Chicago, A Lawyer And A Baseball
By Ken Delo
Monday, May 02, 2005
Scandal is in the eye of the beholder. When considering scandals, what comes to the minds of most Americans are events such the Black Sox scandal of 1919 or Pete Rose's gambling on baseball. Seldom do you hear someone talk about the racism that tormented African-Americans in baseball in the post World War II era as a scandal even though it is and is probably a far worse one. Though important, this paper will mainly focus on the scandals that were centered on sex, drugs and gambling; the scandals that were often buried in deceit and greed.
Drink, drugs, crimes, and other vices have ruined many more lives, but baseball long ago decided that gambling is the most dangerous sin a person can commit. Gambling moved in on baseball early, as soon as the game changed from a gentleman's leisure activity to a professional sport in the 1860's. At that time, wagering was a common occurrence. Fixing games, called "hippodroming," was frequent. Sporting men would roam the crowds at games, giving odds and taking bets. In 1872, the New York Times actually wrote that the purpose of baseball was to "employ professional players to perspire in public for the benefit of gamblers." In the book Eight Men Out, Eliot Asinof wrote, "An outfielder, settling under a crucial fly ball, would find himself stoned by a nearby spectator, who might win a few hundred dollars if the ball was dropped. On one occasion, a gambler actually ran out onto the field and tackled a ballplayers. On another an marksman prevented a fielder from chasing a long hit by peppering the ground around his feet with bullets." (Asinof, 26) Today, baseball has had to push against society's shove. Gambling has become more acceptable than ever. Americans spend $278 billion a year doing it. You can get the odds for professional football, basketball, and baseball games in just about any newspaper.
You can go to a racetrack or an off-track betting parlor. You don't even have to leave your house nowadays- there's telephone off-track betting. Now that ballplayers earn millions of dollars a year, there's less fear that gamblers could offer them enough money to take the risk of throwing a game. The problem now is that players can use their own money to bet on games they participate in. Pete Rose fell into that trap, and he'll pay for it for the rest of his life. The Black Sox Scandal of 1919 Even people who are not baseball fans know that the "Black Sox Scandal"- when the 1919 Chicago White Sox threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds- was the biggest scandal to rock the game. Of all of the incidents throughout baseball history, this is the only one that seriously threatened to ruin baseball. It all started when three weeks before the World Series, Chicago first baseman Charles "Chick" Gandil called a gambler named Joseph "Sport" Sullivan and told him that the World Series could be bought. It would have been impossible for any one man to throw the Series, so Gandil lined up "Swede" Risberg, Frank McMullin, Claude "Lefty" Williams, and Eddie Cicotte. Some say owner Charles Comiskey is to blame for the player's revolt. The players felt no loyalty to Comiskey because of horrible pay and broken promises.
Comiskey paid Risberg and Williams less than $3,000 dollars a year and Cicotte, with his 29-7 record, a measly $6,000. At the beginning of the year Comiskey even made a promise to Cicotte that if he were to win 30 games he would get a $10,000 bonus. After achieving 29 wins, Comiskey proceeded to bench Cicotte for the remainder of the season. In 1918, the Chicago White Sox actually came close to going on strike because of such poor conditions. After getting Risberg, McMullin, Williams, and Cicotte, Gandil managed to get Buck Weaver, Joe Jackson, and Happy Felsch to agree to the fix. Sport Sullivan went to Arnold Rothstein, the most widely known gambler in America, to ask if he will put up the money to support the fix. Rothstein then sent his partner, Nate Evans, to meet with the players to see whether they could be bought. Sullivan and Evans then arrive in Chicago to meet with Gandil, but Gandil wanted to see some money. Evans was reluctant to show it without any guarantee that the Series would be thrown. At around this time, the players started to become suspicious of the gamblers. Williams had already told Gandil that he wanted out and Jackson had already made it clear that he now wanted $20,000 to participate. Rothstein then decided to finance the fix. Word of the fix starts getting around, at least in the gambling circles.
The odds in the Series begin to shift, from 8-5 to even money. With the exception of Jackson, all the players meet in Cicotte's hotel room in Cincinnati with the gamblers. They are told that they will be paid in installments of $20,000 after each game they lose. Gandil then received a phone call from a newspaper reporter who said he'd heard a rumor that the Series has been fixed. Before Game 1, Joe Jackson tells Chicago White Sox manager Kid Gleason that he doesn't feel well and asks to be taken out of the lineup. To show his compliance with the fix, Eddie Cicotte hits the first batter with his second pitch. When Rothstein hears this he puts another $100,000 on the Reds. In the first few innings, Cicotte makes a few costly errors that lead to big innings for the Red and the outcome is a 9-1 Red victory. In game 2, Williams was the starting pitcher.
