The 1919 Black Sox Scandal: What Happened

What was the Black Sox scandal? It was the fixing of baseball’s 1919 World Series, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of agreeing to lose to the Cincinnati Reds in return for money from gamblers. The Reds won the best-of-nine Series five games to three, ending it on October 9, 1919. A Chicago grand jury heard confessions from three of the players in September 1920, and on August 2, 1921 a jury acquitted every player who stood trial. The following day, baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all eight for life.

This article tells the story from the first meetings in September 1919 to the verdict and the ban, and it separates what the surviving records show from what legend has added. Historians still disagree about who financed the fix, how many games were thrown and why a jury acquitted men who had confessed, and those disputes are noted where they arise.

Baseball and Gambling in 1919

Gambling was woven into baseball long before 1919. The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) notes that players and executives were known to bet openly on their own teams and that bettors operated freely in major-league ballparks. Bill Lamb, writing for SABR, says game-fixing had been exposed as early as 1865 and that gamblers tried to bribe a Boston catcher during the first modern World Series in 1903.

By the fall of 1919, fixing a Series looked like a low-risk proposition. Lamb writes that reports of player corruption were routinely dismissed and that sanctions for gambling-related conduct seemed all but abandoned; a National League inquiry had recently exonerated Hal Chase, a long-suspected game-fixer. According to Eddie Cicotte’s later grand jury testimony, the players were also envious of $10,000 payoffs rumored to have gone to some Chicago Cubs for losing the 1918 Series.

The 1919 White Sox were heavy favorites, and the World Series had been expanded to an experimental best-of-nine format. SABR’s data on contract cards shows the club’s Opening Day payroll was $88,461, more than $11,500 above that of the National League champion Reds, and Lamb says it was the second highest in the majors. The clubhouse was nonetheless divided. Lamb describes one clique around captain Eddie Collins and another around first baseman Chick Gandil and Cicotte, a split that mattered when the plot took shape.

The Fix and the Series, September–October 1919

The plot began with talk among the players and two small-time gamblers. On Thursday, September 18, 1919, after a loss in New York, Cicotte and Gandil met former major leaguer Bill Burns and his partner Billy Maharg in the lobby of the Ansonia Hotel, according to SABR. Gandil proposed that eight White Sox would lose the Series for a shared payoff of $100,000. Cicotte later told the grand jury that when he was asked his price, he replied, “I would not do anything like that for less than $10,000.”

The Series was lost by Chicago five games to three. Lamb writes that on the eve of Game One the players met at the Warner Hotel in Chicago, and that Cicotte found $10,000 under his pillow before the night was over. Burns, meanwhile, arranged with the gamblers Abe Attell and David Zelcer to pay the players in $20,000 installments after each loss. A last-minute surge of money made the Reds slight favorites, and Chicago sportswriter Hugh Fullerton grew suspicious.

The games followed. Cicotte hit the first Reds batter with his second pitch and was gone in the fourth inning of a 9–1 loss on October 1. Lefty Williams walked six in a 4–2 loss the next day. On October 3, rookie Dickey Kerr pitched a 3–0 shutout, and Burns and Maharg lost their entire wagering stake, Lamb says. The Reds then won Games Four and Five, Chicago took Games Six and Seven, and on October 9 Williams was removed after only five batters in a 10–5 Reds victory.

Turning Points: Silence, a Rumored Game and the Grand Jury

The fix may have faltered after Game Two. Lamb says the payments were disputed and that whether the players kept throwing games is unresolved; Joe Jackson later said they had tried to lose Game Three only to be beaten by Kerr. Gambling circles were uncertain too, and Lamb says a group of Midwestern gamblers met to discuss reviving the plan.

Owner Charles Comiskey kept quiet. According to Lamb, Comiskey had heard reports during the Series and had them confirmed that December, but he chose not to expose his players, re-signing most of them for 1920. Only Gandil, who rejected his contract, was placed on the club’s ineligible list. Fullerton’s column questioning the Series and a racing trade paper’s charges gained little traction.

A suspect game in August 1920 reopened everything. Reports that a Cubs–Phillies game had been fixed led Judge Charles McDonald to empanel a grand jury, and by its first substantive session on September 22 the inquiry had turned to the 1919 Series. On September 27 Maharg told a Philadelphia newspaper the Series had been rigged. The next day Cicotte and Jackson confessed to the grand jury, and Williams followed, after which Comiskey suspended the accused.

Indictment, Trial and the Lifetime Ban

Lamb dates the grand jury’s indictments to October 29, 1920. After a new state’s attorney took office, prosecutors dismissed the charges in March 1921 and obtained fresh indictments the same month. Jury selection began on June 16, 1921. Bill Burns, granted immunity, was the star prosecution witness, and the confessions of Cicotte, Jackson and Williams were read to the jury after the judge ruled them voluntary.

Judge Hugo Friend sent the case to the jury on the evening of August 2, 1921. The Associated Press reported that the panel took one ballot after two hours and 47 minutes of deliberation. The verdict was not guilty for every defendant on every charge. Lamb argues the acquittals were jury nullification, and jurors celebrated with the players afterward.

