Fact of the matter is Cicotte did have a 30 game bonus kicker on his contract for 1919...it was a carry over contract from the previous season 1918. The amount of the kicker is not presently known (10,000 seems way to high). Was he bench on purpose...was he mad...who knows...Cicotte in his own grand jury testimony did not mention this at all so that seems to point to it not being a motive of his....
HOWEVER this does sound like something he would have told his wife and kids to try to mitigate his own actions and thus lived on and is still believed by the Cicotte family (several have given newspaper interviews saying as much). Asinof writing Eight Men Out simply went with the prevailing thought of the time (1950s-60s) so I give him a pass. He did interview Hap Felsch, Red Faber, Hugo Friend, and Abe Attell which all had involvement in the scandal in some way which is more than anyone writing now can say. (attached Feb 1918 newspaper clipping citing Cicotte's 30 game bonus)
Likely Cicotte had bonus kickers several win levels (like 20 games, 25 games and 30 games or something like that)
Last edited by Leon; 01-02-2023 at 06:06 PM.
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