Notes #415 — All I Know Is What I read

                             NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
                                           Observations from Outside the Lines
                                     By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
 

#415                                                                                                         SEPTEMBER 18, 2007
                                               “ALL I KNOW IS WHAT I READ …
 

            … in the newspapers.” That phrase became a byword in the 1920s, thanks to Will Rogers, who ended up in the newspapers himself. I think Rogers realized that not everything that made it into the papers was accurate, and that much was kept out of the papers, by those who controlled or paid the editors. Today, I think Will Rogers would have to agree that the newspapers have yielded to television, the internet, magazines and film, and today he might say, “All I know is what I learn from the Media.”
 

            “The media” is a handy, but in some ways a meaningless phrase. One problem is, you can learn just about anything you want from the media. Want to believe in global warming? You can find tons of ammunition. Want to debunk global warming? You can load your guns for that fight, too. It is as if there is some law operating, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction . You name it — Barry Bonds, George Bush, Obama, Osama; not just individuals and causes, but every country has its fans and its bashers. We need as many Will Rogers — wise men — as we can find, to help us sort it out.
 

            That said, I now devote another issue of NOTES to a variety of stuff that — I read in the newspapers. Like last issue, it is mostly B-Sox related, and in mostly chronological order, with my own comments inserted here and there. Thanks again to those who contributed to my collection.
 

            For those of you with your own collection, here is how I sort out my stuff, and I’m thinking that this may correspond to the file folders at the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, where my stuff will eventually rest:
 

            1. The 1919 World Series.
            2. The 1920 Grand Jury.
            3. The 1921 “B-Sox” Trial.
            4. The 1924 Milwaukee Trial (Jackson vs White Sox).
            5. “After the Fall” — Material on B-Sox post-1921.
            6. Gambling & Baseball (includes 1917 case, “Risbergate”).
            7. Gamblers & Fixers (Rothstein, Attell & Company).
            8. Hugh Fullerton (mostly stuff connected to the B-Sox).
            9. Comiskey and Ban Johnson (includes AL B-Sox Papers).
            10. Collyer’s Eye .
 

            Speaking of Collyer’s Eye — next issue I will have more from the Eye , and what it was saying about baseball and gambling starting in 1925. (See Notes #411 for an Index to previous research into the Eye , 1918-25.) There is some hot stuff on deck, I might even call it eye-opening. Such as an open letter to Judge Landis, asking why he’s not doing his job; “Ruth Hints Big Expose” (the Babe was facing an unacceptable pay cut); more evidence that Comiskey knew of the fix before Game One , this time from a St Louis betting commissioner; the coverage of “Cobb-Speakergate” and the 1917 Chicago-Detroit “non-scandal” that Swede Risberg incited; suspicions about the Series in 1918 and 1922; and the resolution of the Duncan-Bohne flap from 1923.
 

 

BUT FIRST, A COUPLE MORE REVIEWS  
 

            By ED NIXON, SABR member: A great job of research and content, perhaps Burying is now the “definitive” book on the subject of the Black Sox scandal.  Could Landis have modified his verdict to include suspensions, not lifetime bans? Yes. What would the chances have been that the eight White Sox players would have been picked up by ANY team if they had been suspended, not banned for life? As Carney mentioned, the cover‑up continues to this day. If his book has not “solved” the mystery of the scandal, it has come damn close.
 

BILL SWANSON, in NINE, Fall 2007:Whatever we know about the “Big Fix,” author Gene Carney instructs us to leave at the door as we enter his treatment of this tragic baseball event. Having read numerous books and articles on the topic, I found this difficult to do. The instruction, however, has merit.
           
            Through his extensive research, Carney has determined that the scandal was far more complicated than we have traditionally believed. The title of Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book, Eight Men Out, is really a misnomer. True, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned from baseball for life by newly appointed commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, but the fingers of guilt extended far beyond these eight ballplayers. Over the years, some have claimed that the idea of fixing the 1919 World Series came from one or more of the players on the White Sox. Others believe the plot was hatched by gamblers. Establishing exactly what happened more than eighty years after the fact is a very difficult, if not impossible, task. Rather than answering questions, Carney presents the evidence he has found and leaves his readers to draw their own conclusions. For any baseball fan with an interest in this black spot on baseball’s history, this is a must‑read. Gene Carney “hits a home run” in exposing the Black Sox scandal for the complex phenomenon that it was.
 

