Ballard and Steichen are safe

[IndyNorm]

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles

o


As a Black Sox expert, the first thing that needs to be said about that entire situation is that there are many things about the entire affair that nobody will ever know for sure (including myself.)

That said, both Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver very likely played to win. In fact, Jackson set what was then a World Series record with 12 hits, batted .375 for the series, hit the only home run of the series for either team, and did not make an error on defense. Similarly, Weaver batted .324, did not make an error on defense, and by all accounts played his best to win (not easy to do, knowing that 6 of your teammates are intentionally throwing games.)

Weaver never took a dime, repeatedly asked for a separate trial from his teammates to prove his innocence (of which he was denied), and appealed to the MLB commissioners (Kenesaw Landis, Happy Chandler, and Ford Frick) every year until his death in 1956 to have himself reinstated (all of his appeal were denied.)

Jackson was given $5,000 in an envelope by his best friend and teammate (Lefty Williams) ........ money that he never asked for, and that he did not want. In fact, he even tried to give the money to the team owner (Charlie Comiskey) and report the entire scandal to him but he was intercepted by Harry Grabiner (Comiskey's secretary), who told Jackson that Comiskey had nothing to say to him (even though he had offered a $10,000 reward for anyone giving him any information on the fix.) At that point, Jackson decided that he simply wasn't going to play in the series because of the fix that he knew that his teammates were complicit in. His manager (Kid Gleason) screamed at Jackson that he would play ....... Gleason's statement was not a prediction or a request, it was a threat. The uneducated, illiterate Jackson buckled under the pressure of his manager and owner, and played all 8 games of the series to the best of his ability, but (like teammate Buck Weaver) was not comfortable in doing so.

As stated before, there are still many aspects of the entire affair that people do not know, and will never find out. However, based on the numerous books, articles, and films that I have read and seen, and the people that I have spoken with (I actually called a man named Gardner Stern on the telephone just before he died in 1996 who lived in Chicago his entire life, and who was 16 years-old at the time of the fix, and I spoke extensively with him about it), Jackson and Weaver both played to win, in spite of the pressure of the situation that was on them.



************************************


Me and Gardner Stern


In regard to Gardner Stern, this man ......


A. ) Saw the first game ever at THE ORIGINAL Comiskey Park in April of 1910, when he was 6 and-a-half years old.

B. ) Had his heart broken when it was found out that his beloved White Sox had thrown the 1919 World Series (he in fact went to one of those World Series games against the Reds.)



As I said earlier, his name was Gardner Stern. He was born in 1904, was a life-long White Sox fan, and was a guest in Ken Burns' baseball documentary.

I simply called information for Chicago, Illinois (in 1996), asked for his phone number, and he was nice enough to talk to me for about 20 minutes about the entire Black Sox scandal, plus his lifelong fandom of the White Sox ...... he died just a few months after our conversation.

o

Interesting info C&O and really cool story about your conversation w/ Gardner Stern. Definitely really nice of him to share his story w/ you. Unfortunately that probably wouldn't happen today due to all of the scam and spam calls everyone gets.

I knew that Buck Weaver didn't take the bribe and played to win, but that he was banned w/ his teammates under the pretense that he knew about the fix and didn't turn them in. Also, I knew that there's a lot of controversy on whether Sholess Joe threw games or not and that he overall played well, but I didn't know he played that well.

Regarding Landis "cleaning up baseball", that is a fallacy that is greatly exaggerated, and I'll explain why ......

Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were permitted by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to resign from their player-manager posts near the end of the 1926 season after former pitcher Dutch Leonard charged that Cobb, Speaker, and Smoky Joe Wood had joined him just before the 1919 World Series in betting on a game they all knew was fixed. Leonard presented letters and other documents to Commissioner Landis and AL President Ban Johnson, and Johnson thought that they would be so potentially damaging to baseball in the wake of the Black Sox scandal that he paid Leonard $20,000 to have them suppressed. Landis, who proposed to have a "zero tolerance policy" when he was hired as the Commissioner of MLB in direct response to the Black Sox scandal, did everything that he could to cover up and gloss over the Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker/Smoky Joe Wood incident for fear that the American public would be completely disillusioned about the authenticity of the game, because it would have been the second major game-fixing scandal in the same time period of time.

