DBWI: White Sox throw the 1919 World Series

Charles Comiskey was known for being a tough owner and a cheapskate when he ran the White Sox, and this earned him a lot of resentment from his players. Things were so bad that several members of the team were rumored to be consulting with gamblers in an effort to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, an overmatched opponent, for money Comiskey wouldn't pay them.

Pitcher Eddie Cicotte, who lost out on a substantial bonus because Comiskey ordered him benched, was to give a signal to the gamblers by hitting the first batter in Game 1. The gamblers watched and waited - no hit; instead, Cicotte set down Morrie Rath on a groundout to second, and the Sox told the gamblers they were out. The Sox went on to win the Series in six games.

It turns out there was a reason - these players were approached by a union organizer who had a different way of cutting into Comiskey's stinginess - organizing players. So after the season, the White Sox formed a union, and Comiskey realized that, if he wanted to keep a winning ball club, he had to negotiate. And after failing at hardball negotiations, Comiskey caved and paid his players.

One has to wonder how different baseball, and indeed all team sports, would be if there was no union organizer there to lure those players away from gamblers. If these players were exposed, imagine the stain left on the sport - could it even survive? Sports might be just another sideshow, with players participating in choreographed events organized by seedy thugs.
 
The legacy of many of the players would be tarnished, and Hall of Famer Shoeless Joe Jackson would never have gotten the call to Cooperstown.
 
Oh, it would probably give rise to a lot of typically American loss-off-innocence heartbreak, encapsulated by some cute phrase(probably uttered by a kid) begging to be told that it didn't really happen.
 
The legacy of many of the players would be tarnished, and Hall of Famer Shoeless Joe Jackson would never have gotten the call to Cooperstown.

I couldn't imagine the Hall without Shoeless Joe. The man is up there with Ruth in most people's view.

I also wonder if it would have had any long-term effects on baseball. For decades, the dominant forces in the AL were the White Sox and Yankees, and it was almost strange to have a World Series without one of them. Even now the Sox are the dominant team in Chicago and deservedly so, with the Cubs being the metaphor for the "other team" in a city.
 
The Cubs were, at least for much of the 20's and 30's, one of the top teams in the National League. They had their renaissance in the mid-80's when the White Sox got caught in the collusion trials that also hurt the Yankees, Dodgers, and Baltimore. Maybe they aren't the perennial challengers like the Braves, Cardinals or the Giants, but the Cubs have as much history wrapped up in them as anyone.

We can say that the success of the Chi Sox in the late 70's was the push for the Cubs to join the Bears in moving to the Soldier Field set up. That concrete donut on the lakeshore showed that the Tribune Company really had no desire to retain the history of the team. Wrigley Field was torn down almost 40 years ago and older fans still talk about it.
 
You really think people would do that? Just go on the baseball field and throw the game?

There's a rumor that the Cubs did it the year before, and it would be a great way to stick it to Comiskey. In fact, one sports historian thinks Cicotte and Williams were on board, but Arnold Rothstein backed off because Dickie Kerr and Red Faber wouldn't go along.

If the plot had gone off as planned, Ruth would have ended up in New York. He wanted out of Boston, and most of the league was boycotting Frazee. The White Sox traded Shoeless Joe and $50k for Ruth...with a scandal like that hanging over Jackson's head, Frazee would have taken New York's offer of $100k.

As good as the 1927 Yankees were, can you imagine adding Ruth to that lineup? The Pirates wouldn't have taken it to six games. I also can't see the Browns winning in 1926 either. They only finished a game ahead of the Yankees that year.
 
So George Sisler won a title?

Yep. After Frazee sold the Red Sox, Yawkey sold Shoeless Joe to St. Louis and used the money on scouting.

The AL must have been awesome to watch back then. The Yankees and Chisox were good the whole decade and the Senators, Browns, and A's all made runs at the two big dogs at different times.
 
. . . One has to wonder how different baseball, and indeed all team sports, would be if there was no union organizer there to lure those players away from gamblers. . .
If there had been rumors of a gambling schedule, the owners probably would have gone hardcore and authoritarian, probably appointing some kind of investigating committee, bullying players to participate and testify under oath under threat of being banned from baseball.

And as a side effect, this hardcore approach probably would have delayed player unionization by a decade plus.
 
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To this day, I heard news on Player's Union in Various Baseball teams. that Player's Union was formed even in KBO here and NPB in Japan. they really do a good job on raising wages for them.
 
If there had been rumors of a gambling schedule, the owners probably would have gone hardcore and authoritarian, probably appointing some kind of investigating committee, bullying players to participate and testify under oath under threat of being banned from baseball.

And as a side effect, this hardcore approach probably would have delayed player unionization by a decade plus.