He was known as a control guy but managed to walk three men in the fourth inning and lose 4-2. After the game, Kid Gleason beat up Gandil in the clubhouse, and catcher Ray Shalk jumped Williams under the grandstand. Game 3 actually took a peculiar twist. Gandil told the gamblers that “If we can’t win for Cicotte or Williams, we’re not gonna win for no busher.” That “busher” slated to throw that day was rookie pitcher Dickie Kerr, who was not in on the fix. Dickie Kerr pitched the game of his life and the White Sox won 3-0. In game 4, Cicotte made two errors, blows a ground ball to the mound, and deflects a cut-off throw to the plate. The final score was 2-0, Cincinnati. Anemic batting and horrible play by the Chicago White Sox resulted in a Game 5 loss for Chicago, with the final score being 5-0. In Game 6, Kerr pitched and again led the Sox to victory with a 5-4 win. At this point the Series was in favor of the Reds 4 games to 2. Cicotte, who pitched in Game 7, was thinking about his contract for next season, so he ignored the fix and pitched to the best of his ability resulting in a Chicago win, 4-1. With the Series close to being evened up, the gamblers approached Lefty Williams the day before Game 8, in which he is the starting pitcher. They tell him that if he made it out of the first inning then “something is going to happen to you.” They also threatened Williams’s wife. In the first inning of Game 8, Williams gave up 4 consecutive hits and 3 runs. He was taken out of the game before recording even 2 outs. The Reds won the game 10-5 and the Series was over. On October 15, 6 days after the Series had ended, Comiskey relased a statement saying that anyone with “a single clue” about shady business involving the World Series would be paid $20,000. Comiskey then hired a detective to follow Gandil around, where he finds that he has bought a new house, a car, and some diamonds. On September 21, subpoenas were sent out to those involved in the 1919 World Series. New York pitcher Rube Benton said he knew about the fix and names Gandil, Felsch, Williams, and Cicotte. The grand jury also received a letter saying that Lefty Williams’s wife placed large bets against the White Sox during the Series.
Nearly a year after the World Series, the scandal finally breaks publicly and the Chicago White Sox are the quickly dubbed the “Black Sox.” All of the players eventually confess, except Gandil. Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the new commissioner of baseball and placed Jackson, Weaver, Williams, Felsch, Cicotte, Gandil, Risberg, and McMullin on the ineligible list. Shoeless Joe Jackson may have become a romantic figure with the scandal, but he did accept an envelope with $5,000 in it and complained that he didn’t get $20,000. If anyone deserved to be reinstated to baseball, it’s third baseman Buck Weaver. He attended meetings with the Black Sox, but he never took a dime and gave it his best shot on the field. He hit .324 in the Series with 11 hits, and his only crime was not ratting on his teammates. Dave Pallone: Baseball’s First Open Homosexual Survey’s show that about 10 percent of the male population is homosexual, so it shouldn’t have come as any great shock that there might be gay players, coaches, managers, or umpires in baseball, but it did. In the 150 years or so that baseball has been played, Dave Pallone was the first man to come out and publicly declare that he was a homosexual. “My toughest chore every day during the baseball season wasn’t my umpiring,” Pallone wrote. “It was living a lie.”
The idea of an umpire having any sex is a little weird in and of itself, but Pallone may have told fans more than they really wanted to know. In an article in the New York Post on September 21, 1988, Pallone said he had an affair with a top “straight” movie star and several major-league baseball players. During an appearance on Donahue, Pallone claimed that there were enough gays in baseball to at least field a team. Before he had come out, Pallone had started to become more and ore comfortable with his homosexuality by frequenting gay bars and confiding his secret to close straight friends. Realizing that he needed to be open about his homosexuality and that baseball would never accept that, Pallone planned to fulfill his dream of working in a World Series, then retire. He never got to achieve this goal because of the “Saratoga Springs sex scandal”. In October of 1987, a friend of Pallone’s named Sam Genaro introduced him to two guys from up-state New York names Larry Blodgett and Bill Desadora. Pallone and Genaro visited the two men in December, first site seeing in New York, then later going to Blodgett’s Saratoga Springs house for about a half an hour. Ten minutes after they walked in the door, a teenage boy came down the stairs and was introduced to Pallone. The Pallone and Genaro left and never saw the others again.