So while Landis is in Baseball Hall-of-Fame for allegedly cleaning up baseball, the fact of the matter was that was a racist, bigoted grandstander who gets far more credit than he actually deserves in regard to his overall legacy in the history of professional baseball.

Interesting. I'll have to read up on the Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker incident.

And Landis may have been a total asshole and gets too much credit, but I think he definitely deserves at least some credit for saving baseball. At least from my understanding the Black Sox had gotten away w/ the whole thing scott free until Landis stepped in and laid down the hammer. If he (or perhaps someone else) had not done this then the flood gates would have been wide open for fixing games, which IMO would have ended baseball.

Anyway, interesting stuff. I'll definitely do some more reading on this as it's piqued my interest. Also, there's a historical walking tour in downtown Cincy on the 1919 World Series I had forgotten about until our conversation here. I'll have to plan on going on it here in the spring or summer.

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

Interesting ...... I'll have to read up on the Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker incident.

And Landis may have been a total asshole and gets too much credit, but I think that he definitely deserves at least some credit for saving baseball. At least from my understanding, the Black Sox had gotten away with the whole thing scott-free until Landis stepped in and laid down the hammer. If he (or perhaps someone else) had not done this, then the flood-gates would have been wide open for fixing games, which IMO would have ended baseball.

o


Landis was not the reason why the Black Sox avoided getting away with the fix. The story went viral/nationwide in late September of 1920. With only 3 games left to be played in the regular season, Charlie Comiskey suspended all 8 players, pending further investigation. Landis was not in the picture at all until well after that ...... in other words, the genie was already out of the bottle, action had already been taken against the 8 accused players, and Landis had nothing to do with it.

The MLB owners, fearing an extremely damaging blow to baseball because of the fix, hired Landis after the fact (after the fix had been exposed, and action had been taken against the 8 accused players) in order to try to give some credibility to the game. After the 8 accused players were exonerated in a court of law in 1921, Landis banned them all from MLB for life.

Landis' inaction and willful ignorance of the Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker fixing incident completely belies the notion that he banned the 8 Black Sox players to preserve the moral integrity of the game ...... it was nothing more than Landis grandstanding after the fact, and he cared not about the integrity of the game, but rather was doing what was expedient at the time.




****************************



In regard to the possibility of baseball not surviving had the 8 accused White Sox players not been banned, it is highly unlikely that baseball would have met its end had they not been banned ...... basketball survived the Tim Donaghy scandal (a referee who was actively fixing games with his officiating because he bet on them) without blinking. Since then, numerous basketball players and coaches have all been indicted for gambling on games that they were playing in and coaching in as well (Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups, and Damon Jones, etc), and the game is still going strong, and attendance and TV ratings haven't missed a beat ...... Americans love their sports, and gambling, fixing games, and/or other ridiculousness such as the NFL rule changes neutering defenses and vaulting quarterbacks into putting up statistics that resemble a pinball game gone wild won't stop them from coming through the gates by the thousands, and tuning in on their TV sets by the millions.

o

[Oldcolt]

C&O You obviously know so much more about this than I do. Ive read a couple of books about the era. Two questions for you. I agree he did very little but how important was the public perception that he totally cleaned up baseball (at least the vast general public). Second question is what you think of Honus Wagner? I understand this is a Colt board but you are the first person Ive come across that seems interested in prewar sports. Apologize for this to you Freaks

[Kray007]

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles

o


Landis was not the reason why the Black Sox avoided getting away with the fix. The story went viral/nationwide in late September of 1920. With only 3 games left to be played in the regular season, Charlie Comiskey suspended all 8 players, pending further investigation. Landis was not in the picture at all until well after that ...... in other words, the genie was already out of the bottle, action had already been taken against the 8 accused players, and Landis had nothing to do with it.

The MLB owners, fearing an extremely damaging blow to baseball because of the fix, hired Landis after the fact (after the fix had been exposed, and action had been taken against the 8 accused players) in order to try to give some credibility to the game. After the 8 accused players were exonerated in a court of law in 1921, Landis banned them all from MLB for life.

