Notes #417 — The Big Train Issue

                             NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
                                           Observations from Outside the Lines
                                     By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
#417                                                                                                         SEPTEMBER 25, 2007
                                          THE BIG TRAIN ISSUE
 

            Sometimes the titles of NOTES have nothing much to do with the content, but rather, have everything to do with the number . And if you’re paying attention, 417is now the official number of wins racked up by Walter Johnson, perhaps the greatest Senator in history, including those in congress. (I wonder how often Walter heard that, when he was introduced at banquets.)
 

            Most of my life, I’m sure, I thought Walter had a mere 416. The end of my poem in Romancing , also titled The Big Train, goes like this:
 

            The Big Train smashed home
            Carving over the years a grand canyon
            Making forever marks on the face of the game.
            Five score and ten shutouts,
            A pile of W’s 416 high,
            And an upper-deck row of K’s
            That stretch from the Capitol to Cooperstown.
            Johnson was the other
            Washington Monument.
 

            The lines in the poem I like best “Velocity that radar guns / could only dream about tracking.” Who knows how many W’s (wins) Walter might have racked up, if his teams could do better than “filibustering” runs?  Anyway, it was not long after Romancing was released in 1993, that I heard that the 416 was revised upwards. I made the correction in my copy, and now I ask both of you who have Romancing handy, to correct yours.
 

            OK, in what way is this issue really a “Big Train”?  Well, it isn’t. But I think it’s a darn good issue, because it was one that just wrote itself and was great fun to write, so I think it just might be fun to read, too. It’s usually that way.
 

            Instead of starting off slow — as trains must — the issue leads off instead with Snap, Fling, Go. Then it makes a stop out in the middle of nowhere — Hancock, NY — for another visit with Honest Eddie Murphy. After a pause to consider the many meanings of Two Finger, we are on the move again, this time with a fellow named Rube at the throttle, for a ride that challenges the logic of Judge Landis. Soon we are not on the tracks at all, but Between the Lines, with a critical third look at the book that ought to have the sub-title, The Making of Eight Men Out . After a few short things (recommended reading matter for a future journey), we ease into the last station, where we are greeted by folks Shaking Hands. We will stretch our hands ‘way back, to the hand that tossed the first pitches of the 1919 Series for Chicago. Check for parafin, Eddie denied using anything but sweat from his pants. It’s a wild ride, so hold on. I hope we can do rides like this more often!
 

SNAP, FLING, GO  
 

            With John Thorn’s permission, here is a note he sent to the SABR Deadballers last August 24, on the famous Walt Whitman baseball quotation:
 

            According to Horace Traubel in WITH WALT WHITMAN IN CAMDEN , Whitman said to him, “I like your interest in sports ‑‑ ball, chiefest of all ‑‑ baseball particularly: baseball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character. Sports  take people out of doors, get them filled with oxygen ‑‑ generate some of the brutal customs (so‑called brutal customs) which, after all, tend to habituate people to a necessary physical stoicism. We are some ways a dyspeptic, nervous set: anything which will repair such losses may be regarded as a blessing to the race.” 
 

            As you can see, the quote is generally paraphrased by those wishing to quote the juicy phrases. Maybe we can blame Douglass Wallop for first “improving” Whitman. Annie Savoy and Ken Burns are among the legions who have followed down this path.  I think the ” ‘snap, go, fling’ quote” also came from the Traubel volume of 1888: “Well ‑ it’s our game; that’s the chief fact in connection with it; America’s game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions; fits into them as significantly as our Constitution’s laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.”  As to the 1846 quote, it is the one that opens the Burns film (“In our sun‑down perambulations of late …”) and is indeed from the July 23 Eagle , Page 2, headed “City Intelligence.” 
 

            The less-famous quote by a Mr Kellogg — “Baseball has the snap, crackle and pop of this nation” — sold a lot of cereal.
 

            Speaking of John Thorn, I thank him for letting me borrow not just the note above, but his collection of B-Sox clippings and articles, which I will “mine for nuggets” and report on next issue. If others have items that you think I might enjoy seeing, do let me know.
 

