The White Sox Of The World - 1628 Words

Money seems to run the world. People need money to buy food, buy shelter, and support families. There are many ways to make money in order to survive, which most commonly involve working a full time job, but also include illegal means and gambling. Gambling seems to be an easy way to make money, but also a high risk†¦ but not if the game is fixed. Despite the lack of prevalent hard evidence proving they fixed the game, the eight White Sox players involved in the 1919 World Series bribery scandal were rightfully banned. The eight White Sox players attended meetings about the bribery and accepted and agreed to the bribe. When the White Sox first basemen, C. Arnold â€Å"Chick† Gandil, met with a gambler, the idea of throwing the 1919 World Series†¦show more content†¦Soon after, Cicotte decided to testify and confessed his involvement in the bribery of the 1919 World Series. Shortly following his testimony and confession, the other seven players involved began to c ome forward confessing. The players coasted through their trial in 1921 after all paper records of the player confessions vanished and they were acquitted of all charges. Only a day after their acquittal, recently appointed MLB commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all eight players from professional baseball for life. The 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds was expected to be a blowout in favor of the White Sox. After the Reds emerged victorious, a bribery scandal spread leading to the banning of all eight White Sox players involved. In today’s world a scandal of this sort seems completely unlikely regarding the amount of money professional baseball players earn now. But in 1919 the highest paid baseball player was Ty Cobb earning only $20,000 (Haupert). In addition, the White Sox were owned by Charles A. Comiskey, a nineteenth-century ballplayer known for paying his players as little as possible(Milner). Many professional baseb all players of that time only played part time as they had other jobs. They could not support their families with the salary they earned playing baseball. This is what led to players accepting the bribe and agreeing to