Eight White Sox Threw the 1919 World Series and a Jury Acquitted Every One of Them

On September 18, 1919, three weeks before the World Series, the Chicago White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil met with the Boston bookmaker Joseph "Sport" Sullivan in a Boston hotel and agreed to deliver a thrown series for $80,000. Gandil recruited seven teammates: pitcher Eddie Cicotte, pitcher Lefty Williams, outfielders "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Happy Felsch, infielders Swede Risberg and Buck Weaver, and reserve Fred McMullin. Funding came primarily from the New York gambler Arnold Rothstein. The signal that the fix was on, agreed in advance, was that Cicotte would deliberately hit the leadoff Cincinnati batter on his second pitch of Game One. He did.

The Reds, who were the underdogs, won the best-of-nine series five games to three. The players had trouble getting paid. Each was promised about $10,000; most received $5,000 or less, while Gandil pocketed $35,000. The double-cross is partly visible in the box scores: Chicago players, frustrated by the gamblers' nonpayment, tried to genuinely win Games Six and Seven. Joe Jackson hit .375 across the series with the only home run by either side, which still fuels the argument that he wasn't really fixing.

The scandal broke in September 1920. A grand jury indicted the eight players. The trial in summer 1921 ran into trouble immediately when key statements from Cicotte and Jackson disappeared from the prosecutors' files; the jury deliberated less than three hours and acquitted all eight in July 1921. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, hired as the first commissioner of Major League Baseball that month, immediately overrode the verdict and banned all eight players from professional baseball for life. The bans held until April 2025, when Commissioner Rob Manfred reinstated the entire group, primarily to make Pete Rose newly Hall-of-Fame eligible.