Did Cubs throw the 1918 World Series?

[southsider2k5]

http://www.csnchicago.com/04/13/11/Sox-Dra...665&qv=1#bp

 

By Chuck Garfien

CSNChicago.com

 

For almost a century, the 1919 Chicago White Sox have left a permanent stain on the game of baseball. Their throwing of the World Series that season not only tainted the sport, but the lives of the eight White Sox players who participated in the fix.

 

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Lefty Williams, Happy Felsch, Eddie Cicotte, Swede Risberg, Chick Gandil, Fred McMullin, and Buck Weaver were all banned from Major League Baseball for life.

 

But flying miles under the radar for all these years is a baseball scandal possibly just as great as the infamous Black Sox.

 

It involves the 1918 World Series, and the implication of another team for doing the exact same thing.

 

What team might this be?

 

The Chicago Cubs.

 

And who tattled on them?

 

None other than one of the banned White Sox players, pitcher Eddie Cicotte.

 

Is Cicotte a coward? A legend? That’s for you to decide.

 

Evidence of the alleged crimes from 1918 are limited. Most, if not all of the stories are dead and buried with the men who would have committed them. But pieces of this conspiracy do exist, and now for the very first time, one of the most critical documents of a possible Cubs fix is on public display at the Chicago History Museum.

 

It’s from a deposition Cicotte gave to a grand jury at the Cook County Court House in 1920. Cicotte, while confessing that he took money to throw the 1919 World Series, came clean about when the team started talking about a fix.

 

That’s where the Cubs suddenly enter the picture.

 

Cicotte told the grand jury that while on a train ride from Chicago to New York to play the Yankees, his teammates began discussing the 1918 World Series played between the Cubs and Red Sox.

 

“There was some talk about (gamblers) offering $10,000 or something to throw the Cubs in the Boston Series,” Cicotte said in the deposition. “There was talk somebody offered this player $10,000 or anyway the bunch of players were offered $10,000 to throw the series.”

 

As Comcast SportsNet reported in February of 2008, the Cicotte testimony, now on display in the museum until the end of April, was a part of a magical discovery in December of 2007 when boxes of rare documents from the Black Sox scandal went up for auction by an anonymous party. The Chicago History Museum won the precious artifacts with a high bid of $100,000.

 

Peter Alter, an archivist at the museum, is the man responsible for the 500 documents and 1,000 pages of Black Sox buried treasure.

 

He’s also a Cubs fan.

 

So what does he think of the Cicotte testimony?

 

“Several times when I look at it I try to read the thing out loud. It’s like he has mashed potatoes in his mouth,” Alter said. “He never names specific Cubs from 1918, but he mentions $10,000, and you don’t know if that was for the entire team, was it only for a couple players, was it one player?”

 

What Cicotte said may have been “talk,” but when you consider the amount of red flags that have surfaced about the 1918 World Series and many other Series during this period, the distance between talk and truth feels like a centimeter away.

 

Hugh Fullerton, a famous baseball columnist whose reporting became a driving force in exposing the 1919 White Sox, believed that at least four or five of the early World Series were fixed, and he had serious concerns about the validity of the 1918 championship. He criticized Cubs shortstop Charlie Hollocher for being “in the wrong position for almost every batter.”

 

During the series, which the Red Sox won in 6 games, the Cubs were picked off three times, twice during the final game, which the Cubs lost 2-1 on a two-run error by Cubs right fielder Max Flack.

 

 

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“I think what's interesting from a Chicago perspective is that in back-to-back years you have both the North Side and South Side being implicated.”

 

-- Chicago History Museum archivist Peter Alter.

 

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In 1963, a diary kept by Harry Grabiner, a longtime aide of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was found deep in the bowels of Comiskey Park. In the diary, you’ll find the name of former Cubs pitcher Gene Packard, and a scribbled notation next to it that reads “1918 Series fixer.”

 

Coincidentally, the 1919 Black Sox scandal came about thanks to a grand jury investigating one single regular season game thought to be fixed between the Cubs and Phillies in 1919. But as Alter explains, “Someone testifying in front of the grand jury said, ‘This is small potatoes. You should really look into the 1919 World Series, because that’s where the stuff really happened.’”

 

Besides the Cicotte deposition, the museum also has the 1921 grand jury testimony of Joe Jackson, who batted .375 in the World Series, but records show took $5,000 from gamblers. In his testimony, Jackson recounts a conversation he had with White Sox lawyer Alfred Austrian, who told Jackson he “needs a lawyer damn bad.”

 

In September of 1920, Jackson appeared in Cook County Court with his seven White Sox teammates where he would confess to throwing the World Series. But the museum has documents of a 1921 criminal trial in which Jackson admitted that he wasn’t exactly sober during the proceedings.

 

“Were you not drunk at this time?” the prosecutor asks.

 

“Not hardly no,” Jackson answers. “I might have been half.”

 

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

 

More of these historical artifacts will likely trickle out of the museum vaults over time. But for now, it’s the Cicotte deposition, which is either a worthless piece of paper, or possibly the most important glimpse into one of the greatest untold stories in the history of sports.

 

“I think most Cubs fans are not aware of this,” Alter said. “I think what’s interesting from a Chicago perspective is that in back-to-back years you have both the North Side and South Side being implicated. Certainly a lot of evidence for the South Side, and perhaps over the years there will be more evidence that grows as more and more people become aware of this 1918 issue.”

 

The answers lie somewhere.

 

Hopefully not all buried six feet underground.

 

See below to watch my story from 2008 on the Black Sox scandal.

[TitoMB345]

Very interesting read. Wonder if the truth will ever come out.

[GoSox05]

I would guess that that kind of stuff happened back than, more than we think.

 

What I really wonder is how many games in the past 30 years or so have been thrown. If any.

[YASNY]

I had heard about the probability of the 1918 Cubs throwing the Series. Where there's smoke, there's fire, but really ... what does it does matter today?

[Brian]

Wrigley should hold "Die Hard" night for their 1918 WS appearance.

[Knackattack]

And now cursed. Forever Championshipless.

[Jerksticks]

I would guess that that kind of stuff happened back than, more than we think.

 

What I really wonder is how many games in the past 30 years or so have been thrown. If any.

 

 

Great question. It would be silly to think that this doesn't happen today, as greed is timeless. I've had the impression that Jay Cutler has thrown a few games so far here....or maybe he's just that bad sometimes. Not saying Cutler or other players simply place bets, but I think something far bigger than the players goes on sometimes. Anytime somebody powerful gets dirt on a player there is potential for blackmail. People think Pete Rose was as bad as it can get but I think it's far worse to have somebody forcing you to tank a game.

[Quin]

Oh great, another curse for them to b**** about.

[Milkman delivers]

And now cursed. Forever Championshipless.

 

Well, they have two.

[Milkman delivers]

Great question. It would be silly to think that this doesn't happen today, as greed is timeless. I've had the impression that Jay Cutler has thrown a few games so far here....or maybe he's just that bad sometimes. Not saying Cutler or other players simply place bets, but I think something far bigger than the players goes on sometimes. Anytime somebody powerful gets dirt on a player there is potential for blackmail. People think Pete Rose was as bad as it can get but I think it's far worse to have somebody forcing you to tank a game.

 

I'm confident that games are set up fairly regularly in the NBA.