213. Jimmy O'Connell: The Other Side of a Scandal

Over the years I've been fortunate enough to hear from several of the players whose portraits and stories I've included on my website, and that continued after my book "The League of Outsider Baseball" came out in May. One of the most memorable letters I received from a relative of Jimmy O'Connell. He's in the chapter entitled "The Bad Guys" due to his being thrown out of organized baseball for offering money to an opposing player to throw a game. Jimmy's great-niece wrote to say how bittersweet it was to find her great-uncle Jim in a chapter with a title of "Bad Guys". After telling me about how much she enjoyed the book she added this poignant passage: "So I'd like to put in a word for Jim O'Connell and let you know what a good guy he was. Devoted to his wife, my Aunt Esther, a loving uncle to my mom and her sister and madly in love with the game of baseball, long after it turned its back on him. ". 

Those words stuck with me ever since. These ballplayers I illustrate and write about had families who loved them. The letter made Jimmy O'Connell not just a name from old newspaper articles and box scores, but a very real person. I want to thank Jimmy's relatives for taking the time to write this great piece. The story of Jimmy O'Connell and the 1924 pennant scandal is often told, but never to my knowledge has it been told from the family's perspective. I'm both honored and humbled to be able to showcase this story here on my website. and without further delay, here the O'Connell family's "guest author" post on the old ballplayer they called "Uncle Jim"...

We all know the curdled feeling you get when your ball team loses. It is always at its most intense when the game hinges on a single error and your team ends up sinking a bit deeper in the loss column. But brighter tomorrows come easily in baseball. With its lengthy season and ambling games that always breed hope, the crummy feelings dissipate and faith is restored with one swing of a bat. But for New York Giants outfielder James "Jimmy" O'Connell, a single error of judgement in the 1924 pennant race meant a lifetime ban from professional baseball. The stamp of his poor decision stayed affixed to him and his name has traveled down nine decades of baseball history with a scandal attached.

But for me, the name Jimmy O'Connell doesn't exist solely in places like Gary's excellent book The League of Outsider Baseball. He was also my mother's "Uncle Jim", her lovable, generous and incontrovertibly optimistic uncle, friend and hero. My mom Mary June, her sister Margaret and cousin Bette always kept stories of dashing Uncle Jim alive for their combined 21 children. Although they never denied the fact that in the pennant race of 1924, Jim offered another player $500 if he didn't "bear down too hard ", they also handed down the story, detailed in their aunt's anguished letters, of heartbreak and misguided faith in the men of baseball who held Jimmy's fate in their hands. They told us, too, about the life Jim lived after the scandal, spent on dusty Outlaw League diamonds, and then back in California where some of the shimmer of his days as a San Francisco Seal stood him in better light with old fans and admirers.

In 1921, my grandmother's sister Esther moved from Montana to San Francisco to look for work. She found a secretarial job at accountants Price-Waterhouse and one day she noticed a photo of a young ball player named Jimmy O'Connell in the newspaper and set her heart on him. The handsome Irish-American was a member of the San Francisco Seals and Esther, chaperoned by her visiting mother, left a note for the first baseman at Recreation Park. "We went down to 14th Street and Valencia and left a note at the Seals office. I asked him to call on me at the Palace Hotel, if he wished. I got a call that afternoon," said Esther in an interview recorded on cassette tape before her death in 1978. Their first date was spent at the Pantages Theater seeing comedian Georgie Jessel. Recalling the evening, Esther said, "In his monologue he said, 'Did you ever see O'Connell hit one?'"

The young couple was married on October 2, 1922 and not long after their honeymoon, O'Connell was in the newspapers on both coasts due to the record-breaking sum paid by the New York Giants for his contract. "Babe Ruth Has Nothing on Seals $75,000 Beauty" and "N. Y. Giants $75,000 'Rookie'" sang the headlines. O'Connell went straight to work at the Giants' training camp, gearing up for a switch to the outfield.

The early 1920s were a glittering time in New York City and Esther was a faithful correspondent, describing to her mother and sisters the glamorous Broadway revels and pure excitement of the Polo Grounds. A family of inveterate newspaper clippers, Esther's sisters saved every mention of Jimmy O'Connell from printed game stats to the items in the society page depicting the young O'Connell and his smartly dressed wife on the town.

Then the 1924 season came to a staggering end and with it, the baseball career of Jimmy O'Connell. Books like Judge Landis by J.G. Taylor Spink and John McGraw by Charles C. Alexander have reported the details of what happened on Sept. 27, 1924 and the ensuing meetings held in Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis' office. The main fact was thus: In a game whose win would only be an insurance policy in a National League pennant race they had nearly captured, NY Giants rookie outfielder Jimmy O'Connell approached Philadelphia shortstop Heinie Sand and whispered, "It will be worth $500 to you if you don't bear down too hard against us today."  Aghast, Sands refused and went straight to his manager to report the offer.  Word traveled swiftly to the ears of baseball commissioner Landis and O'Connell and coach Cozy Dolan were immediately summoned to explain their part in Sands' accusation. (And as it turned out, the Giants didn't need any funny business to win their "fourth straight flag". "Why offer Philadelphia $500 to lose?" one wag quipped. "They're happy to lose for free.")

Esther's side of the story was delivered in a long, tear-stained letter she composed to her mother after sitting out all night with Jim in Central Park to avoid the hordes of reporters that had descended upon their residence.  "He didn't want to but when he asked the older men what to do he was told, 'You know how thick McGraw and Dolan are, so it is orders.'" McGraw was brusque Giants owner John McGraw and those "older men" were future hall-of-famers Frank Frisch, Ross Youngs and George Kelly, who all denied saying anything and escaped punishment.

For a time, the couple remained hopeful. Jimmy never denied having made the offer to Sands, saying that he was told by coach Dolan to send out a feeler. And there is nothing that has ever been published (to my knowledge) that states that Jimmy O'Connell was solely responsible for the offer. Several baseball writers have asked, "Who put together the money?" and a couple have wondered aloud whether it was all a prank against a credible greenhorn. But adjudication was solely in the hands of Judge Landis and he handed Jimmy O'Connell and Cozy Dolan lifetime bans from professional baseball.

Stunned, Jim and Esther left New York and returned to Northern California. Esther wrote to her sister, "Jim has youth and health and we have each other and we can start over again in time." Jim's love for baseball (and his terrific athletic ability) drew him down to New Mexico to play outlaw baseball in a small league that hosted several other banned players and was looked upon with scorn by organized baseball. The Fort Bayard team was sponsored by a group of World War One vets, most of whom were bedridden with lingering wounds and tuberculosis in the post hospital. Jimmy was so popular with the fans and the vets that he eventually formed a team for the Southwest New Mexico League called "Jimmy O'Connell's All-Stars". Throughout his six years in New Mexico, Jim thrived in his roles of team captain and raiser-of-spirits to the men of Fort Bayard Hospital.

There was no shortage of calls and petitions for the reinstatement of Jimmy O'Connell made to Judge Landis. None other than the colorful writer Damon Runyon asked Landis to reconsider. "Don't you think this boy has been punished enough, Judge? I believe the public would be with you if you reinstate him." But Landis never budged and eventually Jim and Esther left the Southwest and headed back to California to begin another chapter in their lives. Jim took a job with Richfield Oil and enjoyed a long career with the oil company, starting as a refinery worker and ending his career in public relations, promoting the development of the Alaska Pipeline.

My mother, Mary June, described a visit to Uncle Jim and Auntie Esther in her 1940 diary, composed when she was nineteen years old. She flew from Cheyenne, Wyoming to San Francisco and stayed for a week in the O'Connell's Sausalito home. Each day she recorded a marvelous sightseeing trip with her Uncle Jim, culminating in a visit to the World's Fair. My mother always treasured the souvenir photograph that Uncle Jim gave her that day. And with good reason. There aren't many photos of Jimmy O'Connell in our family collection and very little memorabilia outside of a silver "Open Gate" medallion given to Jim by the NY Giants in 1924.

When Esther O'Connell returned home from Jim's funeral in Bakersfield in 1976, there was a baseball collector waiting in the driveway. Brushing past him and his inquiries, Esther made a bonfire in her backyard and threw Jim's mitts, uniforms and memorabilia on the flames. Jim had allowed himself to move on, but Esther's anger at baseball had never subsided. Mom's cousin Bette managed to save one box of Jim's things from the bonfire, but Esther had already torn the photos in two. A team photo of the SF Seals, a press photo of Jim and Sox player Willie Kamm, and a photo of Jim shaking hands with John McGraw were poignantly pieced back together with transparent tape. It is a small, but cherished, collection that I hope will spur the curiosity and baseball fever of my grandnieces and nephews as it has mine.