It turned out that Blodgett and Desadora were operating a sex ring involving teenage boys and the fourteen year old that they met, for reasons unknown, signed a sworn affidavit that he had performed oral sex on Pallone. The case against Pallone fell apart when every adult present, including Blodgett and Desadora, testified that Pallone had nothing to do with the sex ring. Normally was a well-known figure is charged with a crime, the media trumpets it in big headlines. But when he or she is cleared, it may not be mentioned at all. Right when the story it the papers, Pallone was forced to take a leave of absence and after he was cleared, he was fired by Commissioner Bart Giamatti. Pallone said “baseball had really found me guilty of being gay”. Even though players are arrested for carrying concealed weapons, manslaughter, and drug use, all are given second chances and allowed to continue playing in the major leagues. But Pallone, who was not even charged with any crime, was considered too great a threat to stay a part of the game. For Pallone, one good thing resulted from the scandal- he came out of the closet and was able to live openly as a homosexual. “Now I don’t have to hide anymore,” he said. “Now I’m free.” The Pitch that Killed As the shortstop with the Cleveland Indians, Ray Chapman was one of the most popular players of his day. Having played more than 1,000 games in his 9-year career, he was still one of the fastest men in the game in 1920, and one of the best bunters. Before the season, Chapman had just married and he planned to retire after 1920. He only first wanted to lead the Indians to a World Series.
Carl Mays came up to the big leagues with Boston in 1914, and was actually sent to the Yankees the year after Babe Ruth. He was known as a headhunter and delivered the ball to the plate with such an odd angle that the ball was so hard to pick up. He was a submarine pitcher that would be come one of the best right-handers in the American League. Late in the 1920 season, the Yankees were a half game behind Cleveland and it was already August 16. Mays was on the mound and Chapman lead-off the sixth inning having already dropped down a sacrifice bunt. After Mays had gotten a ball and a strike on Chapman, he let go of the pitch he wished he could have gotten back. The ball sailed directly toward Chapman’s head but all witnesses say he made no attempt to move. He stood there poised as the ball crashed directly into his temple on the left side of his head. The crack of the ball could be heard all over the stands and spectators gasped as they turned their heads away. The ball rolled back to the mound and Mays, thinking it has struck Chapman’s bat, tossed it to first. Chapman took two staggering steps up the baseline, and then crumpled to the ground. Seeing the blood pour out of Chapman’s ear, the umpire shouted for a doctor. At the hospital, Chapman’s signs continued to deteriorate.
The doctors decided to operate on his cracked scull, but to no avail. Ray Chapman was pronounced dead at 4:40 a.m. August 17. The Pete Rose Saga: The public wants so much to believe him. We want to believe that he was not corrupted by money. But we can’t because he has lied to the public s many times. Rose said that it wasn’t his gambling that caused him to be called into the commissioner’s office in February of 1989. Then he admitted it was. He said he didn’t know Ron Peters a convicted tax evader. Then it was discovered that Rose that Rose had left tickets for Peters at Riverfront Stadium. Rose said he didn’t place bets with bookies on any sport, but twelve sources told Sports Illustrated that he had. This all makes it very hard to believe Rose when he insists he never bet on baseball games.
Then there was always overwhelming evidence that Rose did bet on baseball-and that he bet on games he was managing. Nine people interviewed by the commissioner’s office implicated Rose in baseball betting. There were betting sheets with Rose’s fingerprints and handwriting on them. There was page after page of telephone records showing tons of one-minute calls from Rose’s office to known bookies. The calls came just minutes before ballgames, and during months when there was no sport but baseball to bet on. Rose grew up with gambling. At the age of eight, his father was already taking him to the racetrack to gamble. As a rookie, Rose was already a heavy racetrack bettor, and this was with a lot less money that he would accumulate in the future. On March 20, Ueberroth (Commissioner of Baseball) announced that his office “has for several months been conducting a full inquiry into serious allegations” about Rose. In the March 27 issue, Sports Illustrated ran the first of many articles on the trouble Rose was in. n defending himself against the charges, Rose logically said that the men making such statements were an assortment of criminals and lowlifes who were talking to the authorities to reduce their own jail sentences and penalties for their criminal activity. There was probably some truth to that, though it didn’t necessarily mean they were lying.
