The Sad Tale of Jimmy O'Connell

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Posted By: brian p

As mentioned in the Name That Card thread, Jimmy O'Connell was involved in a much lesser known baseball scandal.

Jimmy played three years for the San Francisco Seals in the PCL, and received a record (at the time) $75,000 bonus for signing with the New York Giants in 1923. Being a young naive country lad, he was perhaps prone to being victim of a practical joke, and the one he got involved in cost him his baseball career. Near the end of the 1924 season, with the Giants just a game away from clinching the pennant, some of his teammates were joking around the clubhouse that someone should fix the game with their opponent (the Phillies) so that the Giants would be assured this victory. The Giants coach, Cozy Dolan, suggested that Jimmy talk to the Phillies shortstop Heinie Sand and offer him $500 to help tank the game. Perhaps playing along, or perhaps taking this idea seriously, Jimmy approached Sand, and Sand immediately informed his manager. An investigation was conducted which also implicated Frank Frisch, Ross Youngs and George Kelly (who were all exonerated). Jimmy revealed the whole story, but Dolan was evasive, so Commissioner Landis expelled both Dolan and O'Connell from baseball for life.

The above story was culled from Nuggets on the Diamond, by the late Dick Dobbins, an interesting book about the Bay area baseball ranging from the California League to the PCL to the major leagues.

How much of this incident was just a practical joke on a young player, and whether he was indeed just playing along or serious in his pursuit of throwing the game, will of course never be known. But the situation in baseball in the years shortly after the Black Sox scandal was probably a bad time to pull such a stunt--just as it would be plain stupidity nowadays to joke about having a bomb at the airport.




Brian

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Posted By: runscott

In the version I read, Dolan was quite serious about the whole thing, and Youngs, Frisch and Kelly were well aware of what was going on. Landis banned Dolan as the instigator, and O'Connell for "evasive" answers during questioning; however, I read Youngs' and Kelly's depositions and they were equally evasive.

But Landis' ruling in this case goes along with all of his "post-Black Sox" rulings: baseball had taken enough of a beating and he wasn't going to ban any more stars. So Youngs and Frisch survived, and O'Connell was banned.

Landis did not become a judge through the traditional methods, and many in the law profession felt that he bent the laws however he felt necessary so that the results of cases reflected his own personal feelings. The new comissioner position was perfect for an ego-maniac like Landis.

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Posted By: runscott

...great story on Landis, with details of many of the rulings he made as dictator of baseball.

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Posted By: Dave

I found a version of this story on the web, at http://www.onlyagame.org/features/2003/09/jimmyocon.asp

At the time, Philadelphia was in 7th place. A quote from the story points out how sad this is.


"As somebody said 'pay the Phillies to lose? They do that all year for free.'"