 

THE HONEST EDDIE REVISITED  
 

            A couple issues back (in #413 ) I mentioned that I’ll be driving to Hancock, NY, to honor its native son, Eddie Murphy. I’ve done a little more digging on Eddie, in his Cooperstown file, and here’s what I learned.
 

            “The Pride of White Mills” — Eddie played sandlot ball there; he called it “Mathewson country” — went to college, and played some baseball in the summer. He hit .300 for Scranton in 1911 and then signed on with the Baltimore Orioles, then in the International League, where his .361 average and 34 SBs caught the attention of major league scouts. In his first 33 games with Connie Mack’s first Philadelphia A’s dynasty, Eddie hit .317. That was in 1912.
 

            In 1913 and 1914, Eddie was a regular for Mack, and ended both seasons playing in the World Series. He didn’t hit well in October, and later recalled the stinging loss in ’14 to those Miracle Braves of Boston.
 

            In 1915, Eddie was sold mid-July to the Chicago White Sox of Comiskey, for $13,500, where he roamed the outfield with Happy Felsch and Shano Collins — for about a month, or until a guy named Joe Jackson was picked up from Cleveland. That made Eddie a pinch-hitter most of the rest of his six years with the Sox, with the exception of 1918, when WW I made him a starter again. He was recommended to Commy by his former A’s teammate, Eddie Collins.
 

            Years later, Eddie recalled the Sox — who could forget them?  He remembered Buck Weaver was a switch-hitter (I had forgotten that), who was close with Happy Felsch. He thought Eddie Cicotte and Claude Williams were close, as were their wives; I’d not seen that before; I know M/M Lefty and the Jacksons were chummy. Eddie himself was friends with Eddie Collins and Ray Schalk.
 

            When Eddie appeared in the World Series in 1913, White Mills celebrated. Local kid makes it to the top. The Dorfinger Glass Company made Eddie a full-size glass bat. The picture in the newspaper makes me want to see the thing, if it’s still around — I hope it finds its way to the Hancock, NY, sports bar named after Eddie. His daughter Bette had the bat in 1972.
 

            Eddie was a Catholic, and his son told the story of how Eddie took Shoeless Joe Jackson with him one day to Sunday Mass. When they arrived in the club locker room later, someone asked Joe what kind of church Eddie went to. “It’s a nice church,” Jackson replied, “but they have a lot of calisthenics in his church.” Ah, the dry humor of the Shoeless One. Murphy felt sorry for Jackson when he was banned with seven other teammates, and saw him as a fellow who was “easily led.”
 

            I was looking for the origins of Eddie’s nickname. You know me, Al, I was wondering if the “Honest” pre-dated the scandal that broke in 1920. I found no clues in his file. Except for a copy of the form letter that Comiskey sent to the players he had left, after the indictments ruined the Sox in late September of 1920. Remember, Commy was into damage control. So he gave the “clean Sox” who had played in the 1919 Series, a check for $1,500 each, explaining that this was the difference between the winning and losing shares in that Series. (The actual difference was closer to $2,000, but I doubt any of the players complained.) In the letter, Comiskey addresses them as “honest” and the word is repeated several times. My guess is that Eddie Murphy was proud of that letter and showed it around a lot, and that’s where he got the tag “Honest Eddie.” The letter was like a certificate, a clean bill of health, proof that he was not among the crooked.
 

            That might seem obvious to us today, but in 1920, all of the White Sox were under a cloud. Many news accounts simply reported that the team had sold out. No doubt, the guilt extended to anyone associated with the Sox. And some writers took some shots at the players who had not been indicted. Only a few wondered if anyone else had been in the “conspiracy” but escaped. But many wondered why the “clean Sox” teammates had not spoken up in the year since the Series. They surely had “guilty knowledge” — as did many reporters, of course. Not to mention the magnates. When the curtain covering the fix was lifted — or torn away — some of the clean guys, like Eddie Collins, babbled away about how they had to strain playing next to these crooks — not just in that tainted October of 1919, but all during 1920, where, Collins was sure, the tossing of games had continued.
 

            Eddie Murphy recalled Chick Gandil as “the rotten apple — he made his deal through a fellow Texan [Chick was born in Minnesota but had ties to Texas and California], Bill Burns. Gandil double-crossed the Sox, told them the gamblers had shorted him.”  Well, that was one version that circulated.
 

