielder Joe Jackson said he accepted $5,000.

How much did gamblers' pay the eight Sox collectively? Perhaps $100,000, historians estimate, although there is no agreement on how much each player received.

Could the 2019 World Series be fixed?

We live in a very different United States than the players and gamblers of 1919. Sporting events were commonly fixed in 1919 and before. Baseball games had been fixed for decades. In Boston, gamblers swarmed the stands. Fans not only bet on the outcome of games but whether a pitch would be a ball or a strike. Horse racing was notorious for its fixes. And worst of all was prize fighting. Fights were arranged in all weight classes across the country, including in Alaska.

But fixing wasn’t confined to sports. Elections were fixed. Government land sales were fixed. Congressional bills were fixed. Business deals were fixed. Arrangements between countries were fixed. Con men roamed the country, shucking the rubes with can’t-miss “deals.” No wonder Americans of 1919, offered a chance to make a buck, responded, “Is this on the level?”

There is no “corruption index” by which to compare 1919 with 2019, but I believe there was significantly more public corruption 100 years ago than today. We are an imperfectly regulated society now, but we don’t leave “on the level” strictly to the marketplace.

Baseball has changed too. The players are bigger, faster, better educated and of all races from all over the world. Spanish is as common in the clubhouse as English. Many players have business interests outside the game.

Nevertheless, Major League Baseball is wary of the perils of gambling, and players are warned never to bet on games and of the consequences they will face if they do and are apprehended.

The Black Sox authored a conspiracy and the conspiracy failed, became public. How could you keep a conspiracy to throw the Series under under wraps today? The conspirators would have to plot without leaving a track — no paper, no email, no phone records, no bank statements, and no hint of playing poorly intentionally. Major League Baseball is a difficult game to play. How would you play poorly on purpose under instant replay while masking your purpose? Chicago pitcher Eddie Cicotte, before instant replay, was suspect of throwing Game One of the 1919 series by the end of the first inning.

Finally, the major league minimum salary changes from year to year but is now more than $500,000 per year. Most players are paid far more, and great stars receive north of $25 million. How much would gamblers have to pay modern players to throw the Series? From a gambler’s perspective, the World Series would not be a prudent investment. Too many players involved, too much scrutiny, too much money at risk. The gamblers of 1919 believed they had a sure thing. The gamblers of 2019 are not historians, but they are acutely aware that fixing the Series is the longest of long shots.

Michael Carey is an Anchorage Daily News columnist. He can be reached at mcarey@adn.com.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.