Notes #482 — Digging It Out

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

#482                                                                                                                    MARCH 30, 2009
                                               DIGGING IT OUT
 

            Once you believe that the B-Sox story has still not been fully told, reading old newspapers (or books) becomes a lot more fun. I’m in my seventh year of sifting for puzzle pieces, clues in a cold case, and I really don’t see the search ending any time soon. I do see myself exhausting the newspapers accessible via ProQuest , where much of this issue was mined. But there will be other papers, readable via inter-library loan, or on “field trips” to the cities where they lie in wait. The World Series might be inaccurately named, and folks did not come (in 1919) from all over the world; but many major cities, even those without major league teams, covered the Series. People all over America wanted to bet on it — oops, I mean, to read all about it . And that means nuggets, possibly clues, are scattered almost everywhere, for anyone interested in digging them out.
 

            This issue revisits some old questions, with fresh eyes. No, not mine, but those of folks who were there . Players, managers, reporters … what is endlessly fascinating is how differently certain plays were seen by different pairs of eyes. Remember, the seed of suspicion was planted in many a mind even before Game One, so some of those pairs were looking through a kind of lens. If you think the fix is in, every error looks intentional. Even so, accounts differ significantly.
 

            I’m also going to try in this issue a feat with a rather high degree of difficulty: Defending Lefty Williams. I’m going to focus mainly on his first game, Game Two of the series, pitched when the fix was thought to be on — at least by Bill Burns, Abe Attell and other bettors. As for Lefty — see what you think.
 

 

ON THE SCREEN OF SPORT  
 

            Hugh Fullerton fans — and I hope our numbers are growing — will recognize the headline as Hughie’s. I used it last issue, and I think I’ll keep using it until I stop finding more good stuff from Hughie.
 

            If you read a lot of B-Sox literature, here is what you might “know” about Hugh Fullerton. He was a famous “dopester” ever since he called the shots pretty well for the 1906 World Series. In October 1919, he picked his hometown Sox — Hughie wrote for the Chicago Herald & Examiner in those days — and became suspicious when he heard those swirling rumors about the fix being in. He turned sleuth, aided by Ring Lardner and Christy Mathewson, circling plays in his scorebook that didn’t look quite right. He warned against betting on the WS in his pre-Series story, and after it was over, he wrote that seven players would not be back the next spring. (He exempted Buck Weaver.) He then wrote more about his suspicions but drew scorn, and he finally had to leave Chicago, so his strongest blows of the whistle (in print) were in a New York paper, in December 1919. He was so down on baseball he wrote mostly about other sports after that. He is given credit for breaking the scandal wide open.
 

            Much of that summary is correct, but here’s what isn’t. He was not driven out of Chicago, he took on a new job with the New York World . He never stopped writing about baseball — in fact, his column, “On the Screen of Sport,” continued non-stop in the months following the WS, appearing several times a week, but not syndicated by the Chicago Tribune or NY Times ; you can find it in the Atlanta Constitution , and other papers — I believe the Chicago Journal is one. And although he blew the whistle on the fix longer and louder than almost anyone, his crusade was pretty much over as 1919 ended; other events would end the cover-up.
 

            I’ve been reading and re-reading his columns from right after the Series. On November 2, he’s looking ahead to the 1920 season, like many writers, wondering what each team will do to improve its pennant chances. Having heard Comiskey say that “seven players will not return” — something Fullerton really wanted to believe — he writes that “the White Sox will in all probability be shot to pieces. Even Gleason would be unable to get harmony in the team after what happened in the world’s series and the ill-feeling that charges and countercharges aroused.” Hughie had every confidence that Commy would follow through, and clean house. He thought two players would quit voluntarily, and Gleason would be rebuilding around Eddie Collins, Schalk, Weaver and Kerr.
 

            In his November 6 column, he writes again about the coming purge: “There are a number of this season’s players who will be missing. Events during the recent world’s series have made it impossible for some players to remain with the club. Conditions exist now that would cause civil war in the reorganization if Comiskey and Gleason desired to retain all the team.” Hughie continues:
 

Recently I wrote of a power which would compel organized baseball to clean house, to clean its skirts of suspicion and distrust and to reform itself. I was then under pledge of secrecy. However, my informant now tells me I am at liberty to state what that force is. You probably have heard of it — the power of the press.
 

            Fullerton has heard that several newspaper owners from three different cities had been talking about not letting their papers be used to boost baseball “until the owners decided to clean up.” They would print only the bare details of the games. This was tried once before, Hughie says, in Chicago, and had results in two days. Fullerton also notes that a lot of the players in the 1919 series have not yet received their checks, and nearly a month has passed. “Queer, isn’t it?”
 

            Not related exactly, but Fullerton ends his November 6 piece with a comment on Babe Ruth, already reported to be holding out. The Boston pitcher slugged 29 HRs in 1919 and was still hitting them as he toured New England. He’s getting movie contract offers, too. Hughie admits that he’s probably underpaid, but has signed a contract, so he should “grin and play it out.” Hughie heard one player talk about the players forming their own league and diving up the gate receipts among themselves — cutting out the owners. “It all tends the same way — money, money, money. Let’s organize a league to restore the sport to baseball.”
 

