The Original Curse (35 page)

To believe that the 1919 World Series was the first and only one to be fixed by gamblers is to believe the official history. It would almost
be like believing that the 89 players named in the Mitchell Report are the only ones to have used PEDs.

So, we can wonder about the 1918 World Series. We can wonder why a private detective would tell White Sox secretary Harry Grabiner that Gene Packard was a “1918 Series fixer” and wonder why Grabiner kept that filed in his journal. We can wonder why Eddie Cicotte would say that the Black Sox figured they could throw the World Series because they’d heard the Cubs did it the year before. We can wonder whether Kid Becker had plans to fix the 1918 World Series and whether he really did abandon those plans. We can wonder what Les Mann meant when he wrote that he “protected your game and my game on three occasions” and why he felt he’d been framed by an ex-teammate.

Most important, though, is that we can picture it. If we really look at the lives of ballplayers in 1918, if we really picture what it was like to walk a mile in their ball caps, then we can see that a fix not only is a possibility but is even understandable and excusable. We can put together long strands of circumstances that would lead good, levelheaded men to at least consider throwing the ’18 World Series—or part of the Series—to get a decent payday before the death of their sport arrived. We know that players felt they had been deceived about the amount of money they’d receive for their participation in the Series. We know that players were not feeling particularly loyal to the game or to their teams. We know that baseball was not expected to return in 1919 and that whenever the game was taken up again it was not expected to provide the living it previously had. We know that, because of the war, players were soon to be forced into low-paying jobs or sent to the army. We know that players and gamblers mixed freely, that few towns had gambling scenes as active as those in Boston and Chicago, and that fixing a game was an easy task. We know that inflation was ruining the economy, that Americans seemed to be surrounded by an odd mix of violence and repressive morality, that the country was at war and on edge.

An extraordinary set of societal circumstances. A 1918 World Series fix. A pair of decades-long curses descending on two of baseball’s best-loved franchises. It’s really not difficult to picture it at all.

1
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 10, 1914.

2
. John McGraw, manager of the Giants, stated as much in an interview reprinted in the November 11, 1920, issue of
The Sporting News
.

3
.
Sports Illustrated
, September 17, 1956.

4
. Dewey and Acocella,
The Black Prince of Baseball
, p. 248.

5
.
Sports Illustrated
, September 17, 1956.

6
. Stout and Johnson,
Red Sox Century
, p. 89.

7
. Pietrusza,
Rothstein
, p. 151.

8
. Lieb,
Baseball as I Have Known It
, p. 105.

9
.
New York Times
, October 2, 1920.

10
. Lieb,
Baseball as I Have Known It
, p. 131.

11
. Pietrusza,
Rothstein
, p. 159.

12
. Veeck,
The Hustler’s Handbook
, p. 296.

1
. On his draft registration card, Weeghman listed his residence as the Edgewater Hotel, built in 1916 by John T. Connery and designed by architect Ben Marshall, who also did the Blackstone and the Drake hotels in Chicago.

2
.
Chicago Tribune
, December 10, 1917. On December 9 the paper reported that “a mysterious telegram arrived” for Weeghman,
causing his early departure. Weeghman, “accompanied by Walter Craighead, his private secretary, caught the Twentieth Century.”

3
. If not for Charley Weeghman and the Federal League Whales, the Cubs would likely still be playing on Chicago’s West Side, and what we now know as Wrigleyville would be just another North Side neighborhood.

4
. Personal interview with Reverend Sonny Smith, Weeghman’s great-nephew.

5
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 26, 1914.

6
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 23, 1916.

7
.
Baseball Magazine
, May 1916.

8
.
Chicago Tribune
, March 6, 1916.

9
.
The Sporting News
, January 14, 1918.

10
. Simon,
Deadball Stars of the National League
, p. 216.

11
.
Chicago Daily News
, December 11, 1917.

12
.
Chicago Tribune
, December 12, 1917.

13
.
Chicago Daily News
, December 11, 1917.

14
.
Philadelphia Inquirer
, December 12, 1917.

15
. Veeck,
The Hustler’s Handbook
, p. 264.

16
.
Philadelphia Inquirer
, December 12, 1917.

17
.
Chicago Daily News
, December 3, 1917.

18
.
Chicago Tribune
, December 6, 1917.

19
.
Chicago Daily News
, December, 21, 1917.

20
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 8, 1918.

21
.
The Sporting News
, January 14, 1918.

22
.
The Sporting News
, January 14, 1918.

23
.
Chicago Tribune
, August 12, 1920.

1
. Levitt,
Ed Barrow
, p. 165.

2
.
New York Times
, September 17, 1925.

3
. Levitt,
Ed Barrow
, p. 126.

4
. Lieb,
Baseball as I Have Known It
, p. 269.

5
.
Sports Today
, August 1971.

6
. Ritter,
The Glory of Their Times
, p. 151.

7
. Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
, p. 42.

8
.
Baseball Magazine
, March 1919.

9
.
The Sporting News
, February 21, 1918.

10
.
The Sporting News
, March 14, 1918.

11
.
Chicago Daily News
, December 21, 1917.

12
.
Chicago Daily News
, December 21, 1917.

13
.
New York Times
, January 6, 1918.

