Black Sox Scandal

Pulled away? The Sox lost two of their last three, but won 11 of the final 14 games.

I think Moddy would take a fade like that for the Nats.

 

I am going to have to read Eight men out after I finish The Original Curse.

The Original Curse makes the comparison of fixing baseball games in the 1910s to the Steroids era, particularly the 90s, that just about everyone in the game knew it was going on and knew most of the players involved, but turned a blind eye for the good of the game.

 

The White Sox had a makeshift lineup for the last three games because of the seven suspensions.

 

I have a question for those who consider themselves in the anti-Jackson camp.

What is your present level of conviction that Joe Jackson actually tried to throw any games on the field? Are your 100% sure? 50% What?

I realize that some of you do not consider that aspect necessarily relevant to his overall guilt, but I'd still like to know your answers.

 

As an owner of a first edition, trust me -- EMO remains must reading.
It's not bulletproof, but it's easy to pick nits after 40+ years, and
given when it was written, it's quite comprehensive, and was badly-needed.

 

I wrote this nearly four years ago to the day on Joe Jackson/Hall of Fame thread:

 

75%. He took the money, and as noted elsewhere in this thread, the patterns in his play are suspicious. Lots of outs on the basepaths, triples to left field while he was playing, things like that.

 

One thing that's struck me about that series: Jackson struck out twice, and walked just once in the eight games.

During the season, Jackson walked 60 times, and struck out just 10 times in 139 games. Remarkable when you think about it. Yet in the Series, Jackson only managed one walk. It looks like he changed his approach to the plate, and went up there hacking.

Now, some of that may also have been unfamiliarity with the Reds' pitchers, because there was no interleague play or real scouting reports.

 

I suggest anyone interested in the subject read Eight Men Out followed by Burying the Black Sox. Both are excellent.

Watch the movie version of EMO after reading the book. There is nothing wrong with the movie, but it does take a Hollywood approach with some things it shouldn't have.

 

I would say about 75% sounds right.

Yeah. I would have thought, in fact, that following the actual timeline would have been more dramatic -- will the Sox get away with throwing another Series before the whole thing busts open?

But the movie was 119 minutes long as it was and Sayles was probably working under some heavy heat from the studio to keep it under two hours.

One very minor quibble: the guy they cast as Kenesaw Mountain Landis, John Anderson, was actually fairly tall -- he loomed over owners and spectators in the courtroom scene.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis, although he has an imposing-sounding name, was actually tiny -- 5-4 or 5-6, tops.

You don't have to be 6-6 when you're carrying the biggest of all big sticks.

 

Wonder if Landis had a Napoleon complex, then?

 

Landis was one tough SOB. A few years earlier, he had fined Standard Oil something like $30 million bucks for its monopolistic practices. That was unheard of in the lasseiz faire 1910s. He had a couple attempts on his life because of that decision.