            On November 9, exactly one month after the tainted series, Hughie looks at the national commission and sees them as Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. They are discussing the wicked shine ball and spit ball, but not dealing with the reforms that Hughie sees as vital to the game’s survival. Such as?
 

The expulsion from baseball of every ball player connected in any way with gamblers or gambling. The immediate and searching investigation of the world’s series scandal. The barring from all connections with the game of every gambler.
 

            Comiskey was a close friend of Fullerton, and Hughie wanted to believe that Commy was really investigating, using detectives, and any day now he would announce the players he would drop. In fact, it appears Comiskey was instead keeping his own “guilty knowledge” to himself, putting his efforts into removing Ban Johnson from power, while Harry Grabiner was offering raises to all of the suspected players except Gandil. The team would make Gandil an offer he couldn’t accept; I think Gandil and Commy agreed to part ways when they talked, right after the series.
 

 

IN DEFENSE OF LEFTY  
 

            Over the past six-plus years, I have from time to time turned advocate, defending Cicotte, Jackson, Weaver, and even Chick Gandil. But I haven’t tried defending Lefty Williams. Lefty has seemed to me to be the hardest to defend, with those three L’s hanging around his neck.
 

            In his depositions for the 1924 trial, Lefty was all over the place. Put together with his grand jury statement, it is hard to believe anything he said. Somewhere between “pitched to win” and “pitched to lose” is where he came down. He said he could have pitched harder in Game Two — but did not say that he let up on purpose. He said he could not have pitched harder in Game Five. And he pitched hard in the last game, when he didn’t last the first inning.
 

            By dutifully passing on an envelope of $5,000 to his friend Joe Jackson — just following Gandil’s orders, he said — he made Jackson’s case a much steeper uphill climb. Lefty helped out some when he said he represented Jackson to the gamblers and to the other Sox involved, without Jackson’s knowledge or permission — but was that just a friend trying to do a friend a favor? Lefty gets some sympathy because (thanks to Eight Men Out ), everyone thinks he was threatened before Game Eight, and pitched poorly in order to spare his wife and himself a bullet. The evidence for that is thin, but I tend to believe Hugh Fullerton when Hughie asserted, after the scandal broke, that the whole Sox team was under the gun — that Kid Gleason had threatened to use his “iron” on anyone who was tossing. That could make a guy nervous.
 

            Known for his good control, Lefty was thought to have tilted Game Two to the Reds by walking six — three of those runners came around to score, in the 4-2 loss. Lefty threw 53 balls and 30 strikes, among his 121 pitches (I’m using Victor Luhrs’ book for this). Of the six walks, two were drawn by Edd Roush, the NL batting champ; they both led off innings, and only the second one cost him, when Roush was bunted up and singled home with two out. An 8th inning walk to Heinie Groh, another tough out, was harmless.
 

            So what bears further examination are the three fourth-inning walks. They all scored, with the key hit being a two-run triple by Kopf. OK, here’s what happened.
 

            Bottom of the fourth inning, no score. Little Morrie Rath, the Reds’ leadoff batter, immortalized because he was plunked by Cicotte the day before, walked on a 3-2 pitch. Rath never swung his bat, both strikes were called. The count went 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2. At this point, you might want to flash back to last issue, for home plate umpire Billy Evans’ take on Lefty’s control in this game: Of the four men walked, Williams didn’t throw one ball that would have been classified as a real bad pitch. Every ball delivered was at the waistline, and not one of them was over six inches inside or outside, and most of them [were] much less than that.
 

            Daubert sacrificed Rath to second. (Bunting runners up was just the way the game was played then, and even the 3-4-5 hitters were expected to do this.)  With Rath leading off second, maybe trying to steal Schalk’s signals, Heinie Groh drew a walk. The count went to 3-2 again. Asinof, in 8MO , has ball four high, other accounts very outside. But in defense of Lefty — he had Groh struck out, Schalk couldn’t hold the foul tip. (If you know the mitts catchers used in that era, it’s a surprise the caught much of anything!)  Groh was taking, took the first three pitches and was in a hole, 1-2. Then a ball, then the foul tip. Then two more balls, and runners were on first and second.
 

            Now Roush was up, and he singled up the middle, on a 3-2 pitch , scoring Rath to make it 1-0, and sending Groh to third. Up steps Pat Duncan, who turned out to be one of the batting stars of the series. Lefty got the first pitch over and Duncan swung and missed. The second pitch put Duncan in a hole, 0-2. Schalk thinks Roush is running, so he called for a pitchout, 1-2. Then ball two. Schalk then calls for another pitchout, and it works, they nail Roush trying to steal, Groh holds third. This would have been the third out, if Schalk had held onto that foul tip. Say, you don’t suppose the Cracker was — nah.
 

            Anyway, Williams walks Duncan on the next pitch, but keep in mind, two of the four balls were pitchouts, just what Schalk called for. So it appears that two of these three fatal fourth-inning walks were not really all Lefty’s fault. (In 8MO , Asinof has Roush getting tossed out, then “Williams walked Duncan on two more pitches” — suggesting that Duncan fouled off a pitch, but I think it is more likely that Asinof just lost track of the count.)
 

