Black Sox Scandal Essay

The Black Sox’s scandal is one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. The “White Stockings”, formed in 1900 as a franchise of the American league under the ownership of Charles Comiskey, later shortened their name in 1902 to the White Sox’s. In the White sox’s first year they had one the league championship, by 1903 the American and National Leagues had agreed to meet in and end of the year playoff. Later to be called the World Series, the White Sox won this by crushing Chicago Cubs four games to two.

The next eight years were not like the previous years they had before, the White Sox’s lost more games than they had won in many of the games. In 1910 Charles Comiskey the owner of the White Sox’s build a new baseball park and dedicated

Many believe that it was Comiskey Stinginess that is largely to blame for the Black Socks scandal. Comiskey was a very greedy man, so greedy that Comiskey fined every player for not washing their horribly dirty uniforms in protest to having to pay for their laundry done and the undercut in pay. Many people don’t know why they are called the Black Sox’s, most say it was because of their dirty uniforms, many others say it was because of all the bad and horrible things going on behind the game of baseball for the White

The players would constantly fight and later split into two cliques. One led by the second baseman Eddie Collins and the other by the first baseman Chick Gandil. Collins was educated, sophisticated and able to negotiate salaries as high as $15,000. Gandils group, who only earned an average of $6,000 resented the difference. World War 1 disrupted the country, interest in baseball dropped to an all-time low. The 1919 World Series was the first national championship after the war, and baseball and the nation as a whole were back to business as usual.

Gamblers were very visible at ballparks and the fixing of games had been suspected since the mid-1850s. There were a lot of rumors the spread about how the players would increase their incomes by throwing single games. Several ballplayers had a reputation of working closely with the gamblers. A small time gambler, Joseph Sullivan, allegedly made money on inside tips from Chicago’s Chick Gandil. Sullivan’s bets were more trustworthy if he had some back up if he knew if a player was sick or