            Thanks again to all who have reviewed BURYING, or who have sent me reviews. You might also be interested in an article by John Klima in the L.A. Daily News, September 15, “Major-league HGH Users Will Pay Price, History Says.” John quotes me several times, as he suggests that the steroid investigations will go down much like the gambling “investigations” in the past: there will be selective punishment of playerswhile the “higher-ups” get a slap on the wrist — if that.
 

 

 

THRU THE NEWSPAPERS, ONE MORE TIME  
 

            Last issue, I whittled down a pile of clippings in my office that had built up over several years. I’m doing it again. The end is in sight. As usual, the order here is roughly chronological.
 

            File this one under “Comiskey a Scrooge?” — a question I started asking soon after getting hooked on the B-Sox. In the June 8, 1903, Boston Globe , is a note from Detroit, where “Charley Comiskey presented each of his players with a new hat and a suit of clothes for winning two fine games at Cleveland.” Call me a cynic, but when I read items like this, I always imagine that someone had cleaned up on a big bet and decided to share their winnings with the players. Just a theory.
 

            Harry A. Wiliams, who wrote for the Los Angeles Times , was one of the reporters who had and maintained a special interest in the B-Sox. His column of November 14, 1919, is one of the first to raise suspicions about the Series fix: “Did Players Sell Out?” He reports that several, maybe all of the Sox players, have yet to see their Series checks. Two years earlier, the Sox got paid at the close of the Series. Williams says if the “ugly rumors” prove to be true, “the biggest swindle in the history of baseball will be uncovered.”
 

            Williams has heard that the whole club sold out for $100,000, and another story that had four players receiving about $40,000 each. The syndicate involved cleared over a million bucks. Williams was shown telegrams, sent by “an Eastern man” to “a Los Angeles party,” calling the shot before each game, with one exception. Williams didn’t want to believe a fix was in, but as more and more fragments came his way…. “The whole thing seems destined to break very shortly unless the powers of organized baseball decide to ‘hush’ it up, as an affair of this sort is bound to hurt the game, and such action is inconceivable.” (Does he mean the fix — or the cover-up?)
 

            On November 18, 1919, Harry reported that “Gandil’s Statement Adds New Interest in White Sox Snarl.” The sub-head, “Chick Deserts the Sox.” Gandil was on the west coast, and when he declared he had played his last game for the Sox, Williams was listening. He also reports that an unnamed Sox player said that Gleason “during the world series took them in a room and told them of reports, which had reached him, regarding attempted tampering with the players by gamblers.” Rumors of the fix had remained in circulation, a month after the series, “with irritable insistence.”
 

            Harry Williams said Gandil was disgusted by the fix rumors, and wanted the matter “cleared up speedily in justice to the players.” Gandil said of Comiskey: “At times he is the best fellow in the world, and at others he is very difficult to please. I think he has been influenced by the talk of bettors who lost on the White Sox. I have given the Chicago club my best at all times.” Gandil thought the Sox had over-achieved by winning the pennant in 1919, they had not been figured to win. And he complained that the series checks were being held up.
 

            “[Gleason] called us together and told us he had heard that bettors had tried to reach some of the players,” a Sox player had told Williams. “The men denied that they had been approached, let alone entered into any agreement.” Williams knows his history, and recalls the banning of four Louisville players in 1877 for throwing games. That scandal broke when telegrams from the four players, to gamblers, were found.
 