            Largely because of the testimony of Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, Games One and Two (and Eight) were the ones most suspected of being thrown. Burns wiped out betting on Game Three, won by the Sox, and we really do not know if the Fix was ever put back on after that, with money from St Louis and Des Moines and maybe a few bucks from New York and Boston … OK, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, too. Or Detroit, Phila — you get the idea. Anyway, many think Lefty was wild again in Game Five — but he wasn’t. He walked the leadoff batter of the game, Rath, after having him 2-2. His only other walk was in the sixth inning, and it looks to me like it was intentional — that is, there was a runner on second, first base open, one out, Groh, a tough right-handed batter up, a lefty on deck, so Groh gets passed on four straight balls.
 

            Maybe Grantland Rice should get credit for the impression passed on by Eight Men Out (and many other sources) that Lefty was “wilder today than Tarzan of the Apes” — that’s how Rice described Lefty’s Game Two performance.
 

 

            What killed Lefty is the play that followed, Felsch muffing Roush’s fly — it could have been scored an error, but they gave Roush a two-run triple instead. Again, Lefty had got his man , sort of. But those “extra” runs were not necessary after all, Hod Eller pitched a shutout. 5-0 or 1-0, either way the Sox lose.
 

            Well, that’s all I can do in defense of Lefty. He seemed to be the most underpaid of all the Sox — he was getting $500 a month (about $2,600 for the 1919 season), with a whopping bonus of $375 if he won 15 — he went 23-11, and was regarded as one of the top southpaws in the league, and maybe a tougher hurler than Cicotte. Does anybody think Lefty got a penny more than $375 for his 23 wins?  Lefty’s crummy wages stunned Judge McDonald, when Lefty made his appearance before the grand jury in 1920. (He was boosted ‘way up to $6,000 for 1920.) The defense lawyers made much of Lefty’s salary in the 1921 trial, trying for sympathy, but I don’t think his low salary makes him at all sympathetic, and that is one thing I’d never bring up in his defense. I think Lefty got into “the trouble” (his word for it) because Gandil nagged him and said that Cicotte was in it. None of these guys could have imagined the consequences that followed.
 

 

LAWYERING UP — OR DOWN  
 

            We might have a little more sympathy for Cicotte, Jackson and Williams, once the “new archive” at the Chicago History Museum is accessible, and we learn more about how each of these three players were “handled” before they testified to that Cook County grand jury in 1920. We suspect Jackson was easiest to dupe into signing away his immunity, but Eddie did it first, and Lefty did it the next day, and both pitchers could read fine. But they were convinced by the Sox’ lawyer, Alfred Austrian, to trust him , and things would be OK. He would personally escort them to Judge McDonald, and Hartley Replogle would be on their side. Right.
 

            No wonder one of the first things the trio did at the 1921 trial was to repudiate their 1920 statements. Advised by lawyers who were on their side , they all claimed that they were lied to, misled, and fooled by Austrian, McDonald and Replogle. They lost their battle to keep their 1920 statements out of the trial, but they did “win” the trial itself.
 

            When we finally get access to the transcripts from that trial (and that battle) in the CHM collection, we will need a scorecard to keep track of the lawyers on both sides. The Sox had what has been called (but not before O.J., I think) a “dream team” of lawyers. The prosecution had to lean heavily on Bill Burns. Conspiracy was a tough charge to prove. And neither side seemed much interested in digging into exactly what happened.
 

            For the record — and because we will also be seeing much new material related to the later trial, the 1924 Milwaukee case — here is the lineup from that event. For Joe Jackson, Ray Cannon of Milwaukee is assisted by James Shaw (middle initial either H or D). For the Sox, Austrian is a witness, so the defense is handled by J.E. Northrup and George B Hudnall (Chicago) and Frank McNamara of Milwaukee. I get asked this a lot — Why Milwaukee?  Because the Sox were incorporated in Wisconsin. Today, maybe in the Bahamas.
 

 

CSI: CSM   
 

            The Christian Science Monitor ( CSM ) was on the original menu of ProQuest offerings when SABR was sampling, but it did not make the cut. As a result, when SABR members enjoyed PQ as a membership benefit, CSM was not among the papers where we could research.
 

            However, it is in the package I’m now using, and just because it’s a “new” and unmined source, it is fun to explore for B-Sox nuggets. Recently I found among some CSM “Notes on the Sports Front,” December 9, 1943, a kind of editorial with an idea I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere — about the B-Sox.
 

            In ’43, the war was on every American’s mind, and that was the starting point of the CSM essay. There were rumors about gambling by pro football players, which to the unnamed writer, echoed 1919. “The foundations of the Black Sox affair were laid during the war years, when there was a free and easy attitude toward money and gambling and when many athletes felt they’d be too old to return to sports after the fighting ended.”
 

