The Chris Moeller Archives

The Black Bears?

The publication once widely known as The Baseball Bible, The Sporting News, claims it has evidence that the Chicago Cubs threw the 1918 World Series to the Boston Red Sox. In a newly-found affivadit, one of the Chicago White Sox famed "Eight Men Out" of 1919, Eddie Cicotte, says that the so-called Black Sox players first got the idea to throw the '19 Series on a train to New York when several players said that the previous year's series had been fixed, leading to a discussion about how many players would have to be involved in the plot. The lost diary of a Charlie Comiskey business associate, and reporting at the time by Hugh Fullerton, the Chicago sportswriter who uncovered the '19 scandal, also suggested a possible plot in '18. (Full details are here.)

I wouldn't be surprised. Such a plot would be more shameless and dispiriting than trying to cash in at the gate and in the media on a century-long championship drought. Personally, I think there's cause to call into question every World Series outcome prior to the White Sox players' grand jury testimonies in 1920. Gamblers ran roughshod over the game for decades in a way that makes the steroids "scandal" of today look like a drop in the bucket. (At least the steroid users are trying to win.)

There was an attempt to bribe the home plate umpire before the replay of the famous "Merkle's Boner" game in 1908 that even allowed the Cubs to enter the World Series during the year of their last trophy, and the results of an official query into the contest's legitimacy were never made public. (It's distinctly possible, as we begin to look closer, that the Cubs franchise has never won a legitimate flag.)

"The Miracle (Boston) Braves, " who triumped over Connie Mack's juggernaut Philadelphia Athletics in four straight World Series games in 1914, may not have been a miracle club at all. Allegations have never been proven, but the parsimonious Mack did see fit to quickly trade or sell off the valuable players of the team after the Series, and within two years, in 1916, the team managed only 36 wins.

Rommended reading is 2004's "The Black Prince of Baseball: Hal Chase and the Mythology of the Game," by Don Dewey. While it's principally a biography of the notorious superstar firstbaseman of the early century New York Highlanders (later Yankees), the book is an exhaustive and valuable source as perspective on the underworld element of the game during the period of the oughts and the teens, and about how baseball's publicly "upright" citizens and leaders at the time attempted to wash clean the league's sins through a handful of high-profile scapegoats.

Sound at all familiar?

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This is kind of a nifty website. It advertises "Great movie moments-- one clip at a time." Site administrators posted a memorable Chuck Heston scene after he died, and my favorite is this one featuring unheralded talent Larry Miller.

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I forgot Letterman's birthday last week, but Lyle the Intern didn't.

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Bill Maher "New Rule", HBO 4/18/08-- "You shouldn't have to pay for a stamp to mail your taxes. You are sending your money to the same people who sell you the stamp. It's like a collection agency calling you collect."

posted by CM @ 12:41 PM