I am so very grateful to Gary Cieradkowski for including Jimmy O'Connell in his book and for creating such a wonderful illustration of Uncle Jim. I wasn't sure if I was just dispatching an email into the wild blue yonder when I wrote to Gary about another side of Jimmy O'Connell's story. HIs gracious reply has allowed me to share these personal reminiscences of my family and provide another view of a man who, by all surviving post-scandal accounts, was admired by just about everyone he came across.

I have been encouraged to write about Uncle Jim for many years by my Aunt Margaret. At 92, she is in full possession of her detailed memories of her beloved Uncle Jim.  I dedicate this blog post to her. She is the last person in our family (and perhaps the world!) to have seen Jimmy O'Connell play baseball. She saw him play on the Richfield Oil company team on a visit to California in 1935. She was eleven years old.

I spoke to her on the phone the other day and asked her if Jim ever talked about his regrets or suffered from the anguish that plagued Esther. She said, "He never said a word about it. It was all in the past. When he walked in the room, he'd look me and Mary June in the eyes and say, "Shall we get an ice cream cone, girls?"


A Note About the Illustration: I wanted to show Jimmy back before he joined the Giants, circa 1923 while with the San Francisco Seals, when his future was bright and the sky was the limit for him. I depicted him in the time-honored baseball chore of "boning" his bat with a horse shoe. This was done back before players used 100's of bats each year. Players would spend spare time rubbing a horse shoe, Coke bottle or steak bone on the bat which closed the pores of the wood, making it rock-hard and less likely to break.
 

131. Carl Mays: The unpleasant man with the unpleasant pitch

Most casual baseball fans have heard of Carl Mays, the man who threw the ball that killed a man on the field. There's a photograph of him at the end of his career that is always used to illustrate articles about him - he's hunched over, standing on one leg, his torso coiled around so that his back is showing, his face partially hidden from view with just his eyes peering towards the viewer. It's a striking pose and if not for his being in a baseball uniform you might be partial to thinking that this was some evil character trying to hide something particularly dangerous which he will unleash on you in short order. In a sense, that photograph sums up Carl Mays.

He had a lousy childhood. His father died when he was 12. His mother was stuck with the family farm trying to provide for him and his 7 other siblings. He learned to throw accurately out of necessity - the family owned no rifle so he had to kill game with rocks. A good ballplayer, in 1911 he and a buddy hopped a freight train and headed to California to live their dream of playing pro ball. The made it as far as Price, Utah where the two were thrown in jail for vagrancy. When the sheriff discovered that the two hobos were ballplayers they were paroled on the condition they play on the town ball team. Virtually held hostage, Mays beat the town's big rival and spent the winter in Price. Come spring he high-tailed it out of there and began his professional career with the Boise Irrigators. The next year he went to the Portland Beavers and he adapted the city as his home for the rest of his life. While toiling in the minors Mays injured his arm. To lessen the pain he tried a variety of ways to throw the ball and discovered that when he pitched underhanded the pain went away.

It's called a "submarine" pitch and when it's thrown right it's a formidable weapon. Mays would contort himself on the mound, rocking back on his right leg, twisting his torso behind him as his gloved hand loosely dangled straight down while his pitching arm with the ball swung back behind him, almost out of sight to the batter. As the arm whipped forward Mays dropped it so low to the ground his knuckles sometimes scraped the dirt. To an opposing batter the ball looked like it was being thrown at him from under the third base bag. As the ball came at the hitter it rose from the field instead of gradually dropping as when thrown by a conventional pitcher. It angled upwards at the batter and when it reached the plate mysteriously dropped down sharply. If a batter didn't know what to expect when he faced Mays, it was a frightful and disorienting experience. Opposing players disliked facing him and many thought the underhanded pitch should be banned all together. It was too hard to see and that was dangerous.

As Mays worked his way up to the majors he left behind him a wake of discontent. Though a brilliant pitcher, the submariner was angry, unpleasant and just plain mean. His own teammates disliked him. When he played for the Providence Grays in 1914 his teammates sawed of the handle of his bat then glued it back together. The next time he connected with the ball the bat fell apart, robbing him of a hit and leaving him humiliated. When he bought a new home for his wife and mother someone burned it down to the ground. I'm not sure how much Mays brought on himself or if perhaps he just had one of those disagreeable dispositions and unknowingly rubbed people the wrong way. For sure Mays had a couple of close friends. He married and was a loving husband and father so he couldn't have been that bad.

But to most, especially other ballplayers, Carl Mays was hated. Not to disappoint his detractors, Mays became known right from the start of his major league career as a headhunter. He led the league in hit batsmen in 1917. He had a running battle with Ty Cobb which culminated in Cobb spiking the hell out of the pitcher, leaving a terrifying wound that required many stitches to close. To the end of his life Mays showed it off, almost as a badge of honor, perhaps to prove he could take as good as he could give. He yelled at his own teammates when he thought they messed up a play and backed it up with his fists. When he thought his teammates on the Red Sox weren't trying hard enough he walked off the mound, out of the ballpark and refused to come back unless he was traded.

Carl Mays was the ace of the New York Yankees when he hit Cleveland's popular star Ray Chapman in the head with the ball. Mays insisted he didn't mean to hit Chapman and even fellow ballplayers remarked at how Chapman would typically crowd the plate. The way Mays pitched was hard for some batters to follow and the ball Mays was using that afternoon was supposedly filthy and darkened from being used for too many innings. The odds are the submariner wasn't trying to hit Chapman, let alone kill him. Any other pitcher would have been exonerated for the incident but because Mays was such a disagreeable person he was flayed alive. A few teams threatened to strike if he pitched against them and because of the death, major league baseball banned all "trick" pitches like the spitter and shine ball. Umpires were instructed to replace misshapen and dirty balls with new ones.

The season after the death of Chapman, Mays was spectacular, winning 27 games as the Yankees captured their first American League pennant. As a nod to his place as the best pitcher on his staff, Miller Huggins tapped Mays to start the opening game against the Giants. True to form he tossed a 3-0 shut-out. The Yanks took the second game as well and after losing a game to the Giants, Huggins sent Mays to the mound again in game four.

Mays was cruising along after 7 innings giving up only two hits to the Giants and leading 1-0 when he fell apart. Irish Meusel stepped up to face Mays. From the dugout Miller Huggins signaled Mays to throw a fastball. Instead he threw a slow breaking curve and Meusel bounced it off the outfield wall and had himself a triple. After the game Mays told reporters he had disregarded Huggins' instructions because he'd gotten Meusel out earlier with the same slow curve. A single by Johnny Rawlings scored Meusel and the score was tied. Frank Snyder bunted back to Mays and instead of an easy out Mays fell down and the runners were safe. Phil Douglas tried another bunt but this time Mays fielded the ball flawlessly and got him at first. But now he had 2 runners in scoring position with the score tied and one out. George Burns smashed a double scoring both runners and just like that the Giants were up 3-1. Mays got out of the inning but the Giants scored another run off him in the ninth and the game ended 4-2. It was an unfortunate turn of events and a tough loss for Mays who had pitched 7 stellar innings.

Enter Fred Lieb. The veteran New York Telegram reporter was president of the Baseball Writers Association and one of the most respected writers in the country. After the game he was approached by a "well-known Broadway actor" and told an intriguing tale. The actor, who was also a gambling man, had been tipped off that the Yankees ace had been approached by gamblers to throw any close game he was involved in. The way it was to go down was that a man would approach Mays' wife Freddie and slip her a packet of cash. Payoff in hand, she was then supposed to signal her husband that the fix was in. The actor claimed that Freddie Mays had waved her handkerchief at her husband as he took the mound in the 8th inning that afternoon. A few minutes later Meusel was standing on third with a triple.

These accusations were truly serious. The stain of the Black Sox scandal was still all over the sport and the future of the game was still precarious. Another World Series scandal could be the knock-out blow that would forever damage the way fans followed the sport. Lieb took the actor to see the Yankees owner Colonel Huston and Commissioner Landis. The new czar of baseball took the charges seriously enough to open a full investigation and he instructed Lieb to keep a lid on the story until he finished looking into it.

Meanwhile the Yankees won game 5 to take the lead but then the Giants came roaring back in game 6. The series was shaping up to be an exciting slug fest. With the series knotted up at 3 games apiece Carl Mays took the mound for the Yankees.

Again the Yankees' ace turned in a masterpiece - at least for the first 7 innings. With the score tied at 1 each in the seventh Mays fell apart again. With two out, a double by Frank Snyder scored Johnny Rawlings who had reached first on an error by Yankee second baseman Aaron Ward. That was all the Giants needed as they held the Yankees off to win 2-1.