Landis' inaction and willful ignorance of the Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker fixing incident completely belies the notion that he banned the 8 Black Sox players to preserve the moral integrity of the game ...... it was nothing more than Landis grandstanding after the fact, and he cared not about the integrity of the game, but rather was doing what was expedient at the time.




****************************



In regard to the possibility of baseball not surviving had the 8 accused White Sox players not been banned, it is highly unlikely that baseball would have met its end had they not been banned ...... basketball survived the Tim Donaghy scandal (a referee who was actively fixing games with his officiating because he bet on them) without blinking. Since then, numerous basketball players and coaches have all been indicted for gambling on games that they were playing in and coaching in as well (Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups, and Damon Jones, etc), and the game is still going strong, and attendance and TV ratings haven't missed a beat ...... Americans love their sports, and gambling, fixing games, and/or other ridiculousness such as the NFL rule changes neutering defenses and vaulting quarterbacks into putting up statistics that resemble a pinball game gone wild won't stop them from coming through the gates by the thousands, and tuning in on their TV sets by the millions.

o

Expecting Landis to take action before the trial was unreasonable. He was a Federal judge and would have been hesitant to make any move that might taint a trial.

Within hours of the verdict, he announced the ban.

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by Kray007

Expecting Landis to take action before the trial was unreasonable. He was a Federal judge and would have been hesitant to make any move that might taint a trial.

Within hours of the verdict, he announced the ban.

o


I never said or insinuated that Landis should have taken action before he was called in by the owners. I said that he was called in AFTER action had already been taken (Comiskey banned the 8 players in September of 1920, which was long before Landis was called in.) Landis was called in strictly for cosmetic purposes, to give the illusion that he was cleaning up baseball. And if you read my previous posts, you would see that there was irrefutable proof that he intentionally ignored the Ty Cobb-Tris Speaker game-fixing incident, an incident that literally had written proof of the fix. Kennesaw Landis was as phony and as disingenuous as any person associated with the crookedness of baseball at that time.

Also, if you know anything about Landis as a Federal Judge, you would know that he was known for grandstanding with ridiculous verdicts that he knew would be overturned (such as the 1907 Standard Oil case, which was overturned in 1908.) The man was as phony, transparent, and as bigoted as they come.

o

[Oldcolt]

C&O Man life just isn't fair in the least. While alive anyway. I think folks like you are at least changing the narrative on these people now. What you have said jibes and clarifies what I have read. To bad you don't live in Arizona.

[Kray007]

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles

o


I never said or insinuated that Landis should have taken action before he was called in by the owners. I said that he was called in AFTER action had already been taken (Comiskey banned the 8 players in September of 1920, which was long before Landis was called in.) Landis was called in strictly for cosmetic purposes, to give the illusion that he was cleaning up baseball. And if you read my previous posts, you would see that there was irrefutable proof that he intentionally ignored the Ty Cobb-Tris Speaker game-fixing incident, an incident that literally had written proof of the fix. Kennesaw Landis was as phony and as disingenuous as any person associated with the crookedness of baseball at that time.

Also, if you know anything about Landis as a Federal Judge, you would know that he was known for grandstanding with ridiculous verdicts that he knew would be overturned (such as the 1907 Standard Oil case, which was overturned in 1908.) The man was as phony, transparent, and as bigoted as they come.

o

My understanding is that Cobb and Speaker didn’t ever throw a game, they just bet on one they believed was fixed.

As far as ignoring it, the fact is that after the scandal came to Landis’s attention, neither man ever managed another game.

And, I’m just curious; what could Landis have done differently in the Black Sox scandal?

[IndyNorm]

Landis was not the reason why the Black Sox avoided getting away with the fix. The story went viral/nationwide in late September of 1920. With only 3 games left to be played in the regular season, Charlie Comiskey suspended all 8 players, pending further investigation. Landis was not in the picture at all until well after that ...... in other words, the genie was already out of the bottle, action had already been taken against the 8 accused players, and Landis had nothing to do with it.

