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1917

© Harold Friend

Now there are only two left, or actually, there is only one. Nineteen eighteen is gone but 1917 and 1908 remain so there are two, but the city involved with both years is Chicago, so there is only one. While much has been made of the Cubs and 1908, the White Sox and 1917 are almost never mentioned, and with good reason. Every time one brings up 1917, it leads to 1919, and that is not good for baseball.

The 1919 World Series was fixed. The Chicago White Sox made sure that they lost it and they were caught. Eight players were banned from baseball for life despite the fact that they were found not guilty by the courts. While one can question the roles of some of the White Sox players in the scandal, it is certain that the 1919 World Series was fixed.

The reason given for the Red Sox having to wait eighty six years between World Championships was the selling of Babe Ruth's services to the Yankees. In recent years, especially after losing the 1986 World Series after coming so close to winning, the explanation gained impetus and a "rivalry" between the Red Sox and Yankees intensified, at least among the media and fans. The hyperbole has been obscene. This past spring, tickets to a Florida exhibition game between the Yankees and Red Sox were being scalped. That is good for baseball. Mentioning the last time the White Sox won the World Series is not.

Of course, almost every baseball fan knows about the "Black Sox Scandal," and almost every baseball fan knows that the great Shoeless Joe Jackson was among the players banned from the game for life, but most fans don't know about White Sox owner Charles Comiskey's role in the scandal.

Charles Comiskey was a tightwad and a tyrant who underpaid his players to the extreme. Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver, two of the greatest players in the game, were each paid $6,000 a year while lesser players on other teams were making at least $10,000. In 1918, attendance at baseball games across the country dropped because of the war, forcing owners to cut players salaries the next year. When attendance in Chicago actually went up, Comiskey refused to bring salaries back to their previous level. Meal money on road trips was less for the White Sox than for any other team.

Comiskey's business practices were exemplified by his treatment of Eddie Cicotte, who had a clause in his 1917 contract that would give him a $10,000 bonus if he won 30 games. Comiskey saw to it that after Cicotte won his 29th game, he didn't pitch again in the regular season.

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