According to Lieb, the commissioner's investigation of Mays did not turn up anything questionable, but still, rumors swirled around the unpopular pitcher. The following season was one of Mays' worst. He uncharacteristically went 13-14 for the pennant winning Yanks and after the World Series was put on waivers. Despite being one of the top hurlers in the league, the Yankees didn't want him anymore and neither did any other major league team.

When 1923 rolled around Carl Mays was still a Yankee. Miller Huggins basically refused to pitch the submariner and he only got into 23 games that year. Mays, never shy, complained loudly to the press about his lack of use. Despite pressure from the newspapers Huggins let Mays sit on the bench. The manager's dislike of Mays was clearly visible, especially when he finally started him in a game against Cleveland in July. The under worked pitcher got pounded 13-0 and Huggins left him in the entire game. After the drubbing was finally over sportswriters asked Huggins why he left Mays in instead of inserting a reliever. Huggins wryly quipped "he told me he needed lots of work, so I gave it to him."

The next season Mays was shipped off to Cincinnati. In the new surroundings he went 19-12 but it was down hill from there. He retired after the 1929 season and went home to Portland. When the stock market crashed he lost his hard-won nest egg and was forced to go back to baseball to make a living. At the age of 38 he rejoined the Portland Beavers, the club he played for 17 years earlier.

Mays didn't have any luck making friends on his way down as he had on his way up. Right from the start his new teammates disliked him for "big leaguing" them. According to one: "Mays has been a trouble maker all season. He tried that old big league racket on all the gang. Carl couldn't forget he wasn't in the big show and the Coast League was tougher than he figured." Since Mays was still a big name he attracted a good deal of press and sportswriters speculated was that he would be the next manager of the Beavers. This was far from the reality but Mays believed his own write-ups and began acting the part. His teammates decided amongst themselves that they would refuse to play for a guy like Mays. There was talk of a strike if he was named skipper.

Despite all his bluster Mays was getting hit hard by Pacific Coast League batters. By mid season he was 5-9 with a 4.75 ERA. So much for trying to "big league" his teammates. Instead of humbling the submariner, Mays' disappointment and embarrassment over his record manifested into outright belligerence. He took out his frustration on Portland ace, Junk Walters and the two came to blows at the end of July. In the locker room before a night game, the two men went at each other as the rest of the team watched. Walters received a black eye but Mays got the shit kicked out of him. Walters broke his nose, cracked one of his ribs and left the rest of him covered in bruises. The Pacific Coast League quickly suspended him indefinitely. The Portland management had had enough of the troublesome pitcher and on August 4th the Beavers handed Mays his release and transferred his contract to the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association.

Mays spent the rest of 1930 and beginning of 1931 with Toledo and then was shipped out to Louisville to finish up his career as a ballplayer. Things didn't get any smoother for Mays - his mother died, followed afterwards by his wife Freddie in 1934. To make a living he scouted for the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Braves and Kansas City Royals. As if to totally go against his surly and solitary reputation he operated his own baseball school for over ten years. Red Sox star shortstop Johnny Pesky was one of his students. Though he couldn't be bothered with his teammates, Mays seemed to genuinely love being around kids and none complained of him having a nasty disposition towards them.

As he grew old Mays became even more bitter. Besides the notoriety he received from his part in Chapman's death, Mays was angry about not being considered for the Hall of Fame. Not one to shy away from speaking his mind, Mays railed against contemporaries he considered of lesser talent than he. He was right. Teammate Waite Hoyt got the nod to the Hall and his winning percentage was a mediocre .566. Other contemporaries were ushered in with similar stats: Dazzy Vance's percentage was .585, Herb Pennock's was .598, Burleigh Grimes posted .560 and the final slap in the face: Eppa Rixley had a truly unremarkable .515 winning percentage and even he was considered Hall of Fame worthy. Carl Mays' was .623. The old submariner was convinced that it was the Chapman incident that kept him out, and that may have been true, but there may have been a darker reason for his exclusion.

The rumors of the 1921 series fix continued to swirl around, just out of sight of baseball fans. Fred Lieb related that sometime in 1928 Colonel Huston got drunk and told Lieb that Yankee pitchers had thrown world series games in 1921 and 1922. Lieb asked if Carl Mays was one of them to which Huston said yes. Miller Huggins, who wasn't the kind of manager to hold grudges, absolutely hated Mays. Telling Fred Lieb that he'd lend a financial hand to any of his former players, he paused and said anyone except Carl Mays and Joe Bush. Bush was on the Yankees with Mays and had also been accused of not playing on the level in the world series. Huggins got up out of his chair and said "if they were in the gutter, I'd kick them!" as his leg sliced through the air before the startled writer. As for his exclusion from Cooperstown, Lieb, who was on the voting committee, stated that the Chapman incident never came up when the vote was discussed. That he might have helped throw the world series did, and that's what stood between him and the Hall.

While time soothed the animosity some players held for one another, time did nothing to abate Mays' contemporaries dislike of him. As an old man, former teammate Bob Shawkey called him "a stinker." Ty Cobb, one player whose reputation among his contemporaries mellowed with the passing of time, still despised Mays. He still believed he hit Chapman deliberately.

Mays remarried and retired, and spent his leisure time helping kids learn the game. Each year he would travel from Oregon to San Diego to help his foster son Jerry coach high school baseball. "I love working with kids, especially the pitchers," Mays said. "I try to teach them everything. But the big thing I do is teach them safety in baseball." The old submariner passed away on April 4, 1972. 

SOURCES

• Sowell, Mike, The Pitch That Killed (MacMillan, 1989)
• Spatz, Lyle and Steinberg, Steve, 1921: The Yankees, The Giants & the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York (University of Nebraska Press, 2010)
• Ogden Evening Standard (July 25, 1930)
• Portsmouth Times (July 27, 1930)
• Salt Lake Tribune (August 5, 1930)
• The Charleston Gazette (August 10, 1930)
• The Sporting News (April 17, 1971)

114. Joe Jackson: Shoeless Joe in North Jersey

Well, no set of Black Sox would be complete without Ol' Shoeless Joe. Often portrayed as the hapless victim of the fix, I personally believe he got himself willingly into the mess and spent the rest of his life regretting it, but then again, who really knows.

As with all the other Black Sox, much of Jackson's baseball career after the fix has been shrouded in speculation. Growing up in Northern New Jersey I would hear stories of Shoeless Joe's appearance on local ball fields back in the 1920's but like so many other great baseball lore passed down through the generations, you never know what's fire and what's smoke. Over the years I looked around for evidence of Jackson in Jersey and one day someone sent me two photos of him playing in Hackensack. He wore a pinstripe uniform and a dark cap with a "P" on it. The two photos intrigued me and I wanted to know more about them but ran into dead ends. Then one day I got into contact with T.W. from BlackBetsy.com and he gave me the low-down of Jackson's day in Hackensack. So, I think it's fitting to cap off this series with a look at the day in the life of a fallen big league star, in this case Joe Jackson and the afternoon of Sunday, June 25th, 1922.

The man standing in the shade of the building was deeply suntanned and wrinkles ran round his face, making him seem older than his 32 years. He wore a black suit, finely tailored, though of an older style cut and starting to show it's age around the edges. In his rough, calloused hand he gripped a leather travel bag, which, upon closer examination, showed that the ornate brass plaque between the handles had been crudely altered: someone had scratched away all traces of the original engraved initials.

The man stood outside the box office entrance to the town ballpark. It was a small, but well built ball yard, but in actuality he hardly took notice. After all, he'd played in a different one almost every weekend that summer and now they were all starting to blend together. If he hadn't stopped at the coffee shop back in the train station he'd probably have had no idea where exactly he was, which, by the way, was Hackensack, New Jersey.

After standing around in the late morning sun for a few minutes a caravan of dirty open cars turned into the dirt lot beside the ballpark. Stopping in a cloud of dust, a dozen men poured out. These were to be his teammates for today's ballgame. He watched as the men unloaded canvas bags of equipment. The oldest looking one of the group saw him standing near the box office door and walked quickly over to him, extending his hand. He introduced himself as the manager. In his other hand he offered up a manila envelope. The suntanned man opened it and pretended to count the money inside and quickly shoved it in his coat pocket. It was time to get ready.