            Officials of Chicago Team Knew world Series Was “Fixed, Says National League President.This article appeared in the Atlanta Constitution on September 27, 1920 — just before Eddie Cicotte confirmed that the fix was in. John Heydler “made public evidence he had gathered” about gambling and game-throwing, and declared that Comiskey and Gleason “were convinced” after Game One that the 1919 Series had been fixed. The heat was rising, and Heydler probably sensed that his own “don’t look, don’t see” approach to the gambling menace would soon come under scrutiny. So he points to “the other league” — not my problem. Heydler offered up the name of Jean DuBuc and also chipped in some details about the suspensions of Hal Chase and Lee Magee (in 1920). He had given all he had to Ban Johnson — didn’t know if Johnson was making any use of it. Heydler also confirmed what he’d heard from Rube Benton, who was making headlines of his own at the Chicago grand jury.
            In this early version, Heydler says he was contacted by Sox rep Tip O’Neill after Game One, on behalf of Commy and Gleason, who didn’t care to go to Johnson due to their feuding. [Another theory, that made the papers during the B-Sox trial a year later, had Commy avoiding Johnson for fear he’d suspend the players who were suspected of being involved. I tend to give Comiskey and Johnson equal blame for letting the 1919 Series play out, with no real acknowledgement that bribery had been reported.] Heydler: “I considered the matter preposterous at first” but then he informed Johnson. (Johnson denied this later; for his version, see any of the three “biographies” written when Johnson left baseball in 1929, such as Irving Vaughan’s in the Chicago Tribune , March 10, 1929.) Heydler basically was trying at this point to shift all the blame to Ban Johnson.
 

            Big Bang Theory.Ed Bang is a Cleveland reporter who seemed to be “in the know” about the fix from day one. When the scandal broke in September 1920, Bang’s column in The Cleveland News has the phrase “murder will out” in its lead paragraph. Unleashed at last, Bang writes how he heard that “a certain ex-boxer” (Attell) gave the Sox $15,000 before they left for Game One in Cincinnati. Bang heard seven players were present in a Chicago hotel room when the money changed hands, “it being said at the time that each and every one of the seven was afraid to trust the other six.”  (That’s a new one for me.) Bang also heard the story about the wife of one of the Sox players trying to bet $1,000 on the Reds at a cigar stand in a Cincy hotel.
 

            What Bang did see first-hand was a lot of money being stashed with a Cincy hotel clerk, from a bettor who was “picking them right.” So Bang was not really surprised when the scandal finally broke — except for one thing. Buck Weaver? Bang had heard the other seven names mentioned in the rumors, but Buck was (you can guess it) — “clean as a hound’s tooth in all the reports that came to our ears.”  Bang was all for a lifetime ban for anyone found guilty of tossing games. “However, let us not judge all of the Chicago players by the action of the seven or eight guilty ones.” He then commended the “clean Sox.”
 

            “Sport” Sullivan to Name Scandal’s “Master Mind”— well, that headline in the October 2, 1920 Boston Globe earned Sport a free ticket to Mexico. In a NY interview, Sullivan — who is one of the least-quoted prominent figures in the B-Sox story — said he was going to the Chicago grand jury “within 48 hours to tell all he knows.” Indicted, Sullivan would not be the goat. The Globe describes Sullivan as the “biggest operator in New England.” He admitted betting and winning big on the Series, handling several hundred thousand dollars, some his own. He bet what he could in Chicago, then “moved down to Cleveland.” (We almost never hear of a Cleveland connection to the gambling side of the Fix — and I thought Pittsburgh did the best cover-up!) He toured some other smaller Ohio cities on his way to Cincinnati, betting what he could (on the Reds) along the way. But he refused to name all the names he knew.
 

            Gamblers to Run Pools on Series.Nothing sensational about that headline, except that it ran on October 5, 1920, in the Atlanta Constitution , days after the B-Sox scandal broke. James L. Kilgallen, no stranger on the B-Sox trail, called attention to the “golden stream” that the “big betting syndicates” were about to rake in. Kilgallen knew of twenty different pools running in Chicago alone, and listed ten by name (these included the Home Run, the Lucky Strike, the Fair Play, Derby, and Blue Island). The Consolidated was said to rake in half a million dollars a year in profit for its owners. It’s a pretty detailed look at those gambling pools — one of the targets of the 1920 grand jury, which are still alive and well (you didn’t hear it from me, though). Oh yes, late that day there was a report that “Brown” (Nat Evans) had fled to Europe.
 