            I’ve spent a lot of hours lately sifting through the “transaction cards” of the ballplayers of the B-Sox era, where their salaries are recorded, year by year. And one impression I’ve got from this is how insecure those incomes were. An off season could mean a significant pay cut, from, say, $3,500 to $3,000. A couple bad years and a ballplayer could find himself back on the farm, or in a factory job, or digging in a mine. Many players, especially at the start of their careers, were paid by the month , and if they did not produce, could be dropped with ten days notice. It is also true that ballplayers, as poorly paid as they seem to have been paid in our eyes, were still making more than the average American. And they usually had a second job in the off season.
 

            The first World War curtailed the 1918 season (canceling games after Labor Day) and because the owners were not sure if the fans would be there in 1919, only 140 games were scheduled. Most salaries were frozen or trimmed, in anticipation of a reduced take at the gate. When the fans did return in 1919 and the turnstiles clicked better than expected, the owners did not tear up the old contracts and offer new ones. The prosperity would, however, be reflected in the 1920 contracts.
 

            I also found, in CSM , a review of Eight Men Out by sports editor Ed Rumill (8/30/1963). 8MO was an eye-opener for Ed, as it must have been for most readers; Rumill thought it should be a textbook for all athletes. He thought that Asinof had “the complete picture” — something I don’t think Eliot would have claimed. Nor did he know “exactly what happened behind those dark 1919 doors.” But one thing Asinof got right was the way gamblers and ballplayers mixed in that day — reporters, too. I think most gamblers were nice guys, just looking for tips, as they would at the race track or the boxing ringside. How’s Lefty’s arm today?
 

            What else surprised Rumill? That they players received so much bribe money (“five figures”); that nearly a whole year passed before the scandal broke (something not clear in the film version of 8MO ); that the players were found “not guilty” in the eyes of the law (but not in the eyes of baseball, Landis’). And then, the ease with which the gamblers approached the players.
 

            On that last point, it amazes me that most people believe, I think, that the Fix of October 1919 was the work of professional gamblers. But it seems that the idea originated with the players, Cicotte and Gandil and others, and they shopped it around. That was the testimony of Bill Burns, as well as Cicotte; it was something that surprised a lot of people when it became public knowledge in the 1921 trial. The players were not dumb, innocent victims, taken advantage of by preying fixers and hustlers. (Hal Chase, heavily involved, blurs the lines.) But I think we all choose to believe that baseball’s purity was sullied by outsiders. Asinof, a former ballplayer himself, wanted to believe that, I think. The “new archive” in Chicago will furnish more evidence that the fix originated with the players , but I suspect nothing will change our thinking till we have a new movie.
 

 

GAMBLING: THE NATIONAL PASTIME  
 

            Read a lot of newspapers from 1919 and you might be surprised to see how much gambling and “the odds” appear on the sports pages. For example, in the Boston Globe story by James C. O’Leary, October 3, 1919 — after the Sox have dropped the first two games — O’Leary reports right in his game account that the “setting now favors the Reds.”
 

The White Sox were a top-heavy favorite before the first game — 8 to 5 being the prevailing odds Wednesday forenoon. Wednesday night they had shifted to 6 to 5 with the Reds as the favorites. It was the same odds on today’s game and they probably will be better than that tomorrow on the series.
 

            But I love what follows next:
 

Abe Attell, who cleaned up about $2500 yesterday, repeated today, and altogether has cleaned up about $10,000 on the two days. It is said that Abe is betting George Cohan’s money. Boston fans, it is feared, are still on the wrong side of the table from their money, but the Fitchburg crowd is all smiles again tonight, which is mighty significant.
 

            A squib following the play-by-play of Game Two noted that Babe Ruth would be playing for the North Attleboro team in Game Five of their series with Attleboro. And you can bet that a lot of money changed hands when the Bambino was at the bat.
 

 

ANOTHER LOOK AT THAT KEY PLAY IN GAME ONE  
 

            In Notes #480 , “Scattered Tidbits,” I took a couple looks at the play in Game One that opened the gates for the Reds and led to Cicotte’s demise. Remember?  Cicotte fields a sure 1-6-3 double play ball, but something goes awry, and Swede’s throw to first is too late. The inning continues, Reds win.
 

            “It seems to me that this is another play where we need to collect as many different accounts as we can,” I wrote, and I’ve found a few more since then. Here is Kid Gleason’s version of that play (from the Washington Post , 10/2/19):
 

You remember in that fourth inning when all the trouble started that gave the Reds five runs, well two men were out when the thing began and there should have been three out. The Sox failed to make a double play. They can make ninety-nine times out of a hundred and it left the opening for the entire mess. Duncan was on first and one was out when Kopf smashed one right into Cicotte’s hand. Eddie had to wait a moment for Risberg to get to the bag, then he shot the ball there, and Risberg stumbled just as he got the ball and couldn’t make the regular throw to first.
 

