The Owner
The eight ballplayers kicked out of professional baseball lingered in history for a long time as the villains of this story. Today, it is clear that that particular terminology should be applied—if it is applied to any one person—to the owner of the Chicago White Sox whose cheapness and disloyalty has been revealed as the true genesis of the revolt. And the genesis of that personality lies in his psyche:
“Charles Albert Comiskey was a big man. Everything about him was big, especially his nose. In the baseball world, he was known as the `Old Roman’ because of that nose. As a personality, he lived up to the grandeur of the title.”
The Gambler
Boxer, fixer of boxing matches and familiar of the Jewish underworld, Abe Attell was close friends with perhaps the most infamous gambler in America, Arnold Rothstein. When word of the fix made it to the level of grand jury, Rothstein got a new nickname:
“the father of the whole plot.”
The Pitcher
Eddie Cicotte was the most dominating pitcher of the 1919 season. His contrast with Comiskey promised a $10,000 bonus—on top just a $6,000 salary—if he won 30 games. He won 29—and was promptly ordered to be benched for his last shot at winning game number 30 by Comiskey. The consequences of the owner’s disloyalty and stinginess were so made abundantly clear:
“Cicotte was master of the Detroit Tigers that day. One could only wish that he had pitched as well in the 1919 Series.”
The Sportswriter
Ring Lardner held a reputation far above that of the average baseball beat scribe. He already had developed reputations for both his writing and his personality by the time of the scandal. The one regarding his personality was best described by Hugh Fullerton, founder of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Fullerton did not suffer the reputation as a slouch when it came to writing, either, suggesting that Lardner enjoyed:
“the look and manner of Rameses II with his wrappings off.”
The Game
The fixing of the 1919 World Series that brokered a relationship between players, gangsters, gamblers and capitalism rock the entire nation and threatened to destroy forever the most popular sport in the country. The question many might ask after all these years and the eclipse of the game by football is why? The answer is best proposed, as almost always, in metaphor:
“Our pride in victory was the essence of American pride in itself. Baseball was a manifestation of the greatest of America at play. It was our national game; its stars were national heroes, revered by kids and adults alike, in all classes of our society. In the public mind, the image was pure and patriotic.”