The locker room was a locker room in name only. The small room was damp and had 2 long wooden benches that ran the length of the room and the walls had a shelf about neck high opposite each bench and a row of hooks beneath that. Each of the ballplayers staked out a space on one of the benches and unpacked their small traveling bags. Most of the players talked loudly with one another, laughing and throwing around swear words. Their accents were harsh to his ears and sometimes not too easy to follow. A few of the players stared unabashedly at the suntanned man and he began to grow more uncomfortable than he usually felt. As the suntanned man undressed he hung his jacket from the hook and folded his black pants and silk pink shirt. Running his hand over the folded silk garment to smooth it out before placing it on the shelf, he quietly touched the gold embroidered "J" monogram over the pocket.

The suntanned man removed a worn baseball uniform from his leather satchel. It was of a rougher quality wool than he was used to but it was a baseball uniform just the same. There was no name on the front, just black pinstripes. The cap he retrieved from the satchel was black as well, with a white button and white "P" on the front - a souvenir of an afternoon up in Poughkeepsie the week before. His name was "Joe Nutter" that day.

The manager appeared with another ballplayer in tow. He introduced him as "Smith" but the suntanned man recognized him as a young pitcher with Toronto. He couldn't recall his name, but it sure as hell wasn't Smith. The manager repeated the story he'd already heard - that his Westwood town team, traditionally a local powerhouse, had been unexpectedly clobbered by Hackensack a month before. There was always a heated rivalry between the two towns and the games always attracted spirited betting, the action being covered by heavies from nearby New York City and Newark. Westwood swore Hackensack had a few ringers on their team that day and needless to say much money was lost by Westwood's fans that day. Plenty of people were pissed off and thirsty for revenge. Taking up a collection, Westwood decided to purchase some insurance for today's game, hence the manila envelope of cash. Today, the suntanned man's name was "Josephs", at least that's what it said on the lineup card.

By this time he could hear the roar of the crowd. Through the row of filthy windows that lined one wall above the shelves he could make out much movement as hundreds of people jostled for seats. He could hear men shouting and children squealing. Someone threw something through one of the open windows and every few minutes some wiseguy would bang on the glass and shout something nasty. One of the suntanned man's temporary teammates sidled up and said: "They know you're here."

Emerging out from the darkness of the locker room he pulled his cap down as low as he could over his eyes to protect them from the sun. The crowd went wild when they recognized him.

"My God, it's Shoeless Joe Jackson!"

Spectators were spilling out onto the field and bits of paper littered the field. Glancing out to center field he could see it was cleared of fans, which made him feel a little better. The roar was deafening. There must be more than 1000 here today, probably more. Ugly, twisted faces shouted unintelligible words at him. Small children stared and women craned their heads and stood on tip-toes to catch a glimpse of him. He'd seen it all before. He did this every weekend.

The game wasn't much to remember as far as he was concerned. It was a standard affair - the Hackensack manager came over to the Westwood bench and in between swearwords made it clear his team would be playing the game under protest. Westwood held back the Toronto pitcher until he was unleashed in the 3rd inning after Hackensack scored a few runs. It was smart managing as it gave the gamblers time to settle the odds before the Toronto kid shut them down for the rest of the game.

In between hitting a home run, double and two singles there were a few notable incidents. A news photographer ran onto the field while Westwood was batting and attempted to take a photo of him as he sat on the bench. Two of his teammates started shoving the newsman and threatened to beat the hell out of him if he didn't get back to the stands. When Westwood's catcher reared back, ready to throw a punch, the fella ran off so fast he left his hat behind. The catcher stomped on it with his spikes and the rest of the ballplayers laughed. A few times the game was stopped, not by the umpire but because everyone paused to watch a fist fight in the bleachers. He noticed that the couple of policemen stood by and did nothing - wading into a crowd like this was pointless and after a few minutes the fighting stopped on its own anyway. At a few points in the afternoon the play was stopped while the players collected some of the larger items that were thrown onto the grass. Bottles of beer, scorecards, newspapers and even a few straw hats were picked up and thrown in a pile behind home plate. One call by the amateur umpire cause a heck of a row. When he called Westwood's left fielder out for supposedly not touching first base on his way to an easy double, the bench cleared and for a time it looked like the poor umpire was going to catch a beating. He sat on the bench and watched. The guy missed touching first by a mile anyway. A few innings later a Westwood fan charged out of the stands and accused a Hackensack outfielder of putting a concealed second baseball in play when he couldn't get to a deeply hit fly ball. He just pulled his cap lower over his eyes and thought about his wife.

He was proud of one play he made that day, not at bat but in the outfield. On a long ball hit out to him in center, he'd made the catch and threw a straight liner back to the surprised catcher who tagged out the equally surprised runner to end the inning. The bases had been loaded and it squelched a rally and when all was wrapped up it probably made the difference in Westwood's 9 to 7 defeat of Hackensack. Most of the crowd cheered but some threw even more crap on the field. This wasn't Comiskey Park.

After the game he tried to dress as quickly as possible. Half the team was drunk and in various stages of undress. One of the guys threw his spikes through one of the glass windows. He was too busy packing his leather satchel to find out why. Someone was pounding on the locker room door but no one answered. After a while he slipped his black suit coat over his pink silk shirt, once again obscuring the embroidered "J" above the pocket. He opened the locker room door and ignoring the lingering spectators in the parking lot headed off towards the train station, trying to remember where he was going to be next weekend and what his name would be when he got there.

The whole concept of this story was derived from a June 28, 1922 New York American newspaper article. It is one of the most moving articles I've come across dealing with the banned ballplayers. The writer had been at the Westwood game and the game details are as I have described here. Besides giving a summary of the whereabouts of the other Black Sox, writer Arthur Robinson includes fascinating details such as what Jackson wore that day and mentioning that his initials had been scratched off his travel bag. It is a grim and unflinching story and reading it all I could think about was how it made Jackson and the other seven men seem like they were stuck in some sort of sad baseball purgatory. Perhaps that's a fitting end to the perpetrators of baseball's saddest moment... but what the hell do I know, I'm just an simple artist.

I just wanted to give credit again to a few sources that besides first-hand contemporary newspaper articles, were the best places to glean hard-to-find information regarding the post 1920 lives of the Black Sox:

BlackBetsy.com a great website and more importantly it's staffed by a group of very knowledgeable Joe Jackson experts who were more than willing to share their groundbreaking research on the Black Sox Scandal. I owe much of the Joe Jackson article to T.W. and I just want to thank him for his kindness.

After The Black Sox: The Swede Risberg Story by Alan Muchlinski. Simply excellent chunk of research that shines a light onto the later years of Swede and his former teammates who he played against.

Outlaw Baseball Players in the Copper League: 1925-1927 by Lynn Bevill. A M.A. thesis published online that is the best source I've found that really explains the role of the Black Sox in the Copper League but also does a great job at telling the story of the towns and how the league operated.

Blacksoxfan.com No list of sources would be complete without a big thanks to this site dedicated to the Black Sox. The authors downloadable pdf of every existing outlaw and semi-pro game featuring a member of the Black Sox is just a monumental achievement and unbelievably helpful in tracking the movements of the eight men.

113. Swede Risberg: "Why work, when you can fool the public"

I hope you are enjoying the "After The Black Sox" series so far. When I was starting the Infinite Baseball Card site the very first drawings I attempted were of these 8 players. Besides the 1919 World Series fix being an interest of mine, drawing a set of 8 let me see how the style I was developing would look as a series. The originals were pretty basic and sparse compared to the ones you are looking at now, but the idea was there, the firm black line with bold blocks of color. I had wanted to re-draw these guys again but after getting to Happy Felsch and Eddie Cicotte, I got sidetracked by so many other great players who needed a card. Now, seeing them all together in all their post-1919 glory, I have to say it is a nice looking series. Anyway, here is the story of Swede Risberg's later years, leaving only one more, Shoeless Joe, who will make his appearance next week...

Swede Risberg has gone down in baseball lore as the muscle behind the 1919 fix. Besides having a nasty reputation that he cultivated long before he broke into the majors, his threat to murder Joe Jackson if he spilled his guts caused Shoeless Joe to make the infamous statement: "The Swede is a hard guy."

The Swede was born in San Francisco when it was still part of the "wild west" and grew up tough. His old man was a lumberjack from Sweden, and I don't think it would surprise anyone to know that that's where his nickname was derived from. Like many of the ballplayers he played with, Swede's education ebbed at an early age. His surly disposition and quickness to use his fists to settle a disagreement probably stems from insecurity derived from his embarrassment at his lack of schooling. Or maybe he was just a bad seed. Regardless of its root, when asked why he dropped out of school in the third grade, Swede quipped it was because he refused to shave...