            Chicago Fans Grieve Most For Weaver And Still Hope For Him.That headline might be from any newspaper between the day the scandal broke and the day Buck died. In fact, it is from October 14, 1920. But I don’t know which paper — possibly, it was reprinted in The Sporting News. Anyone know for sure? This was just weeks after Cicotte and Jackson told the grand jury it was so — the Fix was in. Buck was swept up with the others, even though his name had not been mentioned in the “gossip.” Remember, Collyer’s Eye had gone so far as to pronounce Buck “clean as a hound’s tooth” — as clean as Eddie Collins and Ray Schalk. Damn clean.
 

            But Buck was named as one of the plotters, and he admitted that he attended some meetings. But no one argued as vehemently as Buck that he played the 1919 Series to win, and no one was less doubted. Weaver was idolized by Sox fans for his aggressive play. Buck toss a game? No way! “It was thought he could not loaf in a ball game if he tried, because he loved to win too much.” Buck insisted that he was innocent, and his fans desperately wanted to believe him. But the author of this article faults Buck for not “going to the front and uncover the dishonest men on his team.”
 

            Just two weeks after the scandal, the author has grasped the problem here. Comiskey had his early suspicions, too, “and possibly knowledge” — so did manager Gleason. The author had taken a quick survey of several baseball magnates, and they all replied that Commy and Gleason should have yanked out of the lineup anyone under suspicion. The author agreed, and was compelled to criticize Comiskey for not doing it. Commy also erred in not bringing the matter to the annual AL League meeting after the Series. By “letting the affair drag,” Commy had put off the inevitable, and was now paying the price.
 

            The author had traveled with the Sox at the end of the 1920 season, and looking back, comments on how the accused players had separated themselves from the honest players. Schalk and Eddie Collins, he recalled, spoke with none of the accused. “Reports have it that Collins went to President Comiskey after the White Sox returned from their last Eastern trip and informed him he thought something crooked was going on.”  The author took Collins aside and asked him — after the scandal broke — and asked him whether this was true. “I am going to leave it to the readers to guess what he said.” Say it ain’t so, author!  We want to know! “Collins in honorable … and one who would not say a thing to injure the man who pays the salaries of the Chicago American League team.”
 

            Let’s see if I got this right. It’s OK for Eddie Collins to cover for Comiskey, but not OK for Buck Weaver to cover for his teammates — and remember, Buck said he was not sure that any of them were going thru with the plan. Why make accusations and ruin a fellow’s reputation. Comiskey used the same argument, and no one pointed out the irony. The author cuts Commy some slack — he must have been “poorly advised.” No one cut Buck that kind of slack, and few pointed out, as this author almost did, that Buck had no one to tell who wasn’t already in the know. And looking back, it was even worse — Comiskey didn’t want to know . As long as he could entertain doubt, the Series could go on, and most likely these rumors would swirl away into winter.
 

            James Kilgallenof the Atlanta Constitution is another familiar name on the B-Sox trail. On November 21, 1920, his column head was “Weaver Now Waiter for Soda Fount.” Kilgallen is in Chicago and has looked up Buck, at a place just bought by Buck’s brother-in-law. Buck says he’ll prove his innocence and be back with the Sox next season. He was talking for the first time since being indicted. “I didn’t get a nickel on the series. The only bet I made was with Louie Comiskey — a pair of shoes that we’d beat the Reds. That was after we lost the first two games.”
 

            Kilgallen asked Buck about the meeting that Cicotte said Weaver attended, at the Warner hotel. “Suppose you are asked to come and hear a proposition. You go and hear it. Then you say ‘no’ — absolutely no — and then you go ahead about your business and play ball. Are you a crook?”  Buck had faith that Comiskey would help him get reinstated.
 

            “I will tell everything about myself, but there is one thing I won’t do, and that is say anything against anyone else. I hate a squealer. I know in my own heart I never helped throw a game.”  As for cliques on the club, Buck said every team had them. The Sox cliques were poker cliques — the tight-wads and those “who wouldn’t bet without having four aces.”
 

            Yde’s Case Recalls Ray Schalk’s Blunder.An astute reporter for the Washington Post (October 21, 1924) was talking to the venerable Fred Lieb, who remembered when young Pirate Emil Yde got in hot water (landis providing the heat) by making comments that were repeated in print, that something similar happened in 1919 to ray Schalk. (See Notes #411 , my coverage of the Yde case from Collyer’s Eye , October 25, 1924.)  Lieb himself went on record with this, not mentioning that the paper which quoted Schalk was Collyer’s Eye .
 