            In Burying the Black Sox , I cite an interview Eddie gave to The Scrantonian in 1959, to Chic Feldman, where he talked about Kid Gleason confronting the team about the fix. That was one of the first times I saw any reference to that — I’ve found a lot of corroboration since. (In the famous “Harry’s Diary” chapter of The Hustler’s Handbook , Bill Veeck comments that one thing that nobody on the Sox did was “call in the players to warn them they were being watched, or direct the manager to warn them.”  Veeck was just plain wrong — Gleason not only warned them, he threatened them. Strangling or revolver, take your pick.)
 

            Eddie recalled the team pressuring Gleason before Game Eight to pitch Red Faber, someone they could trust. Anybody but Lefty. But the Kid went with Williams. Must have been a real boost to Lefty’s poise, going to the hill with two tough losses to his name, and a “no confidence” vote from his teammates.
 

            Last issue I mentioned an Eddie Murphy quote, something he said looking back on those dark days for baseball, and I’ll end with it here. “It is much better to be a forgotten man than one remembered for a terrible wrong.” And how great to have a nickname, for all time, like Honest Eddie .
 

TWO FINGER  
 

            I’ve been using the pen name “Two Finger” for so long that I forgot when I started. I guessed that it was soon after I started doing NOTES , back in March, 1993. So I was very surprised that it was not until Notes #41 , November 8, 1993, that it debuted, with no explanations. I had always liked baseball nicknames, thought they added flavor and color to the game. Two Finger was how I typed, and it was also a tribute to Three Finger Brown, the old Cubbie pitcher.
 

            Re-reading Eliot Asinof’s Bleeding Between the Lines , I learned that he also used his two fingers (and an old manual typewriter, which he still uses), although later in the book he moves up to four.
 

            And I noticed that just a day after I found a definition by Hugh Fullerton in an old (1912) baseball primer: Two fingers only:
The signal for a fast ball usually is one finger while two fingers indicate a curve. A pitcher is said to have two fingers only when he has nothing with which to deceive his batter except his curve ball.
 

            And that fits me!  I never played ball except on the sandlots of Pittsburgh, but in college I got into some intramural type pick-up games. I was a playing manager, which gave me the right to assign positions and set the lineup. I batted myself leadoff, because I was a singles hitter. And I usually pitched, armed with basically very good control — and what I called a nickel curve, knowing that was a derogatory term. What saved me was that I could throw the thing from an assortment of angles, including Marichal-overhand, Drysdale sidearm (without the fear on the part of the batter, of course), or submarine. I was a junk-ball pitcher, but didn’t walk many. And because the competition was not that stiff, I even pitched a nine-inning shutout or two. I was also shelled once, and traded places with the rightfielder before the first inning was over. I guess that day my curve was closer to a penny.
 

            There’s one other archaic definition in that Fullerton glossary that caught my eye. Nile Valley League.This is a mythical league, where all the wonderful plays ever heard of took place. (Like my college shutout?) “Whenever a player tells some extraordinary yarn concerning a play, the other players instantly inquire if it happened in the Nile Valley League.
 

            Not only do I want to see baseball nicknames make a comeback, but I’d also like to see the voices of the game, the national announcers and every team mike-man, give new life to the rich language that baseball has inspired over the years. That’s why I sometimes give issues of NOTES a title like Pebble Hunter or Lowdermilk Issue . Words invoke stories, and the stories are what breathes life into the game.
 

 

THIS RUBE WAS NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN  
 

            I recently visited the Cooperstown file of Rube Benton. Rube has a key role in ending the cover-up of the 1919 Fix, and his story is more fascinating to me as some of the “eight men out.” I gave Rube a photo-op in Burying for being a link in a chain of events that unraveled rapidly at the tail-end of the cover-up. Rube was the first ballplayer to tell the 1920 grand jury that he had personal (and guilty) knowledge of the Fix; what’s more, he bet on it, and won some big bucks. He suggested that the GJ talk to Eddie Cicotte for the details, and I think it was the combination of Rube’s testimony and the Maharg interview with Isaminger (September 27) that moved “Dishonest Eddie” Cicotte to go to the grand jury — on his own — September 28.
 

