Black Sox Scandal book "8 men out" gets taken to the cleaners

The link is to an Interesting article about the 1919 Black Sox scandal (quite long but well worth the time). I never read the book but saw the move "8 men out" many years back and probably assumed it was factual even though it was a Hollywood movie. Most interesting is that for a book that has been largely looked upon as non-fiction it is now revealed that two key figures in the book were made up and how much of the research was thru 2nd and 3rd hand sources (i.e. highly questionable). Kind of surprising given that the general population took the book as fact.

over 2 years ago CA Cub Fan 13 comments 0 recs |

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Good book.

I don’t read a lot, but this is one that I have read. It’s a shame if it’s true, Jackson deserves to be in the Hall.

I bleed blue... and red, but that's not my fault. I didn't get to choose that one.

by BabeRuthPose on Sep 9, 2009 8:59 PM CDT reply actions

That is a bombshell

So, much of what we thought we knew about the Black Sox scandal is falsely based on shoddy journalism and outright fabrication. That is absolutely mind boggling, and it sounds like Joe Jackson wasn’t the only one to be unfairly condemned for something he almost certainly didn’t do. I’ve long been in favor of putting him in the Hall of Fame, and his situation should be re-examined in light of these new revelations.

I also read awhile back that the Black Sox scandal was more the rule than the exception in those days when professional gamblers openly conducted their business in the front rows of ballparks and betting on baseball was a huge business. The only reason the owners decided to make an example of the Sox players is because they were under pressure to prove to Congress that the game was not tainted by the influence of gamblers. This was because Congress had done them a big favor by somewhat grudgingly granting baseball status as an essential industry during World War I, which prevented the suspension of the 1918 season and exempted major league players from the draft. There was some talk in Congress of taking away baseball’s anti-trust exemption if gambling could not be controlled, so the owners more or less sacrificed the eight 1919 Sox players in order to show they were doing something about the problem. In other words, it was all politics as usual.

by Mike Vails Evil Twin on Sep 10, 2009 10:57 AM CDT reply actions

Your history is way off

Baseball was not granted any special favors in WWI—please note that the World Series in 1918 was played in early September because the season shut down early. And there wasn’t going to be a 1919 season if the war didn’t end.

And baseball players were not exempted from the draft—The Cubs got Grover Cleveland Alexander because he was going to be drafted and the Phillies wanted to get something for him before he was gone. Christy Mathewson was gassed in France and never really recovered. Eddie Grant was killed in France. Some players were able to get out of the draft by playing on their fame to get jobs in shipyards and other industries considered “essential,” but baseball wasn’t one of them. (Nor was it in World War II, although President Roosevelt did ask that the sport continue for the sake of national morale. Wilson made no similar statement.)

On top of that, there is no way Congress could have threatened to take away baseball’s anti-trust exemption in World War One over gambling because baseball didn’t get anti-trust exemptions until the Supreme Court decision in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National Baseball Clubs in 1922, four years after the war ended. So there is no way that baseball “sacrificed” these eight players to make congress happy.

by Josh Timmers on Sep 10, 2009 12:42 PM CDT up reply actions

D'oh!

You’re right, Josh. My memory isn’t what it used to be, and I made the mistake of relying on it instead of looking up the pertinent info to refresh it. That’s how ugly rumors get started and I apologize. However, it is a fact that the owners tried everything they could think of to exempt ballplayers from the draft. And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the owners’ desire for an anti-trust exemption other favorable treatment from Congress the impetus for cleaning up the gambling?

by Mike Vails Evil Twin on Sep 10, 2009 1:20 PM CDT up reply actions

I don't think so

And I wrote a seminar paper in graduate school on baseball’s anti-trust exemption and labor relations, and I don’t recall anything about gambling in my research. I’m not saying it wasn’t there, I’m just saying I don’t recall it, so it must not have been a big issue. The really big issue was the Federal League and the way they got into a bidding war over salaries.

Baseball liked to claim that they could handle the gambling issue by themselves through the commissioner. If the players had challenged the commissioner’s authority on anti-trust laws, I’m sure they would have claimed that. But the immediate threat on the Baltimore decision was the creation of other leagues and the National Agreement between all baseball leagues to respect every other league’s contracts, including the reserve clause.

Remember, what the SCOTUS decided was that the clubs were independent of each other and thus, they didn’t engage in interstate commerce. If they didn’t have interstate commerce, then Congress had no right to regulate them. They never said that baseball wasn’t a business, as some have written.

That decision was questionable at the time and it was completely ridiculous by the time of the Flood decision. Yet they let it stand because, and forgive me that I’ve forgotten the Latin term, that if Congress had disagreed with the decision, they would have changed the law.

by Josh Timmers on Sep 10, 2009 3:28 PM CDT up reply actions

Boy that article was written by a lawyer

and not a historian.

There are a lot of errors in “Eight Men Out.” That has been established for quite some time. The stories about Comiskey’s skinflintness have been long discredited. And there were other things that have been proven false, as they note.

But in their zeal to acquit Jackson, they quote the parts of the Grand Jury testimony where Jackson said he played to win and didn’t make any intentional errors.

But they omit the fact that when asked point blank in the grand jury testimony, Jackson confessed.

Q. Did anybody pay you to throw the series in favor of Cincinnati? A. They did. Q. How much did they pay A. They promised $80,000, and paid only five.

You can get Jackson’s unedited grand jury testimony here. (Caution—it’s a pdf download and it’s a typed copy of someone’s shorthand.)

This is yet another work by the Jackson apologists.

by Josh Timmers on Sep 10, 2009 1:15 PM CDT reply actions