14
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 17, 1917.

15
.
Chicago Daily News
, November 23, 1917.

16
.
Chicago Tribune
, November 22, 1917.

17
.
Chicago Tribune
, November 23, 1917.

18
.
Chicago Tribune
, November 25, 1917.

19
.
Chicago Tribune
, March 13, 1918.

20
.
Chicago Tribune
, March 24, 1918.

21
.
Chicago Tribune
, March 13, 1918.

22
.
New York Times
, June 5, 1929.

1
.
Boston Globe
, March 23, 1918.

2
. This section is a tribute to
Boston Globe
reporter Ed Martin, one of the funnier writers on any baseball beat, whose spring training stories were especially witty. Many of the Barrow stories here come from Martin’s coverage of the spring of 1918. He wrote on March 23 that “Leonard had his first workout today. He wore a rubber shirt, as he has some poundage to leave here.” The March 21 edition of
The Sporting News
commented, “A rubber shirt is said to induce perspiration. Some knocker who has studied physics and physiology may contend that the rubber shirt merely prevents evaporation, but a ball player who wears one knows a whole lot better.… For the information of the young and uninformed, it may be explained here that a red flannel undershirt keeps away rheumatism. There is something in the color that does it. A white flannel undershirt doesn’t do the work.”

3
. According to the March 24 edition of the
Boston Globe
, Ruth, “gave a party” on the train and sang that song.

4
.
Boston Post
, March 25, 1918.

5
.
Boston Globe
, March 25, 1918: “Every ball player in the park said [the homer] was the longest drive they had ever seen.”

6
.
Boston Globe
, March 25, 1918. Barrow told Mays not to throw hooks, “but Carl declared he could not resist the desire to bend a few.”

7
.
Boston Globe
, March 26, 1918. Leonard’s exact words, though not spoken to Barrow.

8
.
Boston Post
, March 13, 1918.

9
.
Boston Globe
, March 27, 1918. “As manager Barrow was walking in,” Martin wrote, “a car full of athletes passed him and shouted, ‘You are good for a couple more blocks.’”

10
.
The Sporting News
, February 21, 1918.

11
.
Boston Globe
, March 20, 1918.

12
.
Boston Post
, March 14, 1918.

13
. Ritter,
The Glory of Their Times
, p. 243.

14
. Ritter,
The Glory of Their Times
, p. 144.

15
.
Boston Globe
, March 25, 1918.

16
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 11, 1918.

17
.
The Sporting News
, March 7, 1918.

18
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 11, 1918.

19
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 5, 1918.

20
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 6, 1918.

21
. The interview is part of the Asinof papers, held by the Chicago History Museum.

22
. Maharg’s links to the Phillies are explored at philadelphiaathletics.org/history/linktocubs.htm.

23
. Veeck,
The Hustler’s Handbook
, p. 263.

24
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 22, 1921.

1
. Alexander would later call Hornsby the greatest batter he ever faced.

2
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 27, 1918.

3
. This was standard soldier’s pay during the war. A photograph of Alexander ran in the May 9, 1918, edition of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, showing him in his uniform looking over his cot and blankets, under the headline “Private Alexander Taking First Slant at ‘Props’ of New $30 Job.”

4
.
Chicago Tribune
, March 21, 1918. Alexander and Wrigley “went to the home of Douglas Fairbanks to appear with the movie star in some pictures for the benefit of the submarine base at San Pedro.”

5
. This was an actual Red Cross poster, one of many wartime posters that hung on posts around the country.

6
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 17, 1918.

7
.
New York Times
, April 14, 1918.

8
.
Lincoln [Nebraska] Daily Star
, April 6, 1917.

9
.
New York Times
, April 6, 1917.

10
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 6, 1918.

11
. Willmott,
World War I
, p. 161.

12
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 6, 1918.

13
.
New York Times
, August 23, 1918.

14
. Farwell,
Over There
, p. 134.

15
.
Boston Globe
, April 7, 1918.

16
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 12, 1918.

17
.
Los Angeles Times
, March 20, 1918.

18
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 23, 1918.

19
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 25, 1918.

20
.
The Sporting News
, May 2, 1918.

21
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 18, 1918.

22
.
New York World
, June 10, 1930.

23
.
New York World
, June 10, 1930.

24
. Letter from Frick to Landis, in Alexander’s Hall of Fame file.

25
.
The Sporting News
, November 15, 1950.

26
.
New York Herald Tribune
, January 20, 1939.

27
.
The Sporting News
, February 22, 1934.

1
. The
Chicago Tribune
reported on April 19, 1918, that Flack was ailing. According to the
Daily News
, he had a fever and the flu.

2
. After returning from the war, John Flach also moved to Chicago and got a job with McCarthy and Fisher music publishers. When the publishers would come up with a new song, John would test it out as an opening act at the Thalia Theater.

3
. According to the May 22, 1918, edition of the
Belleville News-Democrat
, Jack Flach left for Jefferson Barracks, and before he departed, he was given a farewell gift watch by the courthouse employees. Judge George A. Crow made the presentation, and Jack, the silver-toned tenor of the courthouse, sang “Joan of Arc” to express his thanks.

4
.
Belleville News-Democrat
, April 13, 1914.