Apr 22 2011
Did the 1918 Chicago Cubs INTENTIONALLY Blow The World Series?
1918 World Series....RIGGED?
The 1918 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox. Yeah, not exactly the two WINNINGEST baseball franchise in the history of the game, but two of the oldest, richest, and possibly one of the most controversial series since they started playing the World Series in 1903.
What I’m talking about is a report that came out on Yahoo Sports yesterday, where Don Babwin of the Associated Press wrote an interesting piece about how a former Chicago Black Sox player Eddie Cicotte, one of the infamous Black Sox banned from baseball after their tainted and RIGGED World Series against Cincinnati in 1919, says he got the idea from the series the year before.
In a 1920 court deposition the Chicago History Museum recently put on its website, Cicotte said “the boys on the club” talked about how a Cub or a number of Cubs were offered $10,000 to throw the 1918 Series they lost 4-2 to the Boston Red Sox.
Now I’m not sure how much you can take from a guys word who has been dead for more then 40 years, but if you love conspiracies like myself, and also believe that money back in the day was worth more then a man’s word, some of the following may interest you.
Cicotte was very vague in the report, failing to name any names or provide any details about how the players might have done it or even if he believes the Cubs threw the Series. But if what he suggests is true it means that when it came to fixing ball games in the early 20th century, Chicago was as crooked as the JFK Assassination.
Back in the day, Players commonly complained about being underpaid and there wasn’t anyone in the majors who didn’t hear rumors about fixes. It was impossible not to see the gamblers at the games, the lobbies of the hotels where they stayed or the local bars. The Mob was in full effect. It’s NOTHING like the current days of the Vegas line, and such. This was some real booking going down.
“The ball players were talking about somebody trying to fix the National League ball players or something like that,” Cicotte is quoted as saying in the deposition.
“Well anyway there was some talk about them offering $10,000 or something to throw the Cubs in the Boston Series,” he said. “Somebody made a crack about getting money, if we got into the Series, to throw the Series.” {AP}
Now no one could FACTUALLY say that the World Series was in fact rigged, but there are plenty of reasons why it could have been.
For one, players made it obvious that they were upset at owners for the way they were treated, and paid. Before one Series game in Boston, the two squads refused to come on the field until the owners paid them what they were promised. There was money LEFT in players hotel rooms during the series, and players, coaches, and owners would hardly speak to one another.
So did the Cubs throw the Series? Lets take a look.
-None of the Cubs hitters ALL OF A SUDDEN couldn’t hit, and the Cubs pitchers were AMAZING in the series, finishing with a team total of 1.04 ERA.
BUT, there was PLENTY of suspicious plays in that World Series, and most of them involved Cubs outfielder Max Flack.
The Curse Max Flack holds more weight then Bartman, and the Goat.
In the fourth game, Flack was picked off not once, but twice. Flack turned a catch-able fly ball in the sixth and final game into an error that allowed two runs to score in the Red Sox’s 2-1 win.
The next head scratcher came when everyone’s favorite FATTY, Babe Ruth came to the plate for the Red Sox. The Babe was a pitcher at the time, but was well on his way to being one of the game’s best hitters — and the Cubs’ pitcher, Lefty Tyler, saw that Flack was not playing deep enough in right field.
“He waved him back and Flack just stood there,” said Sean Deveney, (a reporter with The Sporting News whose book, “The Original Curse,” said a fix by the Cubs was likely.) ”Sure enough, Babe hit one over his head” for a triple that scored two runs.
Later in the game, Cubs pitcher Phil Douglas came in the game long enough to field a grounder and throw the ball over the first baseman’s head, allowing the decisive run to score in the Red Sox’s 3-2 win.
A few years later, Douglas was banned from baseball for what the papers called “treachery” after proposing that another team in the pennant race pay him to leave the team and “go fishing.”
All six games in the 1918 Cubs-Red Sox Series were close, Boston never won a game by more than a run, and all it took was a boneheaded play, or an overthrow here and there, to lose a game. Now if you don’t think something is up there, you have too must trust in humanity.
Yeah, Im sure a GOAT is the reason you SUCKED for over 100 Years
Cicotte final quote in the statement “Baseball didn’t want to investigate,” he said. “They wanted to make it all about the Black Sox and say, ‘OK, gambling’s gone.” makes TONS of sense to me, so much so that I tend to buy the whole story.
What an IDIOT!
This isn’t the first time a professional sport would bury a situation, to cut off other loose ends.
Sucks that Chicago fans could have had one less decade to complain about, and prior to 2004, New York Yankee fans could have chanted 1916!!!
Who knows what would have happened, or what EXACTLY did happen, but maybe the Cubbie Faithful should blame MAX FLACK, instead of Steve Bartman, and the Billy Goat.