Critics have continued to question the decision to term the scandal ‘Black Sox.’ They claim that it is evidence that proves that the West associates evil with ‘Black,’ which is a racial denotation.
For one, the name of the team that experienced the scandal was called the ‘Chicago White Sox’, but in an attempt to distance themselves from the culprits, they were termed ‘Black’ – critics are asking, why black?
The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein. The Cincinnati Reds won the game five games to three.
As a result of the actions of the eight members of the Chicago White Sox team who deliberately performed poorly in exchange for the bribes, their team lost in remarkable fashion to the Cincinnati Reds.
The eight players involved in the scandal were Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Chick Gandil, Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver, Claude “Lefty” Williams, “Happy” Felsch, and Fred McMullen. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte admitted to accepting a $10,000 bribe before losing Game 1 of the World Series.
Admitting to collecting the huge bribe, he famously said, “I did it for the wife and kiddies.
“Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever again play professional baseball.”
The following September, the players were indicted for conspiracy to defraud the public, and White Sox owner Charles Comiskey suspended the seven players who were still on the team.
According to reports, the gambling syndicate who orchestrated the plot was none other than Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed “The Brain.” He was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, apart from his role in fixing games at the 1919 World Series.
Interestingly, the eight players and gamblers were acquitted by an all-white jury on August 2, 1921, in a verdict that surprised many observers,
However, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis would take the bull by the horn and ban the players from ever appearing in the major leagues again.
The American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death on 25 November 1944 believed that the culprits should be made to pay for their actions.
Since Arnold Rothstein and all the eight players involved in the gambling plot were all white, why then were they labeled the Chicago black eight or black sox?
What are your thoughts? Do you agree that there is a racial connection to this?