            Rube Benton rapidly became a forgotten man, as the press feasted on the eight Sox players like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Hal Chase, who probably had a major role in the mess, also faded away, when California refused to extradict. Joe Gedeon was no so lucky, he had caught Judge Landis’ attention, and was banned — partly, I think, because Gedeon had been “taken care of” by Ban Johnson, and Landis always found it hard to pass up an opportunity to show Ban who was in charge. And Gedeon was a Brownie, property of Phil Ball, who was loyal to Johnson, so Joe had two strikes against him. No matter how cooperative he was — I think he was the star witness, if Burns and Maharg had not been located and paid (travel, food and lodging, and maybe a little bonus?) to testify at the B-Sox trial.
 

            When Rube Benton reported to work, spring training for McGraw’s Giants, in 1921, Ban Johnson was not at all amused. Sure he had helped the grand jury unearth the Big Fix. But he admitted knowing about the Fix before the Series was played. And he bet on the Reds, and won big bucks!   It went rougher on Jean DuBuc for just opening a telegram. Benton’s guardian angel was, however, not Landis foe Ban Johnson — but ban’s nemesis (after Comiskey), John McGraw. And no one really wanted to mess with Muggsy. Make him an enemy, and you might get paid a visit from a Rothstein hired hand. Or get sued by the Great Mouthpiece, Fallon. Or McGraw might just shred you in the New York papers. John McGraw was not just Mr Teflon, he was a porcupine, ready to fire. Rube Benton was very loyal to Mr McGraw.
 

            Another possible factor: Benton had served in the army during WW I, and while in the military, he gave an interview that oozed patriotism. If that caught Landis’ attention, he might have recalled it when Rube left the 1920 grand jury room. Because Landis oozed patriotism himself — he subpoenaed the Kaiser when the Lusitania was sunk — and tended to be harsh on those who seemed to be “slackers.” That’s a tag that was stuck on Joe Jackson for a while, by the way. Judge Landis, biased? Nah.
 

            So Benton, a lefty from North Carolina, who had pitched five years with Cincinnati before the Giants scooped him up in 1915, starts 1921 with the Giants. He’s not even suspended. Rube had been a winning southpaw (16, 15, and 17 wins for NY, with the high mark coming in 1919). He had slumped to 9-16 in 1920; maybe his winnings from the previous October were a factor. But he started 1921 OK. He was 5-2, 2.88 ERA, when the Giants suddenly let him go. Why? Not because of pressure from Johnson, Ban’s power was confined to the AL and kept in check by Landis.
 

            Well, according to his obituary, Benton was sent to St Paul (American Assn) in 1921 after he made charges that he had been offered money to throw a game. He rebelled at this transfer, but went quietly. McGraw really didn’t want Rube talking about fixes, while the country was buzzing about the B-Sox trial that summer. Maybe McGraw wanted to spare Rube the chance of being attacked by the press, if his name came up in the trial, and Rube just happened to be handy for a quote or two. The fact is, Rube was released as “an undesirable” — but when Kansas City immediately expressed their desire to sign him (it’s just like today, nobody has enough left-handed pitching), the Giants recalled the release, and instead sold him to St Paul.
 

            By the way, this was three years before the Cozy Dolan flap, when it appeared that the Giants were bribing the Phils to lay down a bit. Dolan and O’Connell were the scapegoats, and were given lifetime bans. We can wonder if Benton’s 1921 complaint was even messier. Could McGraw have made that offer to him? Which, Rube knew, was playing with fire, although it was before the B-Sox ban had been meted out. In baseball, timing is everything.
 

            The Sporting News noted that Rube’s old team, Cincinnati, was “angling” to sign Benton, too, but they thought that John Heydler would not allow that to happen. (Heydler had taken a beating in the press for exonerating Hal Chase early in 1919 and opening the gates to the Big Fix that October. He must have known that Ban Johnson would scorch him if he admitted Rube to the NL.)
 

            It might be interesting for a NOTES reader in the St Paul area to scan the papers from 1921 and 1922, to see if Rube gave any interviews.
 