            Gleason goes on to say Cicotte’s arm was fine, and had he escaped that fourth inning, the Kid thinks he’d have pitched the whole game. Second-guessing, Kid thought Eddie should have thrown a few more spitters instead of fast balls in the fourth. Kid noted that on the play after the missed DP, Neale hit one up the middle, a little on Eddie Collins’ side of second base. “Now Collins has gone over there many a time and got the ball, but he didn’t get there that time. Regardless of that, Risberg was there and almost got the ball with one hand, and if he had held it he would have made a play to first base and may have got his man. He’s done it before.” Looking back after the scandal, we tend to think Swede probably botched both plays on purpose. But Gleason thought Collins should have had that Neale roller. Say, you don’t suppose Cocky was — nah.
 

            Back in Notes #424 , I reported on the reaction of the famous sportswriter Grantland Rice, to the fixed series. I recently picked up Sportswriter, a 1993 biography of Rice by Charles Fountain, and can recommend it. Grant’s version of the Cicotte-Risberg play in Game One: “Eddie, instead of jumping swiftly for the ball, took his time with all the leisure of a steel striker. He made no attempt to hurry this ball along to Risberg for a sure double play….”  The sub-head of his column, Grantland Rice Tells How Eddie Cicotte Tossed Own Game Away by Failure to Field Ball Quickly , but that was likely written by someone else.
 

 

            Oh yeah, one more account of the missed DP. The Christian Science Monitor of 10/2 reported matter-of-factly, “Kopf forced Duncan at second, Cicotte to Risberg.”  Where is slo-mo instant replay when we really need it?
 

 

AND ANOTHER LOOK AT THE CICOTTE MUFFS IN GAME FOUR  
 

            Here is how Eddie Cicotte’s Game Four errors looked to someone who was pretty close — Chick Gandil, looking back in September 1956, that famous Mel Durslag Sports Illustrated interview:
 

Both of the Cincinnati runs were scored in the fifth inning, partly due to two errors by Cicotte. One was probably my fault. Eddie fielded an easy roller and threw wide to first, permitting the runner to move to second. When the next batter singled to left center, and Jackson threw to the plate to try to cut off a run, I yelled to Cicotte to intercept the throw. I felt we had no chance to get the man at home but could nail the runner now trying to reach second. Cicotte juggled the ball and all hands were safe.
 

            Most accounts I’ve read have the runner pulling up at third, and here’s another play I’d love to see in slo-mo replay, from multiple angles. (In Eight Men Out , Cicotte “interceded” — “Artfully, as if to hurry his throw to second base, he allowed the ball to deflect off his glove.” In the movie, Eddie looks guilty as sin, and maybe he was, but in my movie version, there would be reasonable doubt. Not just because Eddie said he made the errors accidentally, and was pitching to win — but also because by all accounts, even if the fix was still on for Game Four , the Sox were to win that one for Eddie.)
 

            Grantland Rice (pg 175 in that Fountain biog) wrote of the Cicotte muffs: “Strangely enough, the ancient wing held up and it was the ancient bean that went awry…. Today three mistakes in one inning, two misplays and one error of judgement, all lumped into a game-losing mass, cost him his second start.”
 

SPEAKING OF SALARIES  
 

            Fast forward to 1927. Specifically, to March 31, where Westbrook Pegler is sounding off in his Washington Post column about baseball salaries. Babe Ruth, warming up that spring and ready to hit sixty HRs, is happy pulling down $70,000. Herb Pennock, a fellow Yankee, has held out for $20,000. Rogers Hornsby wants $120,000 — no, not salary, he has to sell his stock in the Cardinals. Eddie Roush has been offered, the Reds say, a three-year contract at $20 G per year. And who is in the news again, but Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, exonerated the past winter after Landis probed their little fixing deal back in 1919. Ban Johnson wants them both out of his league, so naturally that is exactly where Landis wants them to play. Cobb signs on with Connie Mack’s A’s, Speaker joins the Washington team.
 

            But Pegler really wants to comment on a letter that has appeared in the press from Milwaukee lawyer Ray Cannon — we know him from Shoeless vs Sox in 1924 — whom Pegler calls “the Leon Trotzky of the sport business” because Cannon had tried to help the baseball players become comrades in a union. Cannon wrote that the baseball magnates were fooling the public, to regain their good will after the Cobb-Speaker affair, by publicizing Cobb’s salary at $75,000 and Spoke’s at $50 G. Cannon was sure that Cobb was not getting more than $35 G, and Speaker $25 G.
 

            Pegler’s comments remind us how baseball salaries have always been a kind of political hot potato, one which reporters must have hated to deal with, not knowing if they were being pawns for the owners, or fooled by the players. Pegler ends with this:
 

In fact, [Cannon] comes dangerously close to poisoning the well springs of healthy enthusiasm when he adds, in response to a recent remark by your correspondent, that in the year of the fake world series, four members of the White Sox received an aggregate of $12,500 a year, the inference being that the boys could not support their wives and kiddies, if any, on such wages and were driven to sin by their employer, Mr. Charles A. Comiskey.
 

            Well, I had to look up, in those Transaction Cards in Cooperstown, the actual salaries of Cobb and Speaker. Cannon was right, the public figures were inflated. Cobb was paid $50,000 (so Cannon’s $35 G was wrong), Speaker $30 G. In 1928, Cobb would receive “only” $35,000. Speaker would be cut in half, to $15 G. And in case you are curious, in 1920, when Tris Speaker led the Cleveland Indians to a world championship as a playing manager, batting .388 — he was paid $20,000.
 