The MLB owners, fearing an extremely damaging blow to baseball because of the fix, hired Landis after the fact (after the fix had been exposed, and action had been taken against the 8 accused players) in order to try to give some credibility to the game. After the 8 accused players were exonerated in a court of law in 1921, Landis banned them all from MLB for life.

This is what I was getting at. You obviously are much more knowledgeable on the subject than I am so please correct me if I'm wrong, but since the courts found them not guilty wouldn't the Black Sox players have been allowed to continue playing if Landis had not have banned them? Obviously allowing them back on the field would have been extremely detrimental to the game.

Landis' inaction and willful ignorance of the Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker fixing incident completely belies the notion that he banned the 8 Black Sox players to preserve the moral integrity of the game ...... it was nothing more than Landis grandstanding after the fact, and he cared not about the integrity of the game, but rather was doing what was expedient at the time.

Like Kray I think you're missing some nuance here. Here's a summary I found in this ESPN article: https://www.espn.com/classic/s/2001/0730/1233060.html

1926 - Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were permitted by Ban Johnson to resign from baseball near the end of the 1926 season after former pitcher Dutch Leonard charged that Cobb, Speaker and Smoky Joe Wood had joined him just before the 1919 World Series in betting on a game they all knew was fixed. Leonard presented letters and other documents to Johnson, and Johnson thought they would be so potentially damaging to baseball in the wake of the Black Sox scandal that he paid Leonard $20,000 to have them suppressed. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis exposed the cover-up and the eventual fallout forced Johnson out his job as president of the league he had created. Cobb and Speaker vehemently denied any wrongdoing, Cobb saying that "There has never been a baseball game in my life that I played in that I knew was fixed,? and that the only games he ever bet on were two series games in 1919, when he lost $150 on games thrown by the Sox. He claimed his letters to Leonard had been misunderstood, that he was merely speaking of business investments. Landis took the case under advisement and eventually let both players remain in baseball because they had not been found guilty of fixing any game themselves. It was after this case, though, that Landis instituted the rule mandating that any player found guilty of betting on baseball would be suspended for a year and that any player found to have bet on his own team would be barred for life. Cobb later claimed that the attorneys representing him and Speaker had brokered their reinstatement by threatening to expose further scandal in baseball if the two were not cleared.

****************************

In regard to the possibility of baseball not surviving had the 8 accused White Sox players not been banned, it is highly unlikely that baseball would have met its end had they not been banned ...... basketball survived the Tim Donaghy scandal (a referee who was actively fixing games with his officiating because he bet on them) without blinking. Since then, numerous basketball players and coaches have all been indicted for gambling on games that they were playing in and coaching in as well (Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups, and Damon Jones, etc), and the game is still going strong, and attendance and TV ratings haven't missed a beat ...... Americans love their sports, and gambling, fixing games, and/or other ridiculousness such as the NFL rule changes neutering defenses and vaulting quarterbacks into putting up statistics that resemble a pinball game gone wild won't stop them from coming through the gates by the thousands, and tuning in on their TV sets by the millions.

Tim Donaghy is banned for life from the NBA, and Rozier, Billups, and Jones are all suspended indefinitely and will likely be banned as well if found guilty. Pretty sure the NBA would take a HUGE hit if they were all allowed back into the league right now.

The point I was making is that if the Black Sox players would have been allowed to remain playing with only a minor tap on the wrist then there would have been nothing to prevent Arnold Rothstein or someone like him from fixing 1921 World Series, or the '22 Series, and on and on and on. Maybe someone else would have banned the players as well or the players would have been black listed, but since Landis is the one who banned them IMO you have to give him credit for it.

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

This is what I was getting at. You obviously are much more knowledgeable on the subject than I am so please correct me if I'm wrong, but since the courts found them not guilty wouldn't the Black Sox players have been allowed to continue playing if Landis had not have banned them ??? Obviously allowing them back on the field would have been extremely detrimental to the game.

o


Yes, they would have been allowed to continue to play ....... and the game would have survived and even thrived, with or without them.