            He did OK in St Paul, on the mound. 6-7 in 1921, but 22-11 in 1922, and by the end of that summer, the B-Sox was not only old news, but a kind of taboo topic. So it was safe for Rube to come back to the majors. The NY Yankees asked about him. That prompted Ban Johnson (11/16/22 Sporting News ) to bar Benton from the American League. The Browns actually purchased his contract, but Johnson blocked the deal (Pietrusza’s Landis ). But Cincinnati took a chance and signed him and Landis let it stand. Garry Herrmann argued that he had played in 1921 and 1922, and was without taint. Heydler had the support of 6 NL owners, but he left Landis make the call, and no one could predict The Judge.
Ban Johnson must have been seething, but he was also in the position of needing to pick his battles with the Commish. And the great and powerful Wizard had spoken.
 

            Blacklisting Rube Benton was “at war with every conception of justice and fair play,” Landis decreed, finding Rube “as clean as any man in baseball.” He was outraged that baseball would deprive Benton of his chief means of making his living. Buck Weaver and others must have been seething at that comment. Heydler was stunned and tried to overrule Landis, wiring Garry Herrmann that Rube was still out . Bad move, Heydler. No one overrules the Commish. Heydler was called to Landis’ office and that was that.
 

            Benton’s 15-year career in MLB wound down in a Reds’ uniform, as he won 30 games between 1923-1925. For much more on Landis’ “Benton decision,” see Judge & Jury by David Pietrusza. (The only really new tidbit above is that note from Benton’s obituary, which is not really corroborated anywhere I know.)
 

 

BETWEEN THE LINES OF BETWEEN THE LINES   
 

            If someone on the B-Sox Trail ever decided to write a Tale of Two Books — Eight Men Out and Burying the Black Sox — here is a tip. The story behind my book can be found right here in the NOTES Archive , starting with #268 (September 2002). And I think the best book on the making of Eight Men Out is unquestionably Bleeding Between the Lines , by Eliot Asinof (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979. I first reviewed Bleeding in #276 (11/22/02), and I returned to it in #368 (1/15/06). I rarely double-back, but on the B-Sox Trail, sometimes you need to. Because as you learn more, you become capable of learning more. So re-reading old books, articles and newspaper clippings almost always yields new nuggets, or new insights. Lights go on, where they had not before.
 

            Those two old issues of Notes (276 and 368) are worth a look, if you need any convincing about getting a copy of Bleeding. Re-reading it recently, I enjoyed it more than ever. I think one reason is that I have now had some experience myself as “The Black Sox guy” — a tag Asinof has worn for 44 years now. And, I know more now than I used to.
 

            And I pick up on little things better. For example, in the aftermath of 8MO , Asinof was sued by Dutch Reuther — and by Chick Gandil. Asinof had cited Ring Lardner, saying that Dutch was drinking heavily before pitching (and winning!) Game One of the 1919 Series; Dutch never sued Ring, but this was 1963, so why not take the shot at Asinof?  The suit never went anywhere, and Asinof guessed that’s why Gandil dropped his, too. But I must wonder if Chick left anything interesting behind with the lawyer he visited. (Gandil mentioned hiring Melvin Belli to clear his name — maybe in the Durslag interview?) Would those records be around somewhere?
 

            What really got my attention this time was Asinof’s sources. Not the ones he mentioned in the book. But the boxes of books, articles and tapes (probably reel-to-reel), which he notes more than once. Bleeding revolves around a lawsuit for the rights to 8MO . Those boxes were Asinof’s “proof” that the research he did on his own for his classic, was nothing like the small amount of digging he did while under contract to David Susskind. As far as I know, those boxes are still in Asinof’s attic — not in a college library, not in Cooperstown. I’d love to see them, and listen to the voices of Red Faber, Happy Felsch, Abe Attell, and who knows who else? 
 