Landis, hired by the owners in November 1920, answered the next day. His statement of August 3 said that, whatever juries decided, no player who threw a game, entertained proposals to throw one, or sat in on meetings with crooked players and gamblers without promptly telling his club “will ever again play professional baseball.” All eight players were barred from organized baseball for life.

Aftermath and Legacy

On the field, the club that had won two pennants between 1916 and 1920 lost its core. SABR says the 1921 White Sox finished seventh and did not reach another World Series until 1959. The banned players kept playing outside organized baseball. Over the next decade and into the mid-1930s they barnstormed in small towns, were cheered by some fans and jeered by others, and sued the club for back pay; a jury in Jackson’s suit awarded him almost $17,000, but the judge vacated the verdict, according to a review of Lamb’s book.

SABR’s Jacob Pomrenke writes that baseball’s problems with game-fixing largely disappeared after 1921, and Lamb likewise says that game-fixing virtually disappeared from the major-league landscape once the penalty was imposed. SABR’s Bruce Allardice adds that Landis relied on baseball’s own Section 40, which allowed the lifetime disqualification of anyone proven guilty of conspiring to make a game turn out otherwise than on its merits, and on the precedent of a 1919 Pacific Coast League fixing case.

The ban was ended after the players had died. On May 13, 2025, Commissioner Robert Manfred announced a policy that permanent ineligibility ends at death, and MLB’s release listed Cicotte, Felsch, Gandil, Jackson, McMullin, Risberg, Weaver and Williams among the 17 deceased people affected. The Hall of Fame said those affected would become eligible for consideration.

Myths, Disputes and the Other Side

Popular accounts, especially Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book Eight Men Out and the 1988 film, include claims SABR’s Black Sox committee has challenged. The claim that Comiskey underpaid his players is a myth, SABR says, citing contract cards, and the story that Cicotte was denied a 30-win bonus has been discredited. The hired thug “Harry F.” who threatens Williams was, according to SABR, an invention Asinof admitted to. The scene in which a boy pleads with Jackson outside the courthouse is a legend Jackson denied, and the newsreel crowd shows few children.

The theft of the grand jury testimony is also less decisive than legend holds. SABR and Lamb say transcripts were retyped from the stenographers’ notes and read at trial. Britannica, by contrast, says the loss of evidence largely explains the acquittals, so accounts differ.

Other points remain contested. Arnold Rothstein denied involvement, Chicago prosecutors publicly exonerated him, and Lamb writes that Rothstein, Burns and Maharg all said he declined to finance the fix, although Attell told Burns that Rothstein had reconsidered. Dates vary too: History.com places the indictments on September 28, 1920, against Lamb’s October 29, and the Library of Congress dates the last game October 10, while SABR’s recap says October 9. The cost was human as well: Buck Weaver, who reportedly never accepted money but attended meetings with gamblers, SABR says, denied involvement for the rest of his life.

Timeline: From the Ansonia Hotel to the Ban

The dates below come from the sources listed at the end of the article; where sources disagree, the disagreement is noted above.

What Comes Next in Gambling History

The Black Sox scandal belongs to a longer record of bribery and betting around games, one that runs from the 1865 fixing case Lamb mentions to the college basketball arrests of 1951. Another fixing story is told in the history of the point spread, which follows the 1951 point-shaving arrests in New York.

The story also raises questions about gambling scandals in sport, courtroom outcomes and the role of leagues in policing their own sports. Each deserves its own account in this series, and the documented record, much of it released only after 2007, corrects several popular claims about the 1919 World Series and its aftermath.

Sources & References

• Bill Lamb, SABR — The Black Sox Scandal
• Bill Lamb, SABR — Jury Nullification and the Not Guilty Verdicts in the Black Sox Case
• Jacob Pomrenke, SABR Century — 1921 Black Sox Trial
• SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee — Eight Myths Out
• SABR — Eight Myths Out: Appendix of errors in Eight Men Out
• Jacob Pomrenke, SABR — September 19, 1919: Cicotte, White Sox turn back Boston as Black Sox Scandal brews (2024)
• SABR — October 3, 1919: White Sox rookie Dickey Kerr turns tables on Reds, gamblers in Game 3
• SABR — October 9, 1919: Cincinnati Reds beat the Black Sox to win first World Series championship
• SABR — 1919 World Series: A Recap
• Bruce Allardice, SABR — Judge Landis and baseball’s ban hammer (2019)
• William D. Blake — review of Black Sox in the Courtroom by William F. Lamb (NINE, 2014)
• Library of Congress — Chicago “Black Sox” Scandal: Topics in Chronicling America
• National Baseball Hall of Fame Library — Black Sox Scandal (American League Records)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Black Sox Scandal
• HISTORY — Eight MLB players indicted in “Black Sox Scandal” (September 28, 1920)
• Associated Press, The New York Times — White Sox verdict report (August 3, 1921)
• Major League Baseball — Policy decision on permanent ineligibility status after death (May 13, 2025)
• Ronald Blum, Associated Press — MLB reinstates Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson (May 13, 2025)