BASEBALL SCANDALS
Hank Greenberg
Hank Greenberg was a Jewish baseball player from the 1930's and1940's. In 1938 his 58 homers fell 2 short of Babe Ruth's 60 home runs. Many people were outraged and said that he would have made the 60 home runs if the pitchers didn't keep walking him. They thought that the pitchers kept walking him because they didn't want a Jewish player to beat Babe Ruth's record.
White Sox of 1919
The White Sox of 1919 contained Eddie Ciotte, Lefty Williams, Chick Gandil, Buck Weaver, Swede Risberg, Oscar Happy Felsh, Fred McMullen, and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. They threw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.
They were persuaded to take money to throw the game, because their manager, Charles Comiskey, paid terribly. The bonus he promised for the 1917 pennant was a case of cheap champagne. Before the 1919 season, first baseman Chick Gandil was promised $10,000 by Comiskey if he won 30 games. After 29 games, Gandil was benched. The players started resenting Comiskey.
September 18th, the World Series fix was planned in Gandil's room in Boston's Hotel Buckminster. Gandil called for gambler Joseph "Sport" Sullivan and told him: "I think we can put it in the bag." Gandil asked for $80,000 and later raised it to $100,000. He told Eddie Ciotte and offered him $10,000 to go along with him. Gandil also sold the idea to Williams and Risberg. McMullin overheard Gandil and asked if he could be in on it. Weaver apparently came to some meetings, but refused to participate. Jackson told Gandil he refused to go along with the scheme and even refused when the offer was doubled. Gandil supposedly told Jackson to take it or leave it, because the fix was in anyway. Gandil may have fibbed and said Jackson was part of the scheme. This was important because Jackson was the star of the team.
Gandil was told he would receive pay before the first game, but Sullivan couldn't pay him yet, because he didn't have the money. So, he brought in other gamblers and Arnold Rothstein. Rothstein said he would bet on anything he could fix, and he provided most of the money.
The night before game 1, (which was a series best out of nine) Cicotte was paid ten thousand dollars. The other players were not paid up front. Cicotte's signal that the fix was in, would be hitting the Red's lead off batter Morrie Rath. The Red's hammered Cicotte 9-1.
The gamblers did not pay out the money they owed, telling the players that it was out on bets. They still agreed to throw game 2. Williams lost 4-2. That night, Gandil demanded the forty thousand dollars he and his teammates were owed. The players were mad when they found out Gandil was paid and they were not paid. The decided to try to win the next game. Rookie Dickie Kerr pitched a three-hitter, winning game three 3-0.
Sullivan came up with an additional twenty thousand dollars to split among Risberg, Gandil, Felsch, and Williams. He promised another twenty thousand if they lost game four. Cicotte lost 2-0 and the Williams lost the fifth game 5-0. They never got the twenty thousand dollars and decided to play to win, beating the Reds 5-4 and 4-1 in games 6 and 7. Rothstein was mad and sent a thug to tell Williams, the starter for game 8, that if he lasted the first inning something would happen to him and maybe even his wife. The Reds won 10-5, clinching the World Series because of the terrified Williams.
Newspapers printed stories stating that the games were fixed. The owners denied that the games were fixed. There was a trial that followed. Jackson and Cicotte told the Grand Jury about their roles in the scandal. Gandil, who was the leader, did not admit anything. All eight players and several gamblers (not Rothstein) were brought to court for defrauding the public. They were all acquitted because transcripts of the testimonies of Jackson and Cicotte had disappeared from the court files. Without this evidence, the charges were dropped. All eight players were banned from ever playing organized baseball again.
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Pete Rose
In 1989 Pete Rose was banned from baseball by commissioner A. Barlett Giamatti. There was strong evidence against Rose, testimony that he had bet on his own players while managing, phone records of calls to known bookies moments before ballgames, and a betting slip filled out in Rose's own handwriting covered with his fingerprints. Giamatti used all that against Rose's defense and banned him from baseball for "a variety of acts which have stained the game." Rose is continuing his efforts to be reinstated in organized baseball at the present time.