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Back to Podcast EpisodesThe Chicago Black Sox and the 1919 World Series Fix (Part One)
The Chicago Black Sox and the Scandal Surrounding the 1919 World Series
Almost one hundred years after the Black Sox scandal, the legend of Shoeless Joe Jackson, created by disingenuous journalists and burnished by Hollywood, lives on in the American imagination. An illiterate mill hand, a country boy who escaped small town poverty and obscurity as a baseball savant, Jackson is perceived as tragically victimized by wealthy owners and slickered by hustlers and cheats who took advantage of his childlike innocence. Ironically, without the backstory of the Black Sox scandal, Jackson would have been consigned to the obscurity heaped on such players as Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, Rogers Hornsby, Honus Wagner, George Sisler and many other stars of the early 20th century who now are prominent only in the consciousness of obsessive journalists or baseball historians.
It is alleged that earlier in the baseball season, Burns had spoken on several occasions with Eddie Cicotte about the possibility of fixing the World Series. Burns and his buddy Maharg knew that they could never finance such an undertaking on their own and they traveled to New York in late September in an attempt to recruit Arnold Rothstein as their financier.
All of the seven most prominent indicted White Sox lawyered up, renounced their confessions and denied their participation in a conspiracy. Only dogged pursuit of Bill Burns, funded by Ban Johnson and assisted by Billy Maharg, saved the case, the gambler finally agreeing to appear
Published on 7 years, 6 months ago