A Chicago newspaperman quoted Schalk as saying in the autumn of 1919 that Cicotte had repeatedly crossed him in [Game One of the Series], and had refused to follow his signals. Ray further told of having accused Cicotte of trying to throw down his club, and the two had a battle in the club house. It was Schalk who told Gleason that something was wrong with the series as early as the first game.
 

Unfortunately Schalk denied the story. He never said it, never knew anything about it; in fact, he was on a hunting trip when he was supposed to have given out the interview. It has always been my conviction that Schalk would have been a bigger man in baseball had he taken a firm stand in 1919 and said: “Yes, I meant what I said. Cicotte crossed me time after time, and I believe he tried to throw the series.”  But Schalk, like other players, was afraid of being called a “snitcher.” He knew nothing, and it wasn’t until nearly a year later that the truth of the matter became known….”
 

            An abridged version of this story ran the same day in the Los Angeles Times , as an “Exclusive Dispatch,” and without Fred Lieb’s mentioned by name as the source of the long quote.
 

            Criticism of Ray Schalk is hard to find. In 1924, Schalk still was an active player (how many of you knew that he played his final five games in MLB in 1929, for the NL Giants?), with aspirations to manage. Lieb was president of the BB Writers in 1924; he’d write baseball into the 1960s. What I would add here in defense of Schalk is that he had suspicions, but not certain knowledge, and while I believe he did punch out Cicotte (and Lefty Williams, the next day), I also believe it possible that Ray Schalk may have done so to punish them for saying let’s make a deal to the fixers, casting doubt over any Sox loss in the Series. (According to Bill Werber, Schalk later said that he thought Cicotte pitched to win, and Jackson played to win. No comment on Lefty.)  I think it is likely that Ray Schalk was advised by Comiskey and the Sox team lawyer to deny what he had said in that interview. Schalk and Buck Weaver were Chicago guys, and you wonder if Buck received that same “advice” — which, coming from your employer, who can end your career in a minute, has the force of an order.
 

            “He’s a wild-eyed, crazy nut” — Ban Johnson, AL President, on Judge Landis.The quote can be found in the Chicago Tribune , October 4, 1924. “Demands Ouster of Landis” is the banner headline — Ban was less than satisfied with the way the Judge was doing his job. So he announced a four-prong attack: driving Landis out of baseball; driving out McGraw and Stoneham of the NY Giants; breaking Arnold Rothstein’s ties with the game (this is 1924 !); and dismissing all players who are found to be involved in “any scheme of corruption.” Ban — like Collyer’s Eye — was certain that the gambling menace had not been terminated.
 

            Johnson called for an unbiased investigation, “preferably by a federal group,” to look into the Giants’ 1924 pennant. Ban was also bothered by rumors swirling around the 1922 Series. “Hell is going to be popping in a few days. I will stand for no more nonsense.”  He accused Landis of hushing things up. “Landis looks to me like an irresponsible character, and hasn’t the judgment, in baseball, of a 10 year old child.” Then the line about being a wild-eyed, crazy nut. Johnson thought the Giants should have been barred from playing in the Series. He believed the stories of Cozy Dolan and O’Connell, but thought they were goats. Who backed them?  Without saying so directly, Johnson hints that Stoneham and McGraw were in on the deal, and probably with Rothstein, too.
 

            In the same Tribune , Westbrook Pegler filed a story from Washington, DC, where “hysteria was the sport of the evening.” A “panting courier” had relayed Johnson’s attack to Landis. Hank Gowdy, the Giants’ catcher, visited Landis on behalf of the team “to demand a showdown on the honor of the men, individually and collectively.” Landis had stated that he “was convinced that there are other guilty parties.” Landis had a three-hour dinner and refused to see Gowdy. Another story has Clark Griffith, the owner of the AL Series entry that Fall, saying that Ban Johnson had “spoken out of turn” in criticizing Landis. In Pittsburgh, Pirate owner Barney Dreyfuss said he thought there were “others in the background” who knew all about the O’Connell-Dolan mess. He would be asking Landis to re-open the investigation. Barney then reiterates an old idea of Hugh Fullerton’s — eliminate the World Series, if the thing is corrupting the game. “The series is being made into too much of a show … it’s a growing menace.”  I suspect Dreyfuss changed his tune the next October, when the Pirates made it to October’s Game.
 

