Eight members of which US Major League Baseball team were accused of throwing a World Series championship?
Certain events of the 1919 World Series championship are associated with a fix which has come to be known as the Black Sox Scandal. Eight members of the Chicago franchise (Chicago White Sox) conspired with gamblers, allegedly led by Arnold Rothstein, to fix some of the World Series games.
The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series (with 1903, 1920 and 1921). Baseball tried the best-of-nine format partly to increase popularity and partly to generate more revenue.
The fixed series was said to be the brainchild of White Sox first baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil and Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, a professional gambler. New York gangster Arnold Rothstein supplied them with all the needed connections. The money was supplied by Abe Attell, former featherweight boxing champion; he accepted the offer to fix the series even though he didn't have the $80,000 needed.
Gandil enlisted 7 of his teammates, motivated by a mixture of greed and a strong dislike of the club owner Charles Comiskey, to implement the fix. Starting pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude "Lefty" Williams, outfielders "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Oscar "Happy" Felsch, and infielder Charles "Swede" Risberg were all involved.
The 1919 World Series would be the last to take place without a Commissioner of Baseball in place.
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