I wonder what it would have done to black players. I mean, the sport wasn't GREAT to black players in the 20s and 30s before post-WWII blew the doors open for those in the "Negro Leagues" (kind of a misnomer name as lots of white players made their names in them) but the better black players made the leap to the majors. Frankly the White Sox were better off for it, since Josh Gibson was a marquee player for them.

I couldn't imagine if some hard-nosed dictator taking over baseball also turned out to be a diehard segregationist. Baseball needed the elite black players playing at the highest levels.
 
Just take a look at the NBA and the point shaving the refs were doing during the 2000 playoffs, it took 15 years for them to recover (Though that's probably a strong word with the exodus of players to the EuroLeague). I have friends who legitimately think the draft lottery is rigged to this day! Baseball, America's pasttime *TM, hell, if you wrote a TL where that sunk the league and a new baseball league rises in it's place I don't know if I'd call it ASB.
 
Just take a look at the NBA and the point shaving the refs were doing during the 2000 playoffs, it took 15 years for them to recover (Though that's probably a strong word with the exodus of players to the EuroLeague). I have friends who legitimately think the draft lottery is rigged to this day! Baseball, America's pasttime *TM, hell, if you wrote a TL where that sunk the league and a new baseball league rises in it's place I don't know if I'd call it ASB.

I hear there's another league starting around 2020 that a few of the NBA franchises are planning to jump to in order to "bring basketball back to America" but a lot of the Euro guys won't hear of it. Of course, LeBron James makes more money than he knows what to do with, especially since he signed with Barcelona, so why would he give up nine figures to come play for that new team in Cleveland? Maybe he can retire and tool around for that team (I hear they're being called the Rockers) but he'd just be doing it for his old hometown. This league is still going to be a minor league to the Euros.

Maybe things would be better here if the press hadn't leaked those pictures of David Stern hanging himself in his office...
 
Comiskey was going to have a fish-or-cut-bait decision (I should perhaps say "series of decisions") since it became known later that the entire playing roster of the Sox, including Eddie Collins (the one player getting paid his worth) were going to hold out following the 1919 world championship for salaries commensurate with their collective on-field performance. Those close to Comiskey verify that he had plans in place to trade essentially the entire roster: Collins would go to the St. Louis Browns; Cicotte and Williams, to the Phillies (wonder how long they would have lasted in Baker Bowl?); Risberg to the Boston Braves (Rabbit Maranville was getting old); Ray Schalk to the Tigers (I wonder how well he would have gotten along with Cobb?); Shoeless Joe to the Senators (imagine him and Sam Rice in the same outfield); etc.

The Sox would have been filled out by lesser players brought in from trades and (so the plans have it) Pacific Coast league players. In any event, it's doubtful that they would have been much more than a .500 club for years had that played out. At the same time, imagine a Browns lineup with Ken Williams, Baby Doll Jacobsen, Eddie Collins, and George Sisler...could see a lot of Series in the '20s in Sportsman's Park. Think of it: the AL being dominated in the '20s by Washington and St. Louis...
 
. . . before post-WWII blew the doors open for those in the "Negro Leagues" (kind of a misnomer name as lots of white players made their names in them) but the better black players made the leap to the majors. Frankly the White Sox were better off for it, since Josh Gibson was a marquee player for them.

I couldn't imagine if some hard-nosed dictator taking over baseball also turned out to be a diehard segregationist. . .
While he was still living, the historian James Michener argued the case that the very modest steps baseball took towards desegregation in the '20s and '30s added to societal momentum for much broader desegregation. I personally am not entirely convinced of this.

I do agree with him that the first major overall societal event occurred during the first year of World War II when replacement soldiers were assigned to units without regard to race starting in Oct. '41. After so many African-American soldiers and sailors served honorably in both Pacific and European theaters during the bulk of the war, including African-American women in nursing units and a couple of African-American women doctors I'm remembering from high school history, any moral case in favor of continuing segregation just evaporated.

Maybe if desegregated replacement soldiers had been delayed till the last year of the war??, and maybe if there was a bigger difference in median income between north and south due to the south remaining anti-labor-union longer??, and maybe if some southern politicians tried to make hay by stoking this resentment?? -- well, maybe. I mean, if anyone wants to do this ATL, more power to you. But I gotta tell, just don't find it all that realistic.

PS Josh Gibson was a big reason the Sox won the pennant in '45! :)
 
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Didn't the American League permaban a Sox benchwarmer for trying to arrange a fix? Gandil or something like that. Doubt anyone would have signed him anyway.
 
Didn't the American League permaban a Sox benchwarmer for trying to arrange a fix? Gandil or something like that. Doubt anyone would have signed him anyway.

Yeah but he was a blip on the radar trying to sell a fix to players who had found a legal way to get what they wanted. He's no more important to baseball history than the jokers who tried to fix a batting title race so Ty Cobb lost.
 
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