This baseball betting scandal centered around eight members of the Chicago White Sox who were bribed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
The accused players were outfielders Joe "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and Oscar "Happy" Felsch, pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude "Lefty" Williams, first baseman Charles "Chick" Gandil, shortstop Charles "Swede" Risberg, third baseman George "Buck" Weaver, and pinch hitter Fred McMullin. Court records suggest that the eight players received $70,000 to $100,000 for losing five games to three.
Suspicions of a conspiracy were aired by sportswriters immediately after the 1919 World Series ended, but controversy over the allegations had died down by the beginning of the 1920 season. Then, in September, a grand jury was called to investigate various allegations of gamblers invading baseball. On Sept. 28, 1920, after Cicotte, Williams, Jackson, and Felsch admitted to the grand jury that they had thrown the 1919 series in return for a bribe, Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, suspended seven of the players (Gandil was already on suspension in a salary dispute). The indicted players stood trial in the summer of 1921 but on Aug. 3, 1921, were acquitted due to insufficient evidence — largely because key evidence, including the original confessions of the players, had disappeared from the grand jury files. On Aug. 4, 1921, the new baseball commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned the eight players from the game for life.
Few of the alleged gamblers testified at the trial, and none were themselves ever brought to trial, though the notorious New York racketeer Arnold Rothstein was mentioned in hearings as the probable banker of the bribery scheme.
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