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5.0étoiles sur 5
The "Black Sox" Scandal Explained, Oct. 15 2003
This book tells the history of the 1919 World Series. Most prior accounts have been fragmentary. No one person knew all the factors; many of the participants never met each other or knew of their existence. Asinof wove together a multitude of threads from the newspapers of that time ('Preface'). Official documents had disappeared, and most participants died before talking. Survivors refused to talk, the gambling gangster world was still around. Sources chose to remain anonymous. Many of the incidents in this book represent a composite of sources. The Introduction says this scandal was not an isolated incident in an otherwise unblemished history of baseball. Comiskey cruelly exploited his peons (like others), but this did not excuse this betrayal of the fans. The April 1919 Federal court decision found Professional Baseball violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; this must have impressed the players that year. A later Supreme Court decision overturned this (I wonder what was paid for it?). Perhaps the real scandal of 1919 was that it revealed baseball was a business, not a sport.Baseball and betting were allied from the beginning, just like other sports (horse racing). Bribery and other tricks were used to fix the results (as in the 1876 pennant series). Baseball was the biggest entertainment business in 1917. When race tracks were shut down during wartime, gamblers and bookies switched to baseball. Gamblers would befriend baseball players with women and whiskey; they could control ball games as readily as horse races. Stories were hushed up for the good of the game. Bribing ball players was known, players had done this to win the pennant in 1917. The heavy betting on Cincinnati lowered the odds. Rumors spread about the fix. One set of gamblers wanted Chicago to lose, but another set wanted Cincinnati to lose (p.47)! There was a thin line separating effective play from a near miss that helped the other side (p.66). When the gamblers failed to make their payoff after the second game, the White Sox went on to win. (The gamblers had them coming and going.) The gamblers said the series must be ended in the 8th game (p.113). Some people suspected something bad had happened. A pile-up of civil cases followed: all the defendants lost money betting on the White Sox. Accepting bribes now left the players open to blackmail and extortion (p.145). 1920 was a bigger year for gate receipts. The American League President sought to use this scandal against Comiskey. There was hatred among the White Sox players (p.166). Pages 170-1 tell why you should never act without benefit of counsel when questioned by the authorities (p.177). Different newspapers reported Jackson't confession in different ways (p.189). "The Front Page"? The players would not have betrayed Comiskey unless there was a cause for bitterness. The great national pastime must reflect the society it lived in, the worship of "easy money". The Black Sox scandal wounded American pride and self-esteem, the image of nobility and humanity (p.197). While corruption was rampant in state and national legislatures, and show business, could baseball not be corrupt? Yet it foretold the 1920s, a decade of unprecedented crime, corruption, and immorality (p.198). Did America expect higher morals from ball players than from businessmen, or anyone else (p.243)? The ball players were charged with a conspiracy to defraud the public; but they only threw some ball games. The jury found them all not guilty; this kept Professional Baseball clean. The next day the new Baseball Commissioner announced that they would be banned for life (p.273). After you read this book you'll know why popular histories of baseball usually begin around 1921; the preceding 50 years is rarely mentioned.
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de Roger Kahn
de Lee Lowenfish
de Larry Tye