 

IN THE PRESS BOX — WITH BAXTER  
 

            That’s where you’d be if you were reading the Washington Post on February 7, 1924. You’d be following the Shoeless vs Sox trial. I’m not sure just who Baxter was, but he caught up with John Heydler, back after a week in the Milwaukee courtroom.
 

            Heydler was still NL Prez, and he was upset by the tolerance of the folks in the courtroom with him, toward Jackson. (Baxter begins by reporting that others have noted “the sympathy which seems to have been created throughout the middle West for the ball players convicted of bribery.”  Well, they did not bribe anyone, the took bribes, but that was not illegal and they were not convicted of what they were charged with, conspiracy. So we wonder how closely Baxter was following things.
 

            Heydler has nothing but harsh words for Jackson, though, and that is striking. When the B-Sox scandal broke, Heydler took some heat — first, for exonerating Hal Chase, sending exactly the wrong message to ballplayers about bribery; and then, if you were following the grand jury proceedings closely, for having “guilty knowledge” about the fixed world series in May 1920, well before the grand jury convened, from a case involving two Boston Braves (NL) players who had heard about the fix from the NY Giants’ Rube Benton. Heydler sat on those affidavits. So Heydler is not that credible to me, when he pretends to be speaking for “the best interests of baseball” in 1924.
 

            “For my part,” Heydler said, “I do not wish to get into any controversy or dig any of the slime of that old scandal.” Never mind that more came out in the 1924 trial about what happened, than in the 1921 B-Sox trial. Heydler was not a digger, that is for sure; he was, however, adept at covering-up.
 

 

SPEAKING OF HEYDLER AND MILWAUKEE …  
 

            When the Cook County grand jury started their probe, one of the first things they did was ask John Heydler to come on down, and bring Rube Benton. Heydler’s response — he asked for a delay. Heydler knew that Benton was dynamite, that Rube could connect the dots to the bribery of October 1919 — as he did, when he finally took the stand.
 

            “If possible, please postpone my appearance before grand jury,” went Heydler’s telegram, as reported in the Chicago Tribune on September 22, 1920. “Personal inquiries I am making into alleged baseball scandal will take balance of this week.” Heydler could not produce Benton, either, Rube was “under orders of New York club,” and the Giants were in a pennant race. (They would finish seven games behind Brooklyn.)
 

            The Tribune reported that the grand jury would be taking a careful look at the WS of 1919. Comiskey would be asked to explain why he held up the WS checks of eight players (that tidbit was likely provided compliments of Ban Johnson). The GJ would also target the small baseball pools, and not just the “big betting by professional gamblers.” An item that follows suggests why: the U.S. government was losing out on “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from these pools, because they were not paying tax! The pools were played by an estimated 100,000 people in Chicago alone, each paying 20 to 60 cents for a ticket, giving them a chance to win big prizes, if their group of teams scored the most runs that week, or the fewest; some pools were based on the daily number of runs scored. The possibilities were endless. No wonder baseball was getting to be as beloved as the national pastime, gambling.
 

            Meanwhile, back in Milwaukee. I was re-reading Irving Vaughan’s coverage of the Shoeless vs Sox trial in 1924, in the same Chicago Tribune , and saw something I missed when I read it some years ago. Well, I saw it, but not emphasized this way.
 

            Henry (Harry) Brigham, of Glencoe, IL, the foreman of that Cook County grand jury, was put on the stand in Milwaukee. This was extremely important, because what the public believed from the time they read Say it ain’t so, Joe , was that Jackson had confessed to the grand jury that he had tossed games.
 

            But when James Shaw asked Brigham if Jackson admitted to the grand jury that he helped to throw any of the games, Brigham said no, that Jackson denied being in on the conspiracy. Because we read Jackson’s GJ statement today in some puzzlement — it is not a clear or lucid document — that testimony is vital.
 

Under further questioning by Shaw, Brigham also admitted that Jackson had testified before the grand jury of his willingness to come to Chicago after the series and give what information he could. Brigham also said that the grand jury had made no investigation of Comiskey’s conduct pertaining to the running down of the rumors of crookedness in the games with the Reds.
 

            Judge McDonald had said that Jackson told him, before going to the grand jury, that he had made some misplays, but nothing that the ordinary person could observe; and that he did not play his best. McDonald was not present when Jackson told the grand jury, a little later, that he played the series to win.
 

            I revisited my notes from the transcripts of the 1924 Milwaukee trial, Brigham’s testimony. Here they are; the numbers in parentheses refer to the Milwaukee Trial (MT) transcript pages, and someday I hope we can all look them up!
 

