Quote:
Originally Posted by IndyNorm
No worries and no need to edit your post. And my bad for being stubborn on my stance. FWIW - I learned a lot from your posts on the subject and it piqued my interest enough to do some google searches and read some articles.
The book is actually about the civil trial where Shoeless Joe sued Charles Comiskey a couple of years after the Black Sox trial. I didn't know that this took place; guessing you did though. Anyway, based on the article the book is from recently found transcripts of the civil trial, so thought it would interest you.
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o
I know about the civil trial in 1924, in which Shoeless Joe Jackson successfully sued Charles Comiskey and the White Sox ...... he was awarded $17,000 in damages by the jury.
The likely reason why that lawsuit was downplayed and not widely-known is because it didn't fit the sexy, traditional narrative of Jackson and all of his teammates necessarily being crooked and of Landis subsequently "cleaning up baseball" by banning all 8 players, including Buck Weaver and Shoeless Joe ...... if anything, the jury's judgment in his favor would lend credibility to the notion that Jackson played to the best of his abilities, and that he took steps to distance himself from the fix (including telling Manager Kid Gleason that he wasn't going to play in the series at all, until Gleason coerced him into it.)
In the trial, it was revealed that not only did Jackson not ask for the $5,000 that was given to him by his teammate Lefty Williams, but that he actually went to Charles Comiskey's office to try to give the money back in order to distance himself from the notion that he threw the games ...... before he got a chance to talk to Comiskey and give the money to him, he was intercepted by Comiskey's weasel secretary, Harry Grabiner. Grabiner told the illiterate and naive Jackson that
"We know what you want. We don't want you here." Jackson then asked Grabiner what he should do with the crooked money. Grabiner replied,
"Why, you should keep it."
All of this revealed that team owner Charlie Comiskey knew about the fix since the end of the second game of the World Series, and allowed all of the 8 accused players to continue to play not only for the remaining games of the series, but also for an entire additional season in 1920 ...... Comiskey didn't suspend the 8 players until late September of 1920, when the story broke and hit the newspapers nationwide ...... Kenesaw Landis, who was not stupid, was well aware of all of these happenings when he banned the 8 players for life, but he (once again) conveniently decided to ignore the fact that Charles Comiskey was complicit in covering up the fix after the fact. If Landis was truly cleaning up the game as he claimed that he was, he would have banned Charles Comiskey from baseball for life also (and yes, Landis
DID have the authority to do that, because he insisted on getting a lifetime contract by the owners
AND that he have
ABSOLUTE POWER ...... Landis said that he would not take the job unless he had both of those contingencies.) To this day, Landis remains the only commissioner in the history of MLB to have
BOTH absolute power
AND a lifetime contract.
So, as Old Colt alluded in the thread on the main board, if this all sounds like a typical example of American capitalist, life isn't fair, the wealthy control the narrative while the working-class gets pissed on while doing all of the work status quo, then there is a good reason for it, because it is.
o