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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

On August 4, 1921 Judge Landis established the rules which were then retroactively enforced, thereby instantly ending the careers of nine baseball players. This approach of making a rule and then using this new rule to judge past behavior is a technique which many may feel is arbitrary. His edict stated:

“Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ballgame, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.”

Without offering comment on the general vagueness of these statements, one observation comes to my mind. This ruling requires ratting on your fellow players.

Now looking at some key words here, specifically: Chicago, the 20s, gamblers – one could easily conjure up thoughts of tommy guns, gangsters and related considerations. The point being that people have been known to die for suspicion of ratting on another. For Landis to require that behavior as a condition of employment, some may think is optimism at the level of unrealistic expectation.

In any event Joe Gedeon, who was a member of neither of the 1919 World Series clubs was thrown out of baseball because of his involvement with the fix. His “involvement” was that he had heard about it. Heck, IMHO if everyone who had heard about the fix was thrown out of baseball I think only Kid Gleason and a batboy from some obscure minor league team would remain in the game. But he was guilty (of failing to comply with a baseball law which did not yet exist).

So was Fred McMullin. Now Fred was smart enuff to get $5000. for his part in the fix. His part consisted in successfully handing the only fielding opportunity he had and getting one hit in two at bats. Admittedly, he didn’t help the Reds much, but he did get $5000. I should be that smart. But he disobeyed Landis’ rules, which hadn’t actually been promulgated yet.

The same is true for Jackson. He got $5000. And he hit .375. Some say that he didn’t hit in the clutch. Others point out that the player who failed to hit was the White Sox’s second baseman. Into the final game he brought a .140 batting average with one RBI. And this, a fellow with 80 RBIs that year and a BA of .319. Ill tell ya, with all of that illiterate country charm, a few aww shucks and a bit of shyness, that Jackson was no rube. He got $5000. and he didn’t change his game a bit.

And Weaver was guilty of not complying with a rule that he should have known may exist sooner or later. Although he did not take any money, and he did not alter his play – he is certainly guilty of failing to read the mind of a person who had not yet been appointed as the first commissioner of baseball

Are none of these four innocent of actual wrongdoing?

I do not think that it is wrong to choose to not be a whistle blower.
I do not think that it is wrong to entertain any and all proposals.

But that is me. And I also realize that if one was to govern his assessment of who actually participated in the fix on the basis of statistics alone, an argument could be made that Cicotte was innocent. He did botch a cutoff play, and he got shelled in the first game. But that is all. His two other games were fielded adequately and in one he surrendered two runs and the other he held the opposition to a single run.

There are lots of WS pitchers who wish they had equaled that performance.

Yes there have been players who threw games since before the National Association. The NL had cleaned up the game that it inherited from its predecessor, until the turn of the century. From then until the Black Sox, some contend that baseball allowed gambling to gain a foothold in the sport. By 1920 gambling was again out of control. But I do not accept that these men did anything different from typical societal behavior. Gambling in Chicago was big business, as was other illegal endeavors. That ballplayers were “on the take” is less noteworthy than politicians and police departments being on the payroll of gangsters.

We all lost here. And blame can reasonably be placed in many directions. But I think that a couple of these good ol’ boys managed to scam the gamblers out of $5000. each. Another, Gedeon, may have placed some bets based on inside knowledge – but I’ve never heard of that being alleged. And Weaver entertained the gambler’s offer, then rejected it.

And baseball had to make an example.