            When I spent a day with Asinof (see NOTES #305 , 9/7/03), he told me that he invented the name “Harry F.” — for the hired hit man who was supposed to have threatened Lefty Williams before Game Eight. But I noticed in Bleeding that Asinof said he invented “ two made-up names” for 8MO [pg 42], on his lawyer’s advice (he spends much of Bleeding ignoring legal advisors, by the way). The sole purpose of the fictional names were to protect him against plagiarism. What is interesting is that Eliot told me he made up the name “Harry F.” (and you can read #305 for details); but in Bleeding , he writes that “two fictitious characters were inserted” [emphasis mine] — which makes us wonder if Asinof was inventing the assassin as well as the name.
            And who is the second?
 

            It is now a bit agonizing for me to read Bleeding , to read about Asinof meeting Cicotte, Gandil, Faber, Schalk, Attell, the B-Sox trial judge Hugo Friend, Happy Felsch, Swede Risberg — and come away from most of them with so little. Judge Friend, Faber and Felsch, probably the three least knowledgeable in that lineup, were the most talkative. Attell babbled on and on, but without much credibility. I have to wonder if Asinof’s approach caused Cicotte (who talked with reporter Westbrook Pegler a few years earlier, and with Joe Falls a few years later), Gandil (who had talked freely with Durslag a few years before), Ray Schalk (who, according to Bill Werber, talked all about the 1919 Series once upon a time, although he must have done something to earn his reputation as a clam), and Swede Risberg (who had talked for money in 1926-27) — to reject him.
 

            Would he have gotten a completely different response from Cicotte if he opened with, “Eddie, I know you admitted hitting the first batter you faced in the Series on purpose. But after that, you said you were pitching to win. Why do you think the newspapers chose not to print your claims that you were giving it your best after plunking Rath?”
 

            Gandil might have expected someone to question him further after the Durslag piece appeared in a national magazine in 1956. I think I’d have greeting Chick by complimenting him on that article, maybe talk some plumbing, tell him I wanted to ask more about his injuries at the end of 1919. By some accounts, Gandil was a hero for playing in the 1919 Series despite his physical problems; and he played pretty well. Not well enough to be above suspicion later. But he was definitely hampered. When the scandal broke a year later, Chick was having his appendix removed, an operation he had been putting off since before the 1919 WS.
 

            I’m not sure how I’d approach Ray Schalk. Maybe start talking with him about managing, or Eddie Collins, or Comiskey. Stay away from the December 1919 Collyer’s Eye interview. Maybe get him going on Kid Gleason. Same with Swede — tell him you thought he was railroaded by Landis in 1927, tell him you think he was right about the 1917 charges (hey, he might have been, we’ll never know for sure — will we?)
 

            Asinof was on a mission, he wanted to know why they did it . If he used THAT as his opener, well, you see the problem. “I’m assuming you are as guilty as history has painted you … may I ask you some personal questions about your motivation?  Was it revenge, greed, or were you just a really rotten person?” 
 

            Bleeding Between the Lines is also difficult reading for me. Asinof seems to be convinced that he is writing the definitive book on the B-Sox — and he was, but only because it was the only book on the topic. When Victor Luhrs’ The Great Baseball Mystery came along in 1966, it went nowhere. Asinof had already told the story — Luhrs was asking questions, like why were the bloodhounds scented after the players, instead of the gamblers? Asinof never touched that one, did he? Why was most of the grand jury testimony tabled?  When I first read that Luhrs’ analysis led him to conclude that Cicotte was pitching to win, I shook my head. What about that bonus he was denied? Those intentional errors in Game Four? Only after digging myself and deciding that Asinof was wrong about the bonus being the factor that tipped the Sox ace into joining the Fix, and after looking not only at what Cicotte did in the Series, but what he said he did , under oath, in both 1920 and 1924 (it went virtually unreported both times)  — only then did I see what Luhrs was doing. Namely, challenging us, his readers, to think. Asinof gave us not only his answers, but the questions we were allowed to ask.
 