            Don’t Tell Me!In its SABR heyday, ProQuest served up a variety of magazines, as well as all those terrific newspapers. In Life , January 27, 1927, a curious little piece with this title was penned by a James A. Sanaker. Judge Landis had cleared up the charges made by Swede Risberg and seconded by Chick Gandil, going back to a shady deal between the Sox and Detroit in 1917. This little bomb threatened to ruin two teams, if it went off, and might even make casualties of Eddie Collins, Schalk, and Ty Cobb. Landis deftly defused the bomb. Sanaker:
 

Don’t tell me anything about baseball, Mister. Especially if it concerns Ray Schalk, or this Risberg, or the so-called Black Sox. I was right there, on Labor Day, in 1919 — a double-header — yes sir. [I think the B-Sox made him think 1919, but the games at issue were from 1917.]  My brother ran a hot-dog concession at the left end of the south bleachers, and, say, he heard the bat boys giving their inside dope, and — well, don’t tell me about baseball. That’s all!
 

            Objection, Your Honor, hearsay and rumor!   Sustained.
 

            In the Wake of the Newswas the name of a long-running column in the Chicago Tribune — I think it’s still running — and it seemed to be a mix of news, rumors, poems, humor, and letters from its loyal readers. Harvey T. Woodruff was “conducting” the Wake on January 6, 1933, and he took the occasion to write at some length about Kid Gleason, who had just passed away in Philadelphia. Woodruff’s column was all about the call that The Kid had to make before Game Eight of the 1919 Series. The fix rumors had made Gleason “troubled and distraught, unable to sleep nights.” He didn’t want to believe what was going on. Woodruff apparently was in the “small coterie” whom Gleason trusted, and here’s what Harvey recalled of Kid’s story.
 

            He was suspicious, but without proof. Kerr had pitched ten innings in Game Six, and was “a little fellow” and Gleason thought it was too soon for him to come back, and he wanted Kerr for a Game Nine, if it went to nine. Gleason said he’d spoken to the team and “under those circumstances, it doesn’t look like anyone would dare not do his best.” So he gambled (!) with Lefty Williams — and lost.
 

            We don’t know if Lefty was threatened before pitching Game Eight. It is possible, and it’s also possible, I think, that Gleason knew about that threat as he knew about the fix. Hugh Fullerton thought Gleason had threatened the whole Sox team with his “iron” — his gun — if he saw anyone laying down. Either way, Lefty was, no pun intended, under the gun. 
 

            Woodruff had written about Kid Gleason in an earlier Wake , October 21, 1923, when “Pop” retired. He described Kid as “rough and ready — of the old school, before the days of the pampered stars.”  (You wish Pop had lived to see real pampering, just for his reaction.) Woodruff was with Gleason daily during the 1919 Series. “He could hardly believe his own players were false to their trust. As he became convinced, although lacking tangible proof, he grieved at their falseness to him personally. He felt the team disgrace more than he ever admitted to any but his most intimate friends.”
 

            Damon Runyonseems to me like the Hal Chase or the Sport Sullivan of the writers and reporters in the B-Sox saga. He seems to know much, but reveals little. He once wrote that Abe Attell had kept secret the name of a friend — that’s in my book, and it can be documented by looking up Runyon’s Washington Post article of October 4, 1939. (October is a good month for digging on the B-Sox trail; 1939 was a twentieth anniversary, and the Reds were back in the Series. 1959 was also a very good year.)
 

            “Attell Keeps Secret Of Big Sport Scandal,” goes the headline. Attell was nearly 60, but has never “stooled” on his friend. Runyon says the friend died “a few years ago” and was “a certain chap of high repute in professional gambling circles of the East and South.” He was also a man of “impeccable honesty and principle in his own business” — that should narrow it down. “He just somehow let his ethics get tangled” when the Big Fix came along, and there was nothing illegal about it — then.
 