I imagine it is tough to find upstanding citizens and credible witnesses in the field of illegal gambling. The next commissioner of baseball, Bart Giamatti, believed that in Ron Peter’s testimony on Rose, that he was telling the truth. This was all before hearing Rose’s side of the story, which Rose’s lawyers jumped all over. On June 19 they filed a lawsuit against the commissioner, Major League Baseball, and the Cincinnati Reds, claiming that Giamati was incapable of judging Pete Rose fairly. At this point, if there had been any doubt in the minds of the public that Pete Rose was guilty of betting on baseball, the Dowd Report erased them. John Dowd was a Washington lawyer - not a Chicago lawyer - that submitted his findings on Pete Rose, and they were devastating to the case. The Dowd Report said that Pete Rose had placed bets on the Cincinnati Reds fifty-two times in 1987 alone. Rose bet $10,000 dollars a day on baseball games and sometimes more. He lost so much money that he had to borrow $47,000 from a man operating a cocaine ring. Not wanting to admit to gambling, but also wanting to get into the Hall of Fame, Rose decided to sign an agreement that banished him from baseball. Rose’s answer is that he felt he would be banned anyway-simply because he had associated with gamblers. In his mind, he would be better off if he were suspended permanently with the words right in the page saying there had been no finding that he had bet on baseball. He may have been right. The agreement didn’t directly accuse Rose of betting on baseball, and this is Pete Rose’s key to future reinstatement. The 1985 Pittsburgh Drug Trial and Other Incidents:
After four players on the Kansas City Royals were sent to jail in 1983 for cocaine use, baseball could no longer ignore the widespread drug problem that was threatening the integrity of the game. In 1982, Tim Raines admitted in detail how he kept a gram of cocaine in his pocket during games so no one would find his stash in his locker. He said that he would snort it between innings and sometimes even took naps on the bench. He also admitted that the reason he slid headfirst wasn’t because of his aggressiveness, but because he didn’t want to ruin his stash in his back pocket. In the spring of 1985, a federal grand jury indicted Pittsburgh Pirates caterer, Curtis Strong, and six other alleged drug dealers. Soon after stars like Keith Hernandez, Jeff Leonard, John Milner, Dave Parker, Lonnie Smith, Dale Berra and Enos Cabell were celled to testify against strong. At the trial, fan learned that ballplayers bought cocaine in hotel rooms, elevators, and the bathroom at Three Rivers Stadium. To obtain the evidence, the FBI placed a hidden radio on Pittsburgh’s mascot, Kevin Koch.
The media had a hay day with this story. Time magazine said, “Not since the Black Sox Scandal has the national pastime suffered such a loss of public esteem.” In the most dramatic moment of the trial, Keith Hernandez described the drug as “a demon in me…I consider cocaine the devil on this earth.” When he returned to Shea Stadium after testifying, the fans gave him a standing ovation. On March 1, 1986, Baseball Commissioner Ueberroth came to a decision. Seven players- Keith Hernandez, Dale Berra, Joaquin Andujar, Dave Parker, Jeff Leonard, Lonnie Smith, and Eno Cabell- were suspended from major-league baseball for one year because they had facilitated the distribution of drugs in baseball. All of the players accepted Ueberroth’s punishment, which was light, considering that a week earlier the NBA had banned New Jersey Net Michael Ray Richardson for life because of his drug use. Why would one major sport completely ban a player for life and the other only give a player a 1-year suspension? It seems mind-boggling as to why a basketball player should have to live at a higher standard that a baseball player.
I believe that answer lies in the past history that baseball has with shady deals and scandals. Ever since the Black Sox scandal, baseball’s eyes have been open to the realism of crookedness in baseball. Basketball, being a much younger sport, hasn’t had to face the controversy that baseball has. A good explanation can be see in this analogy: When parents (the commissioner) have a first child that are very strict on that child and when it happens to do something wrong, they are sometimes surprised or appalled and act in a sever manner. This scenario would be the NBA since it has been a relatively new league when compared to baseball and has not had its share of controversy the way baseball has. An older parent, who has already gone through the hardships of raising a child are now very aware of what can and will happen and punish it sometimes leniently. Baseball sometimes acts very much like this older parent, with all of its experience and supposed wisdom in this arena. Why Gambling? : Gambling on baseball by its players, strikes right into the core of its foundation, transforming it into something like professional wrestling, where men simply go through the motions, doing what they are told.
This is a realistic scenario that without the proper legal approach can become veracity in the sport. One could argue that drugs, sexual abuse, and violence could tamper with the structure of baseball just as gambling can, but this is not so. A player can be addicted to heroine and still not affect baseball in such a manner that would change the way the game is played. The way these other forms of criminality affect the game is by changing the way fans perceive baseball, but mostly how they perceive the players. Athletes come and go, and a player that stands as a sore thumb for baseball will always move on. But gambling imbeds itself into baseball’s skin becoming part of it, where there is no cure. Baseball is the perfect game and we’ll love it even though the men who play it no longer serve as our personal heroes or role models. Osama Bin Laden could be out there and we’d still come to watch if he could hit to the opposite field. Baseball has been able to survive every scandal thrown at it, so it must be one great game.