            So I came away from my third visit to Bleeding with more questions. What if Asinof had a more open-minded approach to his research (and to those Sox he found)?  He spent just a few years “on the B-Sox Trail” himself — which now seems, to me, to be far too little a time to spend before writing a book. I’ve asked myself and others many times, what if Asinof had the resources of SABR, the internet, ProQuest . He might have found the 1924 Milwaukee material and made that a bigger part of 8MO . (And he could have found that, if he had found the series of articles by Westbrook Pegler from 1956 — they were not buried that deep (see Notes #391 ). If he had somehow found Collyer’s Eye — the volumes were sitting not far from Chicago — would Bert Collyer have been a protagonist in 8MO ?  If he had found Fullerton’s 1935 memoir, would that scene of Hughie confronting the baseball powers before Game One have been a key part of his book, then the 1988 film?
 

            Bleeding is also Asinof’s tale of how he defended 8MO against those who would ruin it by editing it for TV, in such a way that its historical aspect would be violated. Asinof really saw it as HISTORY — “what really happened” — instead of history , something open to constant revision as we keep learning more from new sources. I wonder if his defending it so much for so long made him somewhat closed to any revisions, by anyone, at any time. That sounds harsh, but when Eliot and I were exchanging letters, as I was sending him chapters of Burying , a few at a time, I don’t think he ever replied with “that’s new to me.” I was and am grateful for the feedback he gave me — especially for his encouragement to go with Chapter One, and not worry about the treatment of Jerome Holtzman. But looking back, I wish he had shown more interest in the detailed account of the cover-up and how it came undone, the meat of my book.
 

            As I learned more and more about the subject, I noticed that my fellow travelers on The Trail — and many had been on it a lot longer than I had — were of two minds about Eight Men Out . Or maybe three. Some loved it, loved the film, and had no idea how many problems it contained. Others were skeptics — they seemed to accept Asinof’s version of things, but with a grain of salt. They felt uneasy about it, there must be more to it . And then there were some who just hated it because it was so damn frustrating — where did he get this? No footnotes (to which Asinof would reply, “Screw footnotes!” — I tone him down here, lest NOTES lose its PG rating).
 

            Looking back one last time (for now), maybe the best thing I never did was read Eight Men Out , until I had been on The Trail quite a while. (I know when I started my research, I really thought 8MO was a novel.)  Since then, I have never failed to recommend it, or to publicly thank Eliot Asinof for writing it. I wish that he had done revisions, every five years or so — but he was always doing battle over the rights , and then he finally sold them, which made his revising it so much harder. When reviewers call Burying the new “definitive” book, eclipsing 8MO , I take it as a compliment, but I also add that I hope there is never any definitive B-Sox book. The story is too mysterious, we will always be learning more. I would be sad to think Burying was the last word (well, of course I would — I’m planning a sequel!) I’d love to see it spawn a B-Sox library, put together by researchers digging deep into the stuff hidden today in Detroit and Cleveland and St Louis, and maybe in Indianapolis and New Orleans. Or in a lawyer’s basement in San Francisco. Or in Eliot Asinof’s attic.
 

 

FOR TEACHERS  
 

            Did you know that McFarland has a book just for you? I ran into Baseball in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching the National Pastime, by Edward J. Reilly (2006), at the SABR convention last summer. I’ll review it here later on — looks very interesting.
 

A NINE DOUBLEHEADER  
 

            In the latest issue of NINE (Fall 2007) is that review of Burying the Black Sox by Bill Swanson that appeared in NOTES #415 , right behind a review of mine, of Charlie Bevis’ Sunday Baseball . Which I recommend — again.
 

 

SHAKING HANDS  
 

            Have you ever, maybe at a party, started asking around, “Who is the most famous person with whom you have ever shaken hands?” It’s been years, but one time, it revealed that I had in fact shaken the hand of someone who had shaken the hand of Babe Ruth. Not exactly like getting the Bambino’s autograph; but something .
 

            On the B-Sox trail, I’ve “shaken hands” — sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively (phone calls or e-mail or letters) — with a number of people who themselves have shaken the hands (literally) with many of the main characters in the B-Sox story. I’ve spoken with at least three folks who have chatted with Chick Gandil, for example, and met SABRite Fred Schuld, who may know more about Chick than any of the trio. I’ve also met some relatives — of Hugh Fullerton, Bill Veeck, and many more.
 