During his minor league career on the west coast, the Swede forged his reputation as a tough customer through numerous spurts of violence. But he also became known as a very versatile player, filling in where ever he was needed, including on the mound. The White Sox snapped him up in 1917 and although he was terrible at bat, his defensive skill kept him in the game. His scrappiness was also noted, most memorably when he fought the ferocious Ty Cobb to a draw. By 1919 he was Chicago's starting shortstop and the press tabbed him as an up-and-comer.

Much like his pal Chick Gandil, Swede was a malcontent and must have been gasoline on the fire of the already inflamed White Sox locker room. With some of the team earning what they were worth and the rest playing for peanuts due to their inability to fight for good contracts, it was easy for the bitter Swede to make the choice to join in the fix. For his part he took home $15,000, one of the few conspirators who made anything for their troubles.

After the trial, acquittal and banishment from organized ball, the Swede played around Chicago under assumed names and then joined Gandil, Cicotte, Weaver and Felsch on the "Ex-Major League Stars" barnstorming team. What should have been a lucrative tour turned into a nightmare as the team was constantly heckled in what few games they were able to book. The whole organization collapsed when Cicotte's demand for his pay earned him a severe beating from the Swede. The former ace of the White Sox pitching staff left the team, leaving behind a few of his teeth.

With his 1919 pay-off cash, the Swede had bought he and his wife a dairy farm in Minnesota and he now embarked on an 11 year career as a ballplayer for-hire. Playing mostly for town teams throughout the northern part of the Midwest, the Swede changed teams frequently because the sheer cost of hiring him was too costly for most small towns to pay for more than one season. Many towns would hire a guy like the Swede to beef up their team in order to crush neighboring villages, giving its inhabitants bragging rights and make a little bit of money for the sporting men of the area.

From Alan Muchlinski's great book we now know where the Swede spent his post-1920 career. Muchlinski tracked down obscure local newspapers and mapped out his odyssey. After the disbandment of the Ex-Major League Stars, Risberg joined the Aces of Rochester, Minnesota in 1923 and 24, then joined Happy Felsch on the Scobey, Montana Giants. He went back to Rochester for a bit of 1926 and then over to Watertown, South Dakota through 1927 and then up to Manitoba, Canada to play for a team from the town of Virden.

Swede next turns up as a back-up pitcher on an integrated team in Jamestown, North Dakota. Among his opponents was old friend Happy Felsch who frequently worked the same circuit as Risberg. During the 1930 season the Swede threw a no-hitter against LaMoure. He went 2-for-4 that afternoon and fanned seven. Though it was merely semi-pro, it still wasn't bad seeing as the Swede was almost 36 at the time. His many seasons of rough ball playing also started to take its toll on him. A spike wound, courtesy of Ty Cobb, eventually caught up with the Swede and he developed osteomyelitis, the infection of the bone marrow and his playing days were numbered. Risberg played for Sioux Falls in '31 and '32 and then retired from the game.

According to his son, Risberg made more from barnstorming than he did as a major leaguer, but things didn't go too smoothly for the Swede - he lost his savings in the stock market crash of 1929. He appears to have stayed on his Minnesota farm until the early 1960's when he moved to California and opened up a bar. Like most of his Black Sox pals, the Swede never spoke openly about what really happened back in the fall of 1919 and I'm guessing that most men didn't have the stones to ask him, either. Swede's ex-wife did say that after he was accused of fixing the series he'd respond to inquires about his part with: "why work, when you can fool the public." When Eliot Asinof was writing his ground breaking "Eight Men Out" book in the early 1960's, Risberg told the author he couldn't remember anything about it - it was too long ago. About the only Eventually losing his leg to that old spike injury, the Swede proved his toughness by outliving all the other Black Sox, dying on his 81st birthday.

I just wanted to give credit again to a few sources that besides first-hand contemporary newspaper articles, were the best places to glean hard-to-find information regarding the post 1920 lives of the Black Sox:

After The Black Sox: The Swede Risberg Story by Alan Muchlinski. Simply excellent chunk of research that shines a light onto the later years of Swede and his former teammates who he played against.

Outlaw Baseball Players in the Copper League: 1925-1927 by Lynn Bevill. A M.A. thesis published online that is the best source I've found that really explains the role of the Black Sox in the Copper League but also does a great job at telling the story of the towns and how the league operated.

Blacksoxfan.com No list of sources would be complete without a big thanks to this site dedicated to the Black Sox. The authors downloadable pdf of every existing outlaw and semi-pro game featuring a member of the Black Sox is just a monumental achievement and unbelievably helpful in tracking the movements of the eight men.

112 Lefty Williams: Baseballs, Booze and Black Sox

Continuing with the post-scandal career of the Black Sox... Buck Weaver in my mind was the most tragic character from the whole scandal because he, unlike the other 7 players, apparently did not take money or agree to fix the world series. Pitcher Lefty Williams, however, is tragic in his own special way.

Back in 1919, Williams was on the way to being one of the best left handed pitchers in the American League. After a few faltering years with the Tigers he settled down with the White Sox and went 17-8 in 1917, 6-4 in 1918 and 23-11 in 1919 and led the league in games started with 40. His E.R.A. was consistently under 3.00. He, along with Eddie Cicotte were the heart of the White Sox pitching staff and his career was only getting better. In the 1920 season, his last before he and the other crooks were booted out of the game, Williams won 22 games. Cicotte, Jackson, Risberg and Gandil's careers were winding down and you can see how they would have been tempted to take the cash, but Williams was in his prime and through his greed and poor judgement a great career ended before it began.

Originally uninterested when he was approached by Chick Gandil to throw the series, Williams supposedly relented after being informed the fix was in anyway. Lefty received only half of the promised $10,000, but this still was almost double his regular season salary (Lefty's wife claimed the grand total he received for his part was actually $150). He and the other players may have tried to call off the fix half way through, but when Lefty’s wife was threatened (even this much-repeated part of the story may be made-up) he went ahead with it. Williams lost 3 games in the series and it was in part his atrocious and suspicious play that the series came under close scrutiny.

After his banishment he stuck close with some of the other banned players in their failed attempts to form a barnstorming team that capitalized on their infamous reputation. This all came to naught when first fans heckled and ridiculed the crooked ballplayers and then word came down from the commissioners office that any man taking the field against or with any of the 8 men out were subject to banishment themselves from organized ball. Now even the lowliest town-team didn't want to risk the future careers of any of their ball players for a game against the Black Sox.

Realizing his career as a major league ballplayer was over, Lefty began to live the life of a hired-gun ballplayer, one-game stands with what ever team could meet his price. With his wife Lyria in tow, Williams traveled the country making stops in towns from Minnesota to California. In 1926 Lefty accepted an invitation to join Buck Weaver and Chick Gandil in the outlaw Copper League.

As I talked about in the Chick Gandil story, the Copper League was made up of rough and tumble wild west mining towns and with the arrival of Hal Chase in the early 1920's had become a haven for blacklisted ballplayers. By the time he showed up in Douglas, Arizona in the spring of 1926, Lefty had turned into a surly, dark figure with a serious drinking problem. He fit right in.

Williams joined his former teammate Buck Weaver who was managing the Douglas Blues, but his time there only lasted through June when he left to join the Fort Bayard Veterans team where he was probably promised more money. Fort Bayard was a former New Mexico Army post that was converted into a hospital for veterans suffering from tuberculosis and other debilitating injuries brought on by being gassed in France during the first world war (remember that the great Christy Mathewson died from T.B. after being gassed during a training exercise). Fort Bayard also featured Chick Gandil who also jumped from the Douglas team the previous season. By most accounts Lefty was an ace pitcher who only seemed to get better as he drank between innings. I'm not sure whether the booze added anything to his fastball but opposing players said it sure did make him more intimidating. As ace of the Fort Bayard team, Lefty was given more leeway when it came to team rules - he would sometimes skip showing up for games he knew he wasn't scheduled to pitch and instead spend the day at his favorite speakeasy concentrating on his drinking.

To underline the fact that Lefty was still in his prime as a pitcher, in August he tossed a no-hitter against Weaver's Douglas Blues, sending the last 20 batters back to the bench in order. Sure it was only semi-pro but a no-hitter is still a no-hitter and factor in that Lefty was probably far from being in-shape due to his heavy boozing. At the conclusion of the season Lefty joined a Copper League all-star team and toured parts of Mexico before returning to Fort Bayard where he and his wife spent the winter months.

Despite Judge Landis' strenuous efforts to shut down the Copper League, or at least get them to expel the crooked ballplayers, the league continued for the 1927 season. Williams continued to dominate the league and as Lynn Bevill records in the excellent "Outlaw Ballplayers in the Copper League 1925-1927", at the midpoint of the season Lefty was 5-2 with 23 strikeouts and just 7 walks. As he did the year before, Lefty continued playing ball after the Copper league season and toured the southwest and Mexico with a barnstorming team, this time called the Juarez Brewers.

