1919 Chicago White Sox season

Last updated

1919  Chicago White Sox
American League Champions
League American League
Ballpark Comiskey Park
City Chicago, Illinois
Owners Charles Comiskey
Managers Kid Gleason
  1918 Seasons 1920  

The 1919 Chicago White Sox season was their 19th season in the American League. They won 88 games to advance to the World Series but lost to the Cincinnati Reds. More significantly, some of the players were found to have taken money from gamblers in return for throwing the series. The "Black Sox Scandal" had permanent ramifications for baseball, including the establishment of the office of Commissioner of Baseball.

Contents

Regular season

1919 Chicago White Sox team photo 1919 Chicago White Sox.jpg
1919 Chicago White Sox team photo

In 1919, Eddie Cicotte led the majors with 29 wins and 30 complete games, going 29–7 for the season with a 1.82 ERA (2nd in AL) and 110 strikeouts (7th in AL). He also led the AL in innings pitched with 240 (shared with Washington Senators pitcher Jim Shaw).

Right fielder Joe Jackson hit .351 (4th in AL) with 7 home runs, 96 RBIs (3rd in AL) and had 181 hits (3rd in AL, only 10 fewer than league leader Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers). Shoeless Joe headed an offense that scored the most runs of any team.

Season standings

American League
Team W L Pct. GB Home Road
Chicago White Sox 8852.62948224030
Cleveland Indians 8455.60444254030
New York Yankees 8059.57646253434
Detroit Tigers 8060.571846243436
St. Louis Browns 6772.48220½40302742
Boston Red Sox 6671.48220½35303141
Washington Senators 5684.4003232402444
Philadelphia Athletics 36104.2575221491555

Record vs. opponents


Sources:
TeamBOSCWSCLEDETNYYPHASLBWSH
Boston 9–114–159–1110–914–69–10–111–9
Chicago 11–912–811–912–817–311–914–6
Cleveland 15–48–128–1213–716–411–913–7
Detroit 11–99–1112–88–1214–614–612–8
New York 9–108–127–1312–818–212–814–6–2
Philadelphia 6–143–174–166–142–187–138–12
St. Louis 10–9–19–119–116–148–1213–712–8
Washington 9–116–147–138–126–14–212–88–12

Roster

1919 Chicago White Sox
Roster
PitchersCatchers

Infielders

OutfieldersManager

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

PosPlayerGABHAvg.HRRBI
C Ray Schalk 131394111.282034
1B Chick Gandil 115441128.290160
2B Eddie Collins 140518165.319480
3B Buck Weaver 140571169.296375
SS Swede Risberg 119414106.256238
LF Joe Jackson 139516181.351796
CF Happy Felsch 135502138.275786
RF Nemo Leibold 122434131.302026

Other batters

Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

PlayerGABHAvg.HRRBI
Shano Collins 6317950.27904
Fred McMullin 6017050.294019
Byrd Lynn 296615.22704
Eddie Murphy 303517.48605
Joe Jenkins 11193.15801
Hervey McClellan 7124.33301

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

PlayerGIPWLERASO
Eddie Cicotte 40306.22971.82110
Lefty Williams 41297.023112.64125
Dickey Kerr 39212.11372.8879
Red Faber 25162.11193.8345
Win Noyes 16.0007.504
Charlie Robertson 12.0019.001

Other pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

PlayerGIPWLERASO
Grover Lowdermilk 2096.2552.7943
Bill James 539.1322.5211
Frank Shellenback 835.0135.1410
Erskine Mayer 623.2138.379
Roy Wilkinson 422.0112.055
John Sullivan 415.0014.209

Relief pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

PlayerGWLSVERASO
Dave Danforth 151217.7817
Joe Benz 10000.000
Tom McGuire 10009.000
Pat Ragan 10000.000
Reb Russell 10000.000

Awards and honors

League top ten finishers

Eddie Cicotte

Happy Felsch

Joe Jackson

Buck Weaver

Lefty Williams

1919 World Series

NL Cincinnati Reds (5) vs. AL Chicago White Sox (3)

GameScoreDateLocationAttendance
1Chicago White Sox – 1, Cincinnati Reds – 9October 1 Redland Field 30,511
2Chicago White Sox – 2, Cincinnati Reds – 4October 2Redland Field29,690
3Cincinnati Reds – 0, Chicago White Sox – 3October 3 Comiskey Park 29,126
4Cincinnati Reds – 2, Chicago White Sox – 0October 4Comiskey Park34,363
5Cincinnati Reds – 5, Chicago White Sox – 0October 6Comiskey Park34,379
6Chicago White Sox – 5, Cincinnati Reds – 4 (10 innings)October 7Redland Field32,006
7Chicago White Sox – 4, Cincinnati Reds – 1October 8Redland Field13,923
8Cincinnati Reds – 10, Chicago White Sox – 5October 9Comiskey Park32,930

Black Sox Scandal

The Black Sox Scandal refers to a number of events that took place around and during the play of the 1919 World Series. The name "Black Sox" also refers to the Chicago White Sox team from that era. Eight members of the Chicago franchise were banned from baseball for throwing (intentionally losing) games.

The Fix

The conspiracy was the brainchild of White Sox first baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil and Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, who was a professional gambler of Gandil's acquaintance. New York gangster Arnold Rothstein supplied the major connections needed. The money was supplied by Abe Attell, former featherweight boxing champion, who accepted the offer even though he didn't have the $80,000 that the White Sox wanted.

Gandil enlisted seven of his teammates, motivated by a mixture of greed and a dislike of penurious 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. Buck Weaver was also asked to participate, but refused; he was later banned with the others for knowing of the fix but not reporting it. Utility infielder Fred McMullin was not initially approached but got word of the fix and threatened to report the others unless he was in on the payoff. Sullivan and his two associates, Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, somewhat out of their depth, approached Rothstein to provide the money for the players, who were promised a total of $100,000.

Stories of the "Black Sox" scandal have usually included Comiskey in its gallery of subsidiary villains, focusing in particular on his intentions regarding a clause in Cicotte's contract that would have paid Cicotte an additional $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games. According to Eliot Asinof's account of the events, Eight Men Out , Cicotte was "rested" for the season's final two weeks after reaching his 29th win, presumably to deny him the bonus. In reality, however, Cicotte started the White Sox's last game of the season, September 28th against the Tigers. But, with a 1-0 Chicago lead, Chicago manager Kid Gleason took Cicotte out of the game following the second inning, which assured Cicotte could not get his 30th win.

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