            Just recently, I met a distant kin of Eddie Cicotte, who has been living ten miles away from me for many years. He’s read Burying , but somehow we never connected before (and I thank Dick Hunt for bringing us together, finally). Now about 75, this fellow was the cousin of the fellow who married Rose Cicotte, a daughter of Knuckles. (By the way, he says SY-cott. I still say SEE-cot.) He was an athlete, and looked like he could still handle himself on a rink. He remembered meeting Eddie around 1952, but he wasn’t into baseball much. And Eddie was a quiet, shy man, not one to drag out his trophies. He was working in his garden that day, when he shook Eddie’s hand and chatted.
 

            I asked him about the internet quote from a great-grand-nephew, George Cicotte, that suggested Eddie’s wife was threatened with harm if Eddie didn’t come through — as the wife of Lefty Williams may have been threatened, probably unbeknownst to her at the time. He didn’t know about that, but he confirmed something else George had said, that the family believed that the early scene in Eight Men Out — Comiskey: “29 wins isn’t 30, Eddie” — was highly accurate. (As most NOTES readers know, I’ve written far too much on the legendary “Cicotte Bonus” to recap it here. To sum up, I’m a doubter, but I can see how the story might have evolved from the facts. And especially within Eddie’s family, where there must have been much head-scratching over why one of the top pitchers of his day would risk his career; the “Bonus” stories subtly shifts the blame to Scroogie Comiskey.)
 

            By coincidence, I am currently writing a chapter on Cicotte for a book that won’t be out for a couple years, with the theme of “unsolved mysteries” or cold cases. I may write the Foreword, too, but so far, I have about ten pages on Baseball Icon, Interrupted . I gave a copy of what I have, and I hope it circulates in the Cicotte family, and shakes loose some very old correspondence (ideally, Eddie’s unpublished memoirs). Or a journal from “the missus” or some of “the kiddies.”
 

 

            Below is the tail-end of the first draft of my chapter, and I toss it out here for your reactions, more than to entertain. I have probably pondered Eddie Cicotte more than most people, but I’ve also read more of his own words (that 1924 deposition was a gem). And I’m always looking for more — of his own words.
 

I think that when he decided to go to the 1920 grand jury, it is possible that Eddie Cicotte hoped that he just might come away from the crisis as a hero. He was told that the grand jury was all about ridding baseball of the strangling menace of fixers and gamblers. Eddie knew that he and his teammates had made a terrible mistake a year before, by arranging the Fix. Whether any or all of them played to win or to lose, we may never know for sure. Eddie Cicotte broke the grand silence that had placed a cloud over baseball, and started the long process of cleansing and healing the game. Had he remained silent, the Fix of the 1919 World Series might have remained an ugly, but unproven rumor. It took courage to tell the world, “The fix was in.” 
 

Eddie Cicotte must have known that his statement that day would change not only baseball, but his own life, forever. It took some courage to speak up. So many others — including the men who ran the baseball business, or reported on it, or so many others who made their living by playing baseball — did not. It was Cicotte, not Shoeless Joe Jackson, who first said it was so, that the fix was indeed in. He surely knew that it would be nearly impossible to convince anyone that he was pitching to win Game One, which the Sox lost 9-1, and Game Four, which they lost 2-0 on his own errors. Not after admitting that he took $10,000 as a bribe to lose. There was no way to give the money back, and now there was no way to gain credibility about his intentions, once he took the mound in October 1919. He had won 21 games in 1921, but now that season was under suspicion, too.
 

A year after making a bad decision, Eddie Cicotte chose to do the right thing. After he did, he chose to move on with his life, and apparently lived it out as a respected family man, in quiet dignity. “I don’t know of anyone who ever went through life without making a mistake … I’ve tried to make up for it by living as clean a life as I could. I’m proud of the way I’ve lived and I think my family is, too.”
 

In a world where it seems harder and harder for people in the national spotlight to admit that they have made a mistake, the story of Eddie Cicotte — the full story — almost seems unbelievable. Is it that hard to accept that we are all a mix of sinner and saint, capable of both good and evil?  And that we are also capable of changing — changing ourselves, changing the world? There will always be those who condemn “the Black Sox” as if they were the only players who ever sullied baseball’s clean image. But in all fairness, the role of some of those players in restoring integrity to baseball needs to be acknowledged, too.