Sports events that capture and represents each turning

[pbrower2a]

The Black Sox scandal perfectly fit one and only one time. Professional sports were a nasty world. Horse-racing was the model for human sports.  Athletes were often illiterate or barely educated, so they were often unable to think beyond the only sacred object of a 3T -- money. More money was spent on gambling on baseball games than on the tickets to the games.  

Team owners were  a rapacious, penny-pinching lot. I don't know whether Charles Comiskey was the worst, but he reportedly offered Ed Cicotte a huge bonus for winning 30 games and shut him down after 29 (a legitimate practice if making the championships and playing well therein is more important; Comiskey did so and denied the bonus. In more recent times one would expect the team to pay the bonus if a player is obliged to sacrifice career highs or magic numbers for the Big Win.

Players were underpaid, and gamblers got six players to throw the 1919 World Series in which the powerful White Sox would face the comparatively-weak Cincinanati Reds.

Quote:A meeting of White Sox players—including those committed to going ahead and those just ready to listen—took place on September 21, in Chick Gandil's room at the Ansonia Hotel in New York City. Buck Weaver was the only player to attend the meetings who did not receive money. Nevertheless, he was later banned along with the others for knowing about the fix but not reporting it.


Although he hardly played in the series, utility infielder Fred McMullin got word of the fix and threatened to report the others unless he was in on the payoff. As a small coincidence, McMullin was a former teammate of William "Sleepy Bill" Burns, who had a minor role in the fix. Both had played for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League,[5][6] and Burns had previously pitched for the White Sox in 1909 and 1910.[7] Star outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson was mentioned as a participant but did not attend the meetings, and his involvement is disputed.
The scheme got an unexpected boost when the straitlaced Faber could not pitch due to a bout with the flu. Years later, Schalk said that if Faber had been available, the fix would have likely never happened, since Faber would have almost certainly started games that went instead to two of the alleged conspirators, pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams.[8]

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Excerpt from the Wikipedia article, which explains far more.

Quote:The White Sox clubhouse was divided into two factions. One group resented the more straitlaced players (later called the "Clean Sox"), a group that included players like second baseman Eddie Collins, a graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University; catcher Ray Schalk, and pitchers Red Faber and Dickey Kerr. By contemporary accounts, the two factions rarely spoke to each other on or off the field, and the only thing they had in common was a resentment of Comiskey.[4]

Eventually eight members of this team would be suspended, in practice permanently, including "Shoeless Joe Jackson", arguably the best player of the time except for Rogers Hornsby. 

Quote:Eight members of the White Sox baseball team were banned by Landis for their involvement in the fix:

• [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Gandil]Arnold "Chick" Gandil, first baseman. The leader of the players who were in on the fix. He did not play in the majors in 1920, playing semi-pro ball instead. In a 1956 Sports Illustrated article, he expressed remorse for the scheme but wrote that the players had actually abandoned it when it became apparent they were going to be watched closely. According to Gandil, the players' numerous errors were a result of fear that they were being watched.[27][28]
  
  
• Eddie Cicotte, pitcher. Admitted involvement in the fix.[12]
  
  
• Oscar "Happy" Felsch, center fielder.
  
  
• "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, the star outfielder and one of the best hitters in the game, confessed in sworn grand jury testimony to having accepted $5,000 cash from the gamblers. It was also Jackson’s sworn testimony that he never met or spoke to any of the gamblers and was only told about the fix through conversations with other White Sox players. The other players that were in on the fix informed him that he would be getting $20,000 cash divided up in equal payments after each loss. Jackson’s testimony was that he played to win in the entire Series and did nothing on the field to throw any of the games in any way. His roommate, pitcher Lefty Williams, brought $5,000 cash up to their hotel room after losing Game 4 in Chicago and threw it down as they were packing to leave to travel back to Cincinnati. This was the only money that Jackson received at any time.[29] He later recanted his confession and professed his innocence to no effect until his death in 1951. The extent of Jackson's collaboration with the scheme is hotly debated.[8]
  
  
• Fred McMullin, utility infielder. McMullin would not have been included in the fix had he not overheard the other players' conversations. His role as team scout may have had more impact on the fix since he saw minimal playing time in the series.
  
  
• Charles "Swede" Risberg, shortstop. Risberg was Gandil's assistant and the "muscle" of the playing group. He went 2-for-25 at the plate and committed four errors in the series.
  
  
• George "Buck" Weaver, third baseman. Weaver attended the initial meetings, and while he did not go in on the fix, he knew about it. In an interview in 1956, Gandil said that it was Weaver's idea to get the money up front from the gamblers.[13] Landis banished him on this basis, stating, "Men associating with crooks and gamblers could expect no leniency." On January 13, 1922, Weaver unsuccessfully applied for reinstatement. Like Jackson, Weaver continued to profess his innocence to successive baseball commissioners to no effect.
  
  
• Claude "Lefty" Williams, pitcher. Went 0–3 with a 6.63 ERA for the series. Only one other pitcher in baseball history, reliever George Frazier of the 1981 New York Yankees, has ever lost three games in one World Series. The third game Williams lost was Game 8 – baseball's decision to revert to a best of seven Series in 1922 significantly reduced the opportunity for a pitcher to obtain three decisions in a Series. (note: George Frazier lost three World Series games fair and square). 
  
  
  

Also banned was Joe Gedeon, second baseman for the St. Louis Browns. Gedeon placed bets since he learned of the fix from Risberg, a friend of his. He informed Comiskey of the fix after the Series in an effort to gain a reward. He was banned for life by Landis along with the eight White Sox, and died in 1941.[30]

The indefinite suspensions imposed by Landis in relation to the scandal were the most suspensions of any duration to be simultaneously imposed until 2013 when 13 player suspensions of between 50 and 211 games were announced following the doping-related Biogenesis scandal.

The role of Joe Jackson remains controversial. He signed a confession that he could not read (he was illiterate). His play looks clean enough. Buck Weaver knew but failed to snitch on his crooked teammates, which itself might have caused the White Sox to lose the Series. His play also looks clean. 

in any event, Baseball Reference has analysis of the 1919 World Series and a play-by-play  for each game even if the erratic plays suggesting a fix are not judged.