If you ever saw the movie "Quiz Show" (or read books on the subject) one poignant point of the movie is when Martin Scorsese's character (Martin Rittenhome, top executive of the Geritol company) tells a disillusioned Richard Goodwin that the public has a short memory, but the networks never forget. While Goodwin was trying to assert that the television careers of Dan Enright, Martin Freedman, and Jack Barry were over due to their involvement in the fixing of game shows, Scorsese/Rittenhome was predicting that they would all be back ....... and they were ...... in fact, both Jack Barry and Dan Enright later became multimillionaires in the early 1970's with a game show called Joker's Wild ...... not only were they back in television, but they were specifically back with (of all things) another game show.

The same is true of baseball, basketball, boxing, or any other major sport regarding scandals ...... if any of those players and/or coaches who are currently accused of wrongdoing/gambling on games ever came back to the NBA based on even the slightest presumption of innocence, the NBA would not cease to exist, or even be huirt at the box office ....... as I said before, the American public loves their sports, and no amount of scandal ...... not even a continuous, ongoing scandal, like what is happening in basketball ...... is going to drive them away.

Pete Rose admitted to betting on Reds games WHILE he was still playing for and managing the Reds, and there were still millions of fans who were clamoring for him to be inducted into the Hall-of-Fame, right up until the day that he died.

o

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

Like Kray I think you're missing some nuance here. Here's a summary I found in this ESPN article:

https://www.espn.com/classic/s/2001/0730/1233060.html


1926 - Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were permitted by Ban Johnson to resign from baseball near the end of the 1926 season after former pitcher Dutch Leonard charged that Cobb, Speaker and Smoky Joe Wood had joined him just before the 1919 World Series in betting on a game they all knew was fixed. Leonard presented letters and other documents to Johnson, and Johnson thought they would be so potentially damaging to baseball in the wake of the Black Sox scandal that he paid Leonard $20,000 to have them suppressed. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis exposed the cover-up and the eventual fallout forced Johnson out his job as president of the league he had created. Cobb and Speaker vehemently denied any wrongdoing, Cobb saying that "There has never been a baseball game in my life that I played in that I knew was fixed,? and that the only games he ever bet on were two series games in 1919, when he lost $150 on games thrown by the Sox. He claimed his letters to Leonard had been misunderstood, that he was merely speaking of business investments. Landis took the case under advisement and eventually let both players remain in baseball because they had not been found guilty of fixing any game themselves. It was after this case, though, that Landis instituted the rule mandating that any player found guilty of betting on baseball would be suspended for a year and that any player found to have bet on his own team would be barred for life. Cobb later claimed that the attorneys representing him and Speaker had brokered their reinstatement by threatening to expose further scandal in baseball if the two were not cleared.

o


That article is not representing what actually happened.

Of course Cobb would say that he was misunderstood. Pete Rose also denied any wrong-doing along with almost every person that has ever gone to jail.

More significantly, Landis' behavior in regard to his exoneration of/ignoring the Cobb and Speaker game-fixing was completely hypocritical in regard to his treatment of the Black Sox. Landis banned the 8 White Sox players, in spite of them being found not guilty in a court of law ....... essentially saying that the Buck stops here, and nobody, not even a court of law, will transcend what I view to be justice and fairness ...... allowing Cobb and Speaker to remain in the game because they had not been found guilty without he himself (Landis) digging deeper into the case was passing the buck, and copping out. Furthermore, when he was later confronted about his inaction in regard to the Cobb/Speaker incident, he said that that incident occurred before was the commissioner (the Cobb-Speaker fixed games occurred in September of 1919), and so he felt that it was not his territory to act in a judgmental manner ...... which completely belies not only his attitude about the swift and permanent action that he took against the Black Sox (which also occurred before he was the commissioner), but also his entire career as a Federal Judge when he would hand ridiculous down fines and judgements that he knew would be overturned.

If you want to believe that Kenesaw Landis was at all credible in regard to either his career as a Federal Judge or as the Commissioner of MLB, you can ...... I happen to know, through extensive research, that nothing could be further from the truth.

As Benjamin Disraeli once said, "Innocence is precious, but truth is better." ...... I choose to take solace in the latter.

o