HARRY BRIGHAM(GJ foreman) JJ gave his best effort. Pressed by Shaw, Brigham says GJ did not pursue Commy investigation or lack of. Asked if the GJ nearly indicted Commy, “No he was liberal and cooperative” [with the GJ].
(MT 652) “He didn’t admit [to the GJ] that he threw the games … or any game.”
(MT 655) “Did he [JJ] testify in substance that he was making his best effort all through the play? A: Yes.”
BRIGHAM verified (MT 655) that JJ mentioned to the grand jury his offer to come to Chicago in fall 1919. [JJ’s lawyers got on Brigham & the GJ for not digging more into Comiskey’s investigation. Brigham seemed a bit sorry, said he didn’t know the GJ could have been more aggressive, they were letting others ask most of the questions.]
 

 

THE 1924 TRIAL WAS NOT THE END OF THE LINE  
 

            As we know, the Milwaukee jury found 11-1 for Jackson, but the judge tossed (no pun intended) the verdict, because he said Jackson had perjured himself — telling a different version of things in the Milwaukee courtroom, than he told to the grand jury in 1920. Actually, Jackson’s 1920 statements were contradictory, so he was doomed, once that was admitted in the 1924 trial. The case was later settled out of court.
 

            But eight months later, at the end of October 1924, Happy Felsch and Joe Jackson sued again — this time, they wanted their share of their second-place money from 1920. (Felsch also claimed that he was owed a missing paycheck from that last season.) They sued Baseball, Ray, in the person of Judge Landis. The Judge, although he was the highest authority in baseball, and an absolute one at that, passed this particular buck to the club owners. The back pay was just under $700 (plus interest, another thousand bucks), and Ban Johnson said “Pay em!” — let’s not get 1919 back into the news!  Irving Vaughan is still following this, and you can read his reports in the Chicago Tribune .
 

            Landis had gone back and read the minutes from an owners meeting in December 1922, where this issue of withholding the money from the banned players was discussed. The owners were unanimous in wanting to punish the players in this way, even voting to support Landis if he was ever sued over it — as he was. What was interesting, to Vaughan (and me), was that Landis agreed to testify, putting him in Ray Cannon’s cross-hairs. The Judge was accompanied by none other than George B. Hudnall, the magician-lawyer who produced Jackson’s GJ statement out of the thin air of his briefcase, in the 1924 trial.
 

            Landis, “to use his own expression, kept his shirt on” and handled Cannon’s shots coolly. He recalled asking Ban Johnson and Heydler in April 1922 about the $4,800 in dispute — that is seven shares of $685.79 each. Johnson said he thought the money should be paid to the players at once; John Heydler had the opposite view. Seven months later, he put the question to all the owners.
 

            Cannon then asked Landis point blank what proof he had that the suspended Sox had committed an offense “that justified declaring them ineligible.” Landis said that he read the newspapers, and was given information by the prosecuting attorneys in Cook county, where the players had been indicted. He himself had made no separate investigation. He put a lot of weight on the players statement to the grand jury — which most folks thought were confessions of throwing games, but which we know today were not that at all. Landis then gave Ban Johnson a lot of credit for bringing “the true story of the crooked series” to light. Vaughan:
 

Cannon touched a tender spot when he asked whether Landis had ever made any investigation of Comiskey’s playing of the Black Sox for almost a full season after the 1919 series. The commissioner said that he hadn’t because he was satisfied that the club had done all in its power to run down the rumors that persisted throughout the winter following the framed up series.
 

            When Vaughan says Landis “kept his shirt on,” he refers to the public spat the month before between Ban Johnson and the Commish. At the end of 1924 season, the NY Giants were in the news for offering a bribe to the Phils, to help them win the NL pennant. Young Jimmy O’Connell, who batted .317 in his second season in the bigs, admitted making the $500 offer, saying that he was just following orders, and he implicated several of his teammates, including Frankie Frisch. It was probably a prank, but Baseball (Landis) had no sense of humor — does it today?  This was like making a joke about a bomb when you are boarding an airplane. Landis suspended and ultimately banned O’Connell, as well as Giant coach Cozy Dolan, who ticked off the Commish by using what was later called the Ronald Reagan defense, he just couldn’t remember a thing.
 

            The Giants won the pennant, but Ban Johnson thought that this incident tainted the Giants, and he pressed Landis to bar McGraw’s men from the World Series. Landis refused, and Johnson called him (off the record, I think, but a reporter heard) a “wild-eyed nut” — to which Landis replied, “Keep your shirt on.” Johnson boycotted the Series, and for good measure, released an old affidavit from Boston catcher Lou Criger in which he said he was offered a bribe of $15,000 before the 1903 World Series — the very first one.
 

            The same month that Vaughan reported on the new lawsuit by the Sox, in the November 12 Trib , he had another colorful story, this time putting the “war” between Johnson and Comiskey back in the spotlight. Commy was in Paris, so he may have thought that he was off the record — but his remark got back to the USA. Commy thought Johnson’s idea to ban the Giants from the 1924 WS was “idiotic.” Maybe that’s a rough translation from the French.
 

            Vaughan immediately went to Johnson, pouring as much gas on the fire as he could pour in one column. Johnson’s basic reply was — if I can translate a bit — “Look who’s talking.”  Commy had no credibility when it came to keeping baseball clean. “If any man ever talked out of turn when the question of baseball integrity was involved, Comiskey is the man, in view of all that has happened and all that the world knows.”
 

