1926 – The Chicago Tribune breaks a story that the Detroit Tigers have thrown a four-game series to the Chicago White Sox in 1917 to help Chicago win the pennant. Responding to the publicity, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis convenes a hearing on the matter, but dismisses all charges. Landis can find no witnesses to confirm any part of Swede Risberg’s claim.
Given the outpouring of public support for the popular players and the failure of the accuser to publicly defend his claim at a hearing last month, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis announces Ty Cobb’s former Tiger teammate Dutch Leonard had accused the Georgia Peach and Indian outfielder Tris Speaker of betting on a fixed baseball game played six years ago. The commissioner will declare the matter closed, giving both future Hall of Famers a clean bill of health.
On November 29, 1926, Tris Speaker resigns as manager of the Cleveland Indians. Speaker led the Indians to a respectable second-place finish in 1926. Stories of a thrown game and betting on games by Ty Cobb and Speaker gain momentum when Judge Landis holds a secret hearing with the two stars and former P-OF Joe Wood. The story and testimony…
1923 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis allows former New York Giants pitcher Rube Benton to return to the National League. Benton had admitted prior knowledge of the 1919 World Series fix, but remained active, winning 22 games for St. Paul (American Association). NL President John Heydler disagrees with Landis, calling Benton undesirable, but does not stop the Cincinnati Reds from signing him. Benton, at age 35, will be 14-10 for the second-place Reds.
1922 – Benny Kauff’s suit for an injunction to restrain the decision to keep him out of baseball is rejected by the appellate court. Kauff was acquitted of auto theft in 1921, but Commissioner Landis still barred him from baseball, stating, “That acquittal was one of the worst miscarriages of justice that ever came under my observation.”
1921 – First baseman Gene Paulette is barred from organized baseball for life for taking part in throwing games. He played in 500 games with the New York Giants, St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia Phillies.
1920 – Eight members of the Chicago White Sox are indicted for supposedly throwing the 1919 World Series. Although considered heavy favorites to win the Series, the White Sox lost to the Cincinnati Reds in eight games in what will become known as the Black Sox Scandal.
1920 – The Chicago grand jury indictment adds the names of former featherweight boxing champ Abe Attell, Hal Chase, and Bill Burns as go-betweens in the World Series scandal. Confessions, later repudiated, are signed by Ed Cicotte, Joe Jackson, Lefty Williams, and Happy Felsch.
“Wanting to make a clean breast of things”, Lee Magee admits to National League president John Heydler and Chicago Cubs president William Veeck that he tried to “toss” a game with the Boston Braves when he was with the Cincinnati Reds in 1918, but that the Reds won the game in the 13th inning. Heydler will later testify on June 8th that Magee told him he became suspicious that Hal Chase had double-crossed him and so he stopped payment on the check.
On October 9, 1919, At Comiskey Park the Cincinnati Reds wrap up the most tainted World Series in history by defeating the Chicago White Sox, 10-5. Lefty Williams, one of the eight “Black Sox,” allows four runs in the first inning and retires only one batter… The White Sox drop the World Series to the…
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