$Things I learned$

I learned many new things from Austin, max's, and Troys blog. I learned from austin and max that Jim Thorpe was a fantastic athlete and one of the most well known football players ever and for sure during that time. Then I learned from Troy about how life was traveling around just by subway. I learned alot from all these ppl!!!!!

Black Sox Scandal

In the year 1919 there were many changes being made in baseball and it was a very unpredictable game. During the height of all these problems there was a huge scandal with the baseball organization of the Chicago White Sox. They were by far the most skilled and had the most highly paid players in the game. They were the favorite team to win the World Series that year too. The first world series in 1903 was staged and in the years after WWI the World Series was the most anticipated event in all of America. The World Series in 1919 was expected to be the most crowded sports event of the time and generate 50% more revenue than any World Series in the time. So in that case there was already a lot of money being thrown around and if someone happened to know the outcome they could make a large amount of money to say the least.

Chicago White Sox 1919

The Scandal began before the 1919 World Series, but there was no single mastermind in the Black Sox Scandal. Two of the men stand out above the rest though William Thomas "Sleepy Bill" Burns and Billy Maharg. Burns was an ex-major league pitcher and was the connection to the players. Maharg was the gambler with the connections underground. The Scandal began with these two men approaching Pitcher Ed Cicotte and First Baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil about fixing the 1919 World Series. They both knew it would take more than just the two of them so they added six more players in on the fix which were Pitcher Lefty Williams, Centerfielder Happy Felsch, Shortstop Swede Risberg, Thirdbaseman Buck Weaver, Utilityman Fred McMullin, and one of the best and most popular stars ever, Leftfielder"Shoeless" Joe Jackson. They realized they need more cash to pay off all eight players so they went to a few other gamblers to get a few loans and in the end  the gamblers bet nearly half a million dollars on the Reds, while agreeing to pay the players $100,000 to split.

It starts with just two players

The Scandal came at a terrible time though during the depression after WWI, but it seemed very profitable because the White Sox players were very easy to convince because they were among the American League's best players but Charles Comiskey paid most of them no more than the worst players, The promised bonus for winning the 1917 pennant was just a case of cheap champagne. Before the 1919 season, Comiskey promised Cicotte an extra $10,000 if he won 30 games. When he won his 29^th game of the season he was benched just because Comiskey didn’t want to pay him the money, and all this did was anger Cicotte even more with the organization.

Resentment


Finally Game 1 of the fixed 1919 World Series began, but going into the game the players were unsure because the gamblers they were working with were very hard to trust and all the players were promised $10,000 dollars each game and only received partial and sometime none of the money after each game. Cicotte did as promised and lost game 1 with a score of 9-1 even though he didn’t receive his promised money after the game. Williams lost game 2 with a score of 4-2 and the gamblers told the men that the reason they weren’t being payed is because it was all out on bets. After this incident the players felt betrayed and began thinking about playing to win. They won the third game 3-0 when rookie pitcher Dickie Kerr pitched a 3 hitter. The White Sox lost game 4 and 5, but the $20,000 they were promised never appeared and all the players decided they had been lied to enough and played game 6 and 7 to win. The pitcher of game 8 was threatened by some “thugs” that if he didn’t lose game 8 something might happen to him or his family and the Reds took game 8 with a score of 10-5 and the White Sox lost the World Series.

Money didn't come through

The aftermath of the Scandal was pretty severe. The accusations caused the public to question the integrity of the game of baseball and all the players and owners involved in the game. Cicotte and Jackson admitted their roles to the grand jury. Gandil, the ringleader, admitted nothing. All eight players and several gamblers were indicted for conspiracy to defraud the public. All of them were acquitted due to lack of evidence and Jackson’s confession was ignored. The next day however Landis banned all eight from organized baseball for life. As for one teary-eyed boy looking up atJackson and pleading, "Say it ain't so, Joe," well, it ain't so. This is one of the most famous quotes from anyone involved in the Black Sox Scandal, because Joe Jackson was the best and most respected baseball player during this time. Even though the players got blamed for all of this Scandal I think they were forced to stay in after they realized they were being taken advantage of, but there was no way out once they accepted the deal, even though they were never payed anything close to what they were promised and the professional baseball careers were ruined.

l8 great players lost the game of baseball

Black Sox Scandal

so far i am finished with my research and i have all of my websites. All I need to do is organize my information and post it onto my blog.

Black Sox Scandal

So far I've been doing my research on the Chicago Black Sox scandal which happened in 1919 and it was when the world Series was "fixed". The players on the White Sox threw the series on purpose, so that they could help gamblers make a lot of money off them and these gamblers would pay them more money after the series was over.