After the barnstorming trip I have been unable to find any more evidence of Lefty playing ball again. Around this time he and his wife Lyria turned up in Southern California where they opened up a nursery business in Laguna Beach. I don't know one way or another but I am guessing his alcohol intake probably subsided because the business seemed to do well. Like most of the other Black Sox, Williams never spoke about his part in the fix and died in 1959 at the age of 66.

I just wanted to give credit again to a few sources that besides first-hand contemporary newspaper articles, were the best places to glean hard-to-find information regarding the post 1920 lives of the Black Sox:

After The Black Sox: The Swede Risberg Story by Alan Muchlinski. Simply excellent chunk of research that shines a light onto the later years of Swede and his former teammates who he played against.

Outlaw Baseball Players in the Copper League: 1925-1927 by Lynn Bevill. A M.A. thesis published online that is the best source I've found that really explains the role of the Black Sox in the Copper League but also does a great job at telling the story of the towns and how the league operated.

Blacksoxfan.com No list of sources would be complete without a big thanks to this site dedicated to the Black Sox. The authors downloadable pdf of every existing outlaw and semi-pro game featuring a member of the Black Sox is just a monumental achievement and unbelievably helpful in tracking the movements of the eight men.

111. Buck Weaver: Innocent, But Still Guilty

Out of all the Eight Men Out, Buck Weaver is the only one who elicits any kind of sympathy from me. Weaver was a product of his age, upholding the turn of the century version of the unwritten "no snitching" code that so many of today's inner-city youth hide behind when it comes time to stand up for what is right. Buck was no different - he failed the test when it came time to speak up and stop the fix his teammates put in motion back in September, 1919. For this he never stopped paying the price, forever banned from the game he loved...

Besides being a pretty good hitter, “Buck” was an outstanding fielder, to the point of being the only third baseman Ty Cobb would not steal against. As far as I'm concerned that speaks more volumes about The Ginger Kid than any statistic found in the Baseball Encyclopedia. One of the most popular men to ever play for the White Sox, Weaver apparently knew of, but refused to participate in the fixing of the 1919 Series. It was this knowledge that was used against him and he was banned along with the other seven crooked ballplayers after the 1920 season. Even his stellar batting and errorless play in the series wasn’t enough to save him.

Weaver spent 1921 proclaiming his innocence to the point of deluding himself into believing he would be absolved of his part in the fix and be let back into the game. While the other banned players formed the "Ex-Major League Stars" and attempted to tour the mid-west, Weaver refused a lucrative contract to play with them and flatly refused to have anything to do with his former teammates. One afternoon in Chicago Weaver was asked by Risberg and Felsch if he would join their team that day to which Buck haughtily replied “Nothing doing. I’ll be back in the majors soon and you guys will still be semi-pros.” At this point he still believed he would be back on the White Sox. Throughout the summers of 1921 and 1922 newspapers in the mid-west featured stories about Weaver and his supposed appearances with a variety of semi-pro teams but these turned out to be just rumors. He was home in Chicago with his wife patiently waiting to be reinstated. It wasn’t until the following year that Buck came to the realization that Judge Landis’ ruling was indeed binding.

Weaver now needed to make a living and he began hiring himself out to semi-pro teams. In July he swallowed his pride and briefly reunited with Cicotte, Jackson and Risberg on the Bastrop, Louisiana ball club. He also played that summer with a team called “Sorg‘s Ice Creams” from Reedsburg, Wisconsin. He reportedly hit .369 that season and played against Happy Felsch who was roaming the outfield for the Twin Cities Red Sox.

1925 found Weaver in Arizona where he was recruited to play in the outlaw Copper League. This rough and tumble semi-pro circuit was made up of wild west mining towns and was a haven for black-listed ballplayers. Weaver’s team, the Douglas Blues, was managed by the crooked Hal Chase and featured Chick Gandil at second base. Gandil soon jumped the team for another in the league but the following year Weaver became the Blues manager and was joined by Lefty Williams. Weaver coached the Blues to a losing record and wasn’t helped by Lefty’s desertion mid-season to join the rival Fort Bayard club. To cap it off, Buck also severely injured his ankle that season and didn’t return to the Copper League in 1927. The reasons went unreported, but there was talk of Chick Gandil pulling strings to keep Weaver away because of their disagreement over the 1919 fix. Weaver still told anyone who would listen that he was clean while the other seven were guilty, most recently that winter in Chicago when he and the other Black Sox were called to testify in court once again. Gandil must have been seething every time he had to face Weaver’s team and now he felt the self-righteous Buck had double-crossed him again.

Weaver was an extremely popular figure in the Windy City and his presence in uniform on a ball field was sure to attract a crowd. While the other Black Sox generated a mix of mostly negative reactions when they played after 1920, Buck seemed to always get a warm welcome and no place was more friendlier than the Chicago area. Spring of 1927 brought the much-heralded return of the Ginger Kid to the area’s sandlots when he signed on with the Hammond, Indiana Hammonds. As the Hammonds made the league circuit a few opposing teams threw a “Buck Weaver Day” in honor of the popular third baseman. The Hammonds played against other top-notch Chicago area semi-pro clubs like the Logan Squares and Duffy Florals as well as Negro league teams such as the Chicago American Giants.

Moving over to the rival Duffy Florals, Weaver finished out his playing days by switching over to shortstop and managing the Floral’s for the ‘28 and ‘29 season. At the age of 41 Buck fronted a team called “Buck Weaver’s Cooney’s” which was financially backed by one of Al Capone’s associates named Duke Cooney. The team played through the 1933 season and Buck wound down his playing days with another self-named semi-pro club, “Weaver’s West Side Colonels.”

While all the other Black Sox left Chicago for good after 1920, Weaver remained there for the rest of his life. He worked for the city of Chicago, installed elevators and eventually went into the drugstore business with his brother in-law. A fellow by the name of Charlie Walgreen approached Buck with an offer to combine their drugstores into a city-wide chain but Weaver declined. Walgreen’s became, well, WALGREENS, and Weaver’s store went under during the depression. The once fun-loving third baseman devolved into a bitter, disgruntled man, always decrying his punishment by Judge Landis and proclaiming his innocence in the 1919 fix. At the age of 65 the Ginger Kid suffered a heart attack and died alone on a Chicago sidewalk. His numerous letters to the commissioner’s office and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown never once received a response and the one man who rightfully should have had the best chance at reinstatement was left overshadowed by all the publicity generated by Shoeless Joe Jackson’s deluded supporters.

110. Fred McMullin: The Forgotten Black Sox

To continue with my series on the 8 disgraced Chicago White Sox, I bring to you the mysterious Fred McMullin. Often overlooked and only given the briefest of mentions in books and articles dealing with the 1919 scandal, McMullin is unique in that unlike his teammates, his post-Black Sox baseball career was very brief. Material to piece together his later life was scant to say the least but I was able to gather enough to write-up a modest summation of what happened to this mediocre utility player...

Rarely used utility infielder McMullin is said to be a part of the fix because he accidentally overheard the plan. This is not true. Fred had a sound baseball knowledge and as such he was the Chicago’s advance scout and he may have gave the rest of his teammates a deliberately flawed report on the Cincinnati pitchers they were about to face. McMullin received $5,000 for his part in the fix, which was only 2 at-bats and no time in the field.

After being kicked out of organized baseball McMullin returned to Los Angeles where he had been a star ballplayer before his time in the majors. He was a well-liked fixture in the local baseball scene and many could not believe he had anything to do with any illegal doings back east. Through his brother-in-law he secured a job at Universal Film Studios and played on the company’s baseball team. The Los Angeles area was a hotbed of winter semi-pro leagues and many major and minor leaguers as well as Negro league stars came out west to play in the warm weather. McMullin was a popular player until the major leagues found out about his participation in games against “honest” ballplayers. After the Philadelphia Phillies fined their star outfielder Irish Meusel $100 for playing against McMullin, the disgraced ballplayer resigned from Universal’s team.

McMullin for his part didn’t seem to grasp the magnitude of what he and his buddies had done in 1919 and continued to try to visit former friends and teammates when they played in the Pacific Coast League. After being ignored and rebuffed time and time again, McMullin got the picture and while calling his treatment by organized baseball a “persecution,” he none-the-less steered clear of his former acquaintances. Unlike the other 7 Black Sox, McMullin did not attempt to play under an assumed name or hire himself out to semi-pro town teams as a ringer. The former White Sox simply and quietly resigned himself to a life outside of baseball and drifted through various careers - carpenter, salesman, office manager and then of all things - a Deputy Marshal of Los Angeles County.