            Attell never denied being involved, but never “went into any lengthy explanations,” either. Abe — like Eddie Cicotte — said he did a bad thing and repented (according to Runyon).
 

            Runyon thinks he has pieced together the “correct version” of the Fix, without Attell’s piece of the puzzle. He thinks the plot came from the White Sox players (so do I), was pitched to Rothstein, who ostensibly turned it down. Attell, if he learned about the pitch and the turn-down, probably believed, like most folks, that a fix of a WS was impossible. However — Attell then heard that “a mysterious man” was out in Chicago dealing with the players — and Abe concluded that it was his (Abe’s) friend, who was “at that time more or less associated with Rothstein.” 
 

            Nothing new in the rest of Runyon’s account. He saw it as a black eye for Baseball. “The magnates let the series go through to a conclusion and pocketed the gate money when many persons in baseball were hinting that something was wrong.” But who is the mystery man?  I’m thinking it may have been “Brown” — also known as Nat (sometimes Nate) Evans. Evans had connections with Rothstein, and was called “the missing link” of the scandal when he was arrested in St Louis along with Sydney Stajer, Hyman Cohen, and Elias Fink — three other candidates — and found to have some suspicious telegrams. The story was apparently quickly buried at the time, and we know of it mainly through a Sporting News feature on the arresting officer that appeared in 1957, and in Sport , 1959. Which of that quartet had “impeccable honesty”?
 

            In the October 1961 issue of Cavalier , Abe Attell gave his “never before told” story of the Big Fix. In it, he says that he was in Chicago a few days before the 1919 Series, and spotted Nat Evans, talking with Chicago gambler Monte Tennes. Abe asked Monte what was happening, and Monte told him that Evans just bet him $20 G on the first two games. “The dope took Cincinnati!”  Abe recalled what Sport Sullivan had told him back in New York — back when Rothstein ostensibly turned down the deal. Attell says he then confronted Evans, “an old friend,” who confessed to Abe that the fix was in. Evans was the “Brown” who guaranteed the players $100,000 for the Series. In Attell’s version, Rothstein had decided to back the Fix, but cut out Attell.
 

            Evans gave Attell $5,000 of his own money (not A.R.’s) and Abe had $4,000 of his own, and he soon parlayed the $9,000 into $30,000. Attell had run into Bill Burns and learned of that side of the Fix, too. Attell said Burns warned him about Kerr and Game Three, without noting that apparently Burns lost big on that one. Attell recounts all the rumors about what really happened — how he (Attell) was supposed to have bribed them, fake telegrams (“Lies. All lies”) — “Some even said [the players] had a meeting and planned to win, but just couldn’t pull it off!  Well, maybe so. I don’t know about that. I never talked with them, I never had anything to do with them.” (Chick Gandil’s interview with Mel Durslag had made a splash in Sports Illustrated five years before, and Attell was clearly not in agreement with Chick.)
 

            Attell mentions a number of other gamblers in his Cavalier story — most of them are mis-spelled (intentionally?)  These include Nick the Greek, Remy Dorr (New Orleans), Curly Bennett (was this David Zelcer?), and Syd Stajer (who committed suicide after being caught selling dope for Rothstein — Bennett was caught, too, and died in prison). Attell seems most interested in clearing his own name, and fingering The Big Bankroll. He links Rothstein with that Cubs-Phils game in August 1920, something I’ve seen nowhere else.
 

            And he says he never thought Comiskey’s $10,000 reward was sincere. “Why should a club owner with a million-dollar ball club want to expose their corruption?  It didn’t make sense to me.” He adds that Nat Evans turned his back on Rothstein when he learned how much A.R. had won on the Series, over $350,000, because A.R. had told him it was much less. In Abe’s corner, according to Abe, were Big Tim Sullivan, Damon Runyon and Mayor Jimmy Walker, all trying to clear his name, without much success. Abe’s secret of life? “To like people. Then they’ll like you.”  The Cavalier article appeared just when CBS (David Susskind) was supposed to air a program on the Black Sox — Eliot Asinof had been assigned to write it — but it was scratched. Susskind recycled the material a few months later in a program called The Witness .