Eddie Cicotte's HOF chances - should he get in? Will he?

[ThomasL]

Originally Posted by Yoda

If Charles Comiskey wasn't such a cheap SOB and paid his players what they were worth, perhaps the '19 WS fix would never have happened. He wouldn't even pay for the players' uniforms to be cleaned. Pre-war cards in many cases reflect that grubby fact.
And, of course, Buck Weaver protested his innocence until the day he died, while Cicotte was totally open about it.

Compared to the league they were paid fairly by in large, if you want to argue the league and their contract structures held players pay down save for a few high profile players (Cobb) than that is a fair argument. It is one of the "8 Myths Out"

I will however push back on this take the "8 Myths" makes a little...

Now there is little doubt several Sox players thought they were underpaid. The only real league contracts they saw were the high profile ones that newspapers reported on, Cobb and Alexander and more importantly Eddie Collins...they all knew what Collins was paid and Collins was not well liked by most of the team. Weaver and Gandil I have no doubt thought they were under paid...Weaver also probably felt slighted by the choosing of Collins as team captain when he arrived...Risberg was still young and not established but he was buddies with Gandil and Weaver (and McMullin) who were all PCL stars and had known each other for a long time.

It is also worth noting that before the 1919 WS the team was not really divided into clicks...that happened really for the 1920 season bc the Clean Sox knew what happened and didnt associate with those players after. Before that there was only one player that most of the team did not associate with and that was Eddie Collins bc he was highly paid, received a lot of press, had not been on the team long, was made captain, was highly educated and had a personality that was hard to get along with.

Later in life several Clean Sox even said Comiskey was stingy with money...Eddie Murphy and Win Noyes I know said this and I believe Byrd Lynn...and Comiskey/Grabiner were shrewd negotiators...all this plus they had no clue what the rest of the league was making makes for the appearance to the player(s) that they were getting screwed. It is also the nature of contracts that each party fights for their own interests.