For the rest of his life Fred McMullin never proclaimed his innocence nor applied for reinstatement and for that matter never made any statement what-so-ever about his role in the 1919 fix. He died in Southern California at the age of 61 in 1952.

109. Chick Gandil: After The Black Sox

For better or for worse, the story of the 1919 World Series and the 8 Chicago White Sox banished from the game has taken on a mythical quality in the last 90 some-odd years. Countless books have been written about every angle of the scandal, major movies feature the eight in all their glory and even a few misguided congressmen have wasted the taxpayer's time trying to somehow use the laws of the country to reinstate Shoeless Joe Jackson half a century after his death. For me, I never had any romantic misconceptions regarding the Black Sox. With the exception of Buck Weaver, those remaining seven were dirty ball players who sold their souls for cash. To me, banishment from the game was a just punishment.

But that's not what I want to write about. Authors much more talented than me have already covered the scandal. What I am more interested in is what happened to those eight after they were thrown out of the game in 1920. Earlier I featured stories on Happy Felsch and Eddie Cicotte's post Black Sox careers and to continue with that series I bring to you the infamous leader of the scandal, Chick Gandil...

Chick Gandil was the mastermind behind the fixing of the 1919 World Series. Described by his contemporaries as a “professional malcontent”, Chick was a thug of a ball player, even being suspended during the 1919 season for punching an umpire. He was a juvenile delinquent and after dropping out of high school he ran away from home, working his way south and west, all the while scratching out a living as an itinerant ball player and boxer. By 1907 the 20 year-old found himself in Cananea, Mexico working as a boilermaker in a copper mine and playing first base for the company team. Entering professional ball the following season, Gandil had 9 years of big league experience under his belt at the time of the fix.

He made the most money out of all the players, pocketing some $35,000, nine times his regular salary. After being turned down for a raise in 1920 he left the game and went west, spending most of his earnings. Later he and a few of the other Black Sox formed a touring team called "The Ex-Major League Stars" which disbanded after Gandil knocked out a few of Eddie Cicotte's teeth in an argument over money.

Since playing against any of the banned players would jeopardize a ball player's standing with organized baseball, Gandil and the other Black Sox had to look far and wide for a league that would let them play. The Copper League in Southern Arizona and New Mexico was one such haven.

Formed in the early 1920's, The Copper League was made up of rough and tumble mining towns and the play as well as the fans were as rowdy as could be expected from frontier wild west towns. The infamous Hal Chase, generally described as the greatest first baseman of all time, migrated to the league after his forced retirement from the majors. It was in his capacity as manager of the Douglas Blues in 1925 that he extended offers to all of the out of work Black Sox players. Lefty Williams, Buck Weaver and Chick Gandil accepted offers to play. Along side those three who were implicated in the 1919 world series fix was former New York Giant Jimmy O'Connell who was thrown out of baseball for trying to bribe members of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1924.

Gandil began his Copper League career as the second baseman of the Douglas Blues. A first baseman in the majors, Gandil moved over to second because Hal Chase was holding down the position in addition to his role as team manager. From the start Gandil brought his agitating and combative attitude to the team. Near the conclusion of the season he abruptly left the Blues and joined the Fort Bayard Veterans team. The following season he signed with the Veterans again and was joined by Jimmy O'Connell. The two black-listed ballplayers were constantly at odds with each other , apparently mostly instigated by the bully Gandil who rode O'Connell about the quality of his outfield work. By the end of June Gandil was forced to leave the team after O'Connell, fed up with the tough older man's bullying, chased the former boxer out of the Fort Bayard ballpark with a baseball bat.

Chick landed on his feet however and was quickly snapped up by the Chino Twins. Chino was actually an amalgamation of two towns, Santa Rita and Hurley, hence the name "Twins." Chino was the name of the mining concern that employed most of the people in the region, the Chino Copper Company.

Gandil soon became the Twins' manager as well as first baseman. When the season ended he stayed on in Chino working for the copper mine. It was also during the off-season that Chick traveled back to Chicago to give further testimony about fixing games during the 1917 season.

For 1927 the Twins were supposed to be featuring Buck Weaver and Happy Felsch but neither former Black Sox joined the team by the time the season began. Rumors circulated that Gandil had forced the popular Weaver out of the league because of his testimony which was counter to what he and Swede Risberg had said regarding the '17 season. What ever the reasons, the Twins had a terrible first half of the split-season, managing just 8 wins against 18 losses. Chick batted a lofty .481 and somehow was able to turn the ball club around in the second-half and finished up 21-10, gaining them a seat in the championship series against Fort Bayard.

But then just as the series was to begin, Chick disappeared. For unknown reasons he left not only the team but the whole region of the country. After giving up on the game Gandil began working as plumber and settled in the Napa Valley of California. He spent the rest of his life denying the White Sox threw the World Series saying that the team played their best to win.

Stay tuned because I will be featuring the remaining 5 Black Sox ball players and their post-pro ball careers. I would like to give credit where credit is due for some of the sources I will be using in this series. Besides first hand contemporary newspaper articles, the following 3 sources were indispensable:

After The Black Sox: The Swede Risberg Story by Alan Muchlinski. Simply excellent chunk of research that shines a light onto the later years of Swede and his former teammates who he played against.

Outlaw Baseball Players in the Copper League: 1925-1927 by Lynn Bevill. A M.A. thesis published online that is the best source I've found that really explains the role of the Black Sox in the Copper League but also does a great job at telling the story of the towns and how the league operated.

Blacksoxfan.com No list of sources would be complete without a big thanks to this site dedicated to the Black Sox. The authors downloadable pdf of every existing outlaw and semi-pro game featuring a member of the Black Sox is just a monumental achievement and unbelievably helpful in tracking the movements of the eight men.

65. Shoeless Joe Jackson: What's In A Name?

Yeah, I know, I already posted this story a while back, but wait - there's a reason... after much prodding and more than a basketful of emails, I finally got around to finishing my trilogy of Joe Jackson's minor league odyssey. So, if you think you can remember all you need to about my story on Jackson's first year in pro ball with the Greenville Spinners, just go one down to the next entry. An don't just stop there - this week is a double heaping of Southern Hospitality, Joe Jackson style as I posted the story of his 1910 New Orleans season as well. Enjoy!

One of 8 kids, Joe Jackson was born into extreme poverty. At the age of six Joe took his place alongside the rest of his family in one of the sprawling textile mills that dotted the rural South Carolina landscape at the turn of the century. Because of the need to contribute money to the family he never had time for proper schooling and much to his shame remained unable to read and write for the rest of his life. The one bright spot in Jackson's grim life of industrial-age toil was baseball. Showing great skill at an early age, by 13 Jackson was playing outfield for the Brandon Mills men's ballclub. South Carolina's textile leagues had an impressive amount of talent playing on the various mill teams and for Jackson to make a mark amidst all this talent was quite impressive.

He quickly became a local legend and during games his brothers would roam the stands passing a hat taking donations after Jackson made another impressive play of timely hit. Word soon spread of his talents and in 1907 the Brandon Mills team was playing an exhibition game against the Greenville Spinners of the Carolina Association. Their manager Tom Stouch was shocked and dismayed when a young player on the team seemed to get on base every damn time he got up to the plate. In the field he dazzled as well. By the end of the game Stouch knew the kid had what it took to play professionally and the next year Jackson inked his "X" to a contract for the staggering sum of $75.00 a month to play for the Spinners.

Although he was brimming with ability he was still raw around the edges. On a few occasions he was caught trying to steal bases already held by his own teammates, but he was the local boy and the fans of Greenville readily embraced him. He had done what most of them were unable to do - escape the drudgery of the textile mills. The 1908 team featured two other players destined to play in the big leagues, Ezra Midkiff and Scotty Barr and along with Jackson the Spinners quickly made it to the top of the 6-team league. Jackson played the outfield but was also brought in to pitch on occasion. He had a tremendous arm but retired as a pitcher after he broke the arm of an opposing batter and the rest of the league refused to hit against him. It didn't matter, he made his mark elseware. His speed and skill in the outfield led fans to dub his mitt "a place where triples go to die." He belted the ball at a .400 clip for most of the summer. Locals noted that the sound his bat connecting with the ball made had such a unique sound that they could tell it was Joe Jackson even if they were blindfolded.

It was during a Sunday double-header against the Anderson Electricians that Joe Jackson earned his nickname.

