Cubs Threw the World Series in 1918, Says Black Sox Ace

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Cubs Threw the World Series in 1918, Says Black Sox Ace

Filed on April 21st, 2008 in Baseball ⋅ ⋅

The Chicago Cubs threw the 1918 World Series, providing the inspiration for the White Sox to do the same thing the following year, according to a recently unsealed affidavit from Eddie Cicotte, ace pitcher for those White Sox.

The Sporting News’ Sean Deveney was given a sneak preview of some of the documents that are being held at the Chicago Historical Society. The documents will eventually all be available to the public, but for now they are sitting unread in a third floor room. There is a group of documents that the Historical Society won in an auction pertaining to the 1919 White Sox scandal that included Cicotte’s affidavit.

According to Deveney’s reading of the Cicotte affidavit,

“the Cubs influenced the Black Sox. Cicotte said the notion of throwing a World Series first came up when the White Sox were on a train to New York. The team was discussing the previous year’s World Series, which had been fixed, according to players. Some members of the Sox tried to figure how many players it would take to throw a Series. From that conversation, Cicotte said, a scandal was born.”

Granted, at this point the actual evidence is lacking. I’d be very interested to see what else is uncovered in these documents, not only about the Cubs, but about the 1919 White Sox. I’d be interested to see if these documents help clear “Shoeless” Joe Jackson’s name, perhaps getting him into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. I personally don’t think that Jackson “threw” or had any part in throwing the series and would love to see him in the Hall of Fame.

And how about the other side of this story. The Cubs, if they in fact did throw the World Series, lost to the Boston Red Sox. All of those poor Red Sox fans who spent their whole lives whining that the Sox hadn’t won a World Series since 1918 were that close to having 1916 as their real beginning of the end. That would also mean that their last legitimate World Series win of that era was when Babe Ruth was just 21-years old. If the Cubs win the Series in 1918, the Red Sox would have still sucked for the rest of the century, only without having a Curse of the Bambino to blame their failures on.

As for the Cubbies, if only they’d known that the franchise wouldn’t win a title in the next 90 years, perhaps they’d have played to win.

So is it possible for the Cubs to have thrown the 1918 World Series? Here is the evidence offered from Deveney:

“The Cubs were 84-45 that year and serious favorites. Cicotte is not alone in suggesting they had been paid off. The lost diary of Charles Comiskey’s righthand man, Harry Grabiner, supposedly indicates that the 1918 World Series was fixed. The reporting of baseball columnist Hugh Fullerton — the man who eventually blew the whistle on baseball’s gambling problem — also suggested that something was afoul in 1918. Fullerton’s accounts of those games repeatedly point out bizarre baserunning mistakes and defensive flubs.

The box scores support his descriptions. The Cubs were picked off three times, including twice in the decisive Game 6. That game was lost, 2-1, on a 2-run error by Cubs right fielder Max Flack. Game 4 had been tied, 2-2, in the eighth inning, when Cubs pitcher Shufflin’ Phil Douglas gave up a single, followed by a passed ball, followed by an errant throw on a bunt attempt that allowed the winning run to score.”

Again, nothing huge as far as evidence goes, but I am very interested to see what else comes out of these documents.

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