Scandal Revisited

A century ago, several of the Chicago White Sox took money to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Thanks to a pretty good movie made from Eliot Asinof's 1963 book Eight Men Out, most folks today think they have the facts of the story down. But as the Society for American Baseball Research shows at the linked page, there are many things about which someone could say, "Say it ain't so" and be reassured that it was indeed not so.

Both the book and the 1988 John Sayles movie exaggerate some facts, make up some others and straight-out whiff on still more. This appendix offers a more extensive list of the errors, and the SABR folks include links to several articles and more extensive research to document their charges of error.

The truth, of course, is that the broken-open scandal, representing what was at the time just part of the overall gambling problem baseball faced, could have wrecked Major League Baseball. Although owners tried to coast a little through the 1920 season they eventually realized they had to clean things up. If you can't trust the score, why watch the game? Under Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of baseball, the leagues took care of the first step they needed to clean up their game. They would not take the next step until the Brooklyn Dodgers started Jackie Robinson at first base in 1947. Although Landis had many opportunities to link his name with that historic step he never did, and left it as a credit to Happy Chandler and Branch Rickey.