Finally earning a decent salary, Jackson treated himself to a well-deserved new pair of spikes. While playing in the first game of the double-header the unbroken-in shoes gave him blisters. By the end of the game he was in terrible pain and begged Stouch to let him sit out the second game. A Sunday double-header back then was the place to be for a small rural community and Jackson was the great attraction. Stouch couldn't let him sit out the game, everyone would not only be disappointed but there was always the potential for violence. People took their baseball seriously back then.

So with great pain, Joe Jackson made the fateful decision to remove his brand-new spikes and took the field in just his stocking feet. All went well for most of the game until the top of the seventh when he smacked a triple and slid stocking feet-first into third. An angry Anderson fan, seeing Jackson called safe at third base and noticing his stocking feet cried out "you shoeless son-of-a-gun, you!" A sportswriter overheard it and a timeless nickname was born.

Jackson hated it. Already sensitive about his inability to read or even sign his own name, he felt the nickname made him look even worse, bringing to life the image of a back-woods bare-foot illiterate. He spent the rest of his life trying to explain the circumstances around his moniker, telling the story over and over again that he never played ball bare-foot and it was but one game in his whole career that he took the field in his socks.

Shoes or no shoes, it was obvious to all that Jackson didn't belong in the minors for long. Manager Tom Stouch wrote to Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics letting him know about the potential of two of his outfielders, Joe Jackson and Scotty Barr. Mack must have been impressed by the description Stouch wrote because in mid-August he dispatched one of his players on the disabled list to Greenville to take a look. "Socks" Seybold sat in the stands as the Spinners played the Charlotte Hornets and watched as Jackson belted a double, triple and home run. He noted that the kid also had a rifle for an arm. He quickly telegraphed Mack who in turn sent his assistant Sam Kennedy to verify Seybold's claims. Further assured by Kennedy, Mack signed Jackson who was batting .346 at the time and Barr, who was batting .299 as well as posting a 12-6 pitching record.

As soon as the Spinners season ended, Scotty Barr hopped on the first train to join the Athletics but Jackson hesitated. He'd never left the Carolina's and Philadelphia was as far away from Greenville as the moon. He was embarrassed by his illiteracy and because of it did not even know who the heck Connie Mack or the Philadelphia Athletics were. Manager Tom Stouch had spent a lifetime trying to get to the major leagues and even though he played in but 4 games he assumed it was every ballplayer's dream to get the call. With this in mind he decided to personally deliver Jackson to Connie Mack and at the end of August, 1908 Tom Stouch and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson boarded the overnight sleeper to Philadelphia.

Many of the photographs I used for reference were found on the valuable website called "The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall Of Fame" at www.blackbetsy.com Not only is it a great resource on the life of Joe Jackson, but the staff are extremely helpful, a fellow named T.W. over there was extremely patient fielding my questions a few months ago when I was working on a Jackson angle for this site.
 

106. Joe Jackson: Southbound and Down

One of the most popular posts I've written was THIS ONE on Shoeless Joe Jackson and his first season of professional baseball with the Greenville Spinners. It was during that 1908 season that Jackson was saddled with the "Shoeless Joe" nickname he hated so much. This week I'd like to continue the saga of Shoeless Joe Jackson's early days...

We last left Joe Jackson in late August, 1908 as he and his Greenville manager Tom Stouch boarded the overnight sleeper to Philadelphia in order to join Connie Mack’s Athletics. Though Stouch’s prized protegee took some convincing to make the trip to Philly, the Greenville manager woke up the following morning sure Connie Mack would love this rookie. But there was only one problem: that prized rookie wasn’t on the train! Stouch searched high and low for Jackson but by the time the train stopped in Philadelphia a confused and empty-handed Stouch showed up at Shibe Park. Connie Mack handed the confused manager a telegram sent from Charlotte the previous night:

AM UNABLE TO COME TO PHILADELPHIA AT THIS TIME. JOE JACKSON.

It seems Jackson slipped off the train in the middle of the night as it stopped at Charlotte, North Carolina. Undaunted, Mack sent “Sock” Seybold back down to Greenville to fetch the kid and on August 25th he was in an A’s uniform in Shibe Park.

The local press made much of the unknown busher, comparing him to the great Ty Cobb and lavishing a generous heaping of praise on him before he even had his A’s cap on. In his first game he had an RBI single and made a few outstanding catches and throws in the outfield that sufficiently sated the press corps and the evening papers were full of enthusiasm for the young find.

The Tigers came to town next for a four game series and Philly fans couldn’t wait to see how their new boy measured up against Cobb. His new teammates also talked amongst themselves about this superstar in the making and when bad weather delayed the Detroit series by two full days, the downtime enabled the newspapers to whip-up the story of the wonderboy from Greenville into a media tsunami.

But when the skies cleared, Joe Jackson was nowhere to be found. He’d slipped away again, headed due south.

Jackson always maintained he was homesick, but his disgruntled teammates, left short-handed for 2 double-headers in 2 days against the powerhouse Tigers, let the press know they thought the kid a coward, unable to face his show down with the great Cobb. Jackson returned to the team again in early September but just as before, fled south once more before the season ended.

In retrospect, cowardice probably had little to do with Jackson’s desertion of the Athletics - embarrassment and bullying did. Since he couldn’t read nor write, Jackson was at the mercy of the other players who could and rather than let his illiteracy become known he tried to cover it up, the result of which only made it worse. There is one story that Connie Mack caught the busher sitting alone at breakfast with almost a dozen fried eggs on his plate. A shocked Mack asked the boy how he expected to play ball after such a feast and Jackson sheepishly explained to his manager what happened. He actually wanted two eggs for breakfast, but since he could not write a “2” he made 2 slash marks on his breakfast order card which the kitchen interpreted as an 11. It was incidents such as this, compounded on the resentment of his abandoning the team that led to teasing by the other A’s. It didn’t help any that the “Shoeless Joe” moniker followed him up to Philadelphia.

The Athletics held their 1909 training camp in Savannah, Georgia and Joe Jackson tore up the ball all spring. Although Mack was sure Jackson’s skills were up to the major league level, he wisely acknowledged that mentally the ballplayer was just not ready. So when the Athletics broke camp to head north, Jackson stayed behind, the newest member of the Class C Savannah Indians of the South Atlantic League, affectionately called the “Sally League”.

More comfortable playing in the south, Joe smashed the ball at a .450 clip in the beginning of the season and started to be called the “Ty Cobb of the Sally League.” Here in Savannah, the sportswriters were less ruthless than back in Philly and the crowds didn’t heckle him - here back down south Jackson was amongst his own people. The Indians had a mediocre team in 1909 and would finish the season with a losing record. Jackson for his part played splendidly, leading the league with a .358 average, 19 doubles, 12 triples and couple of home runs. He swiped 32 bases and his arm and fielding skills impressed even the most jaded observer. The sportswriters spent columns and columns of space praising the young star and he was named the center fielder of the Sally League All-Star team. One paper wrote of him: “Jackson is a sensation in all departments of the great American game, and that’s saying a whole lot.” It was obvious a player of Jackson’s talent had no business playing around in the Sally League - this boy was a big leaguer.

But the sure-bet big leaguer also seemed to have a problem with authority and a propensity towards strange, immature acts. Sometimes he didn’t show for batting practice or miss games completely. His manager in the first half of the season was Bobby Gilks who seemed to know how to handle the budding star. Under Gilks, Jackson was given a long leash and as long as he produced on the field he was left alone. But with the Indians stuck in the lower half of the standings, Gilks was fired and the new manager, Earnest Howard, didn’t understand how to harness the young Jackson. Hurt by the loss of Gilks, Jackson moped around the clubhouse and sulked openly.In one bizarre instance, he and a teammate left the game in the middle of an inning and took seats in the stands, sharing a bag of peanuts. The Savannah management fined the hell out of him for that stunt, but it didn’t seem to put a stop to his immaturity.

At the end of the season Mack brought Jackson north again to ease him into the Athletics clubhouse. The A’s were in a pennant race with the Tigers and Mack used the uneasy busher very sparingly. He didn’t play well at all and managed an anemic .176 in a handful of games. The teasing was relentless as well.

It was supposedly during this period that one of the most famous Jackson stories took place - while standing on third base a fan called out “hey Joe - can you spell cat?” to which Jackson spat back: ”Hey mister - can you spell shit?”

The kindly Connie Mack was sympathetic to Jackson’s plight and offered to pay for a tutor to teach him how to read and write, but the ballplayer refused. But even the saintly Mack had his limits and Jackson was approaching the breaking point. His behavior became more and more erratic, sometimes showing up late to the park, then skipping practice and sometimes whole games. Then Mack found out his new outfielder went to a burlesque show instead of a game and that was the end of Jackson’s stay in Philly.