            Johnson goes on to day that “it seems unfortunate that the national commissioner was not sufficiently informed of the facts that would have made possible the calling off of the series of 1919.”  He goes on to accuse Commy of valuing the dollar — the record gate receipts of the WS — over the game’s integrity. This is a bit hypocritical, I think, since Johnson appeared to have the same “guilty knowledge” as Commy, and was in a better position to do something about it than the Sox owner. And who thinks Garry Herrmann had any less knowledge?  Not me.
 

            Johnson rakes Commy over the coals a few more paragraphs, ending with a curious comment. He notes that the recent scandal, the Dolan-O’Connell affair, “indicates that the barring of the Sox players wasn’t sufficient lesson for all those who depend on the game for a livelihood.”  And that missile was aimed at Landis, who chose to think that problems with gambling were a thing of the past — even when they kept popping up. Johnson had aligned himself with Bert Collyer and Collyer’s Eye (and Hugh Fullerton), in taking bribe rumors seriously and calling for extra vigilance. Landis preferred to keep his shirt on — over his ears and eyes.
 

 

BASEBALL’S INELIGIBLE LIST  
 

            A week after Vaughan splashed the Chicago Tribune’s pages with Commy’s “idiotic” remark and Johnson’s retaliation, James Crusinberry reported that O’Connell and Dolan had been “added to the roster of the ‘Black Sox'” — a list which now numbered eleven. We’ve looked for some kind of official baseball “blacklist” here before, concluding that it may be as real as the Baseball Writers Wing at Cooperstown; and if it does exist, Hal Chase is not on the list.
 

            According to Crusinberry, neither is Chick Gandil. That’s right, he has the other seven men out , but not Gandil. The foursome that makes the total eleven includes newcomers Dolan and O’Connell, Shufflin’ Phil Douglas, and Eugene Paulette. None of the Louisville Four of 1877 are mentioned either, but here is why: Crusinberry is looking at the reserve lists, just given out to the press by Landis’ secretary, Leslie O’Connor. O’Connell and Dolan are “tacked on the end of a general ineligible list.” There are lots of players listed as ineligible, Crusinberry notes, every team has some, but they are just deserters who left their clubs to play elsewhere; they can be forgiven and reinstated, but there is “no chance for any one on the other list … everyone knows that list is black.”
 

            Crusinberry explains Gandil’s absence like this: Chick was out of baseball “when the exposure was made, having quit after the 1919 season.”
 

            But I don’t think Crusinberry had it right. Landis never really told the banned Sox that they could not apply for reinstatement. In fact, he told them what criteria he would use, if they did apply — and some did. I think Landis’ mind was closed, however, so in effect the banned players were doomed to remain banned as long as Landis was the Commish.
 

            What surprises me about the O’Connell-Dolan incident is how John McGraw and the Giants failed to defend their young player, for whom they had paid $75,000. Was McGraw worried that the $500 bribe that O’Connell admitted offering to the Phils’ Heinie Sand, would be traced back to his wallet, giving Landis grounds to ban McGraw?  (O’Connell certainly didn’t have the $500 himself.)  Did McGraw worry that if the prank was fully explained, he might lose his star infielder Frisch, along with Ross Young and George Kelly — a risk he could not afford to take?  Cozy Dolan sought legal advice — McGraw’s lawyer Fallon, I think, “the Great Mouthpiece” whom Arnold Rothstein sometimes consulted but would not trust enough to hire. There was a threat of a lawsuit, but it never went that far. I suspect McGraw helped both O’Connell and Dolan, but far away from the public eye.
 

            Following up some on O’Connell-Dolan, I found an item in the Hartford Courant (October 25, 1925) which illustrates how quickly B-Sox things got confused. Sports editor Jack Sheehan asks in a headline, the musical question, “Why Bet on Professional Sport?”  He then distinguishes between the gambling that “gives an additional thrill to any sport” (and makes horse-racing), and the “professional” betting of huge sums by men who make their living by betting. Sheehan is a realist — gambling cannot be eliminated, taking away liquor, cigarettes and cigars would be far easier. But the “sure thing” guys need to be kept away from sports.
 

            But Sheehan goes on to describe Eddie Cicotte — not Shoeless Joe — emerging from the grand jury courtroom and confronting a boy, who says — ready? — “Say it ain’t true, Eddie.”  Hey, maybe Sheehan had it right, and the wire reports got it wrong. “Say it ain’t true, Eddie” just doesn’t rhyme like “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”  Oh well. Maybe Sheehan inserted Eddie Cicotte’s name in the “Say it ain’t so” story because he had his photo handy.
 

            Sheehan also recalls O’Connell-Dolan, commenting that George Kelly, who hit .309 with 20 HR and 99 RBIs in 1925, would probably lose the NL MVP award because his name had been mixed up in that affair. (Frisch hit .331, and I have read similar speculation about him, how his association with O’Connell-Dolan hurt his chances for national recognition.) Here, we see “The Mitchell Report Effect” — once suspected, a reputation is damaged forever, even if exonerated and found wholly innocent. A good reason for respecting confidentiality — that goes for grand jury testimony, too.