The Black Sox Scandal – A Chicago Stories Documentary

[Music] coming up it's the most notorious scandal in the history of professional sports corruption betrayal Injustice the Chicago White Socks conspired to fix the World Series people want to know they want all the details the biggest thing in American Sporting Life and you're willing to lose for money man that's tough the betrayal broke the heart of a nation and destroyed the careers of some of the greatest players of all time behind the scenes of this wonderful game lured a very Sinister Dark Side the American psyche has been damaged at Bargain Basement prices and the aftermath

still reverberates today there is a threat that something like this happen again you've got a team that's called the white socks fixing World Series games and defiling the entire sport it was natural that they would be called the black socks the black sock scand next on Chicago [Music] stories lead support for Chicago stories is provided by the nagani foundation major support is provided by Gwen Cohen and the tawani foundation funding for Chicago Stories the black sock Scandal is provided by Sylvia e ferer September 28th 1920 inside a Chicago Courthouse baseball is under siege white sock

pitcher Eddie seot one of the biggest stars in the game knows his career is over and he's ready to come clean yes he was guilty yes he'd cheated the game he'd played since he was a kid and yes he'd had plenty of help in the end eight white socks played are indicted for conspiring to fix the 1919 World [Music] Series Baseball the sports world and the City of Chicago would never be the same everything about it the smell of cut grass the clean Blue Sky the daily ritual of ball games running in tandem with the

rise and fall of the Summer sun everything about baseball marks it as an original perhaps the original American [Music] pastoral you can't tell the story of America without the story of baseball it was the national [Music] Pastime that was the game that I grew up playing with my dad playing catch outside in the backyard and so many people have those types of family moments I think that's a really beautiful thing in the public mind baseball was a sacred sport it was free of Scandal of disgrace it didn't have the same taint as horse racing boxing

and other sports at the time as the 20th century dawned however America's game had become big business and its critical mass had shifted from the country to the city big cities tough cities like New York Boston and of course Chicago Chicago was an unprecedented place out of nowhere the flat Prairie becomes skyscrapers and factories the Stockyards and the steel mills no one had ever seen a city grow like that before 1919 was a tough year for Chicago still dealing with the devastating aftermath of World War I and on a razer's edge after a summer of

race riots folks needed an escape and baseball became a sanctuary by 1919 Chicago was probably considered the center of baseball you're talking about two sides of town Southside socks North Side Cubs it's a rivalry that permeates so much of the city you might watch a fight break out in the stands which I'm certainly not condoning but which seems to happen [Music] often you identified with your team it became part of your blood I was born a white socks fan and I shall die a white socks fan the white socks had always been one of the

Marquee franchises they won a World Championship in 1906 won a World Championship in 1917 and observers were saying that this might be the best team ever assembled by any owner up and down the lineup the white socks had Stars everywhere you looked and the brightest among them a country kid called shoess Joe Jackson Joe was a natural ball player he he could do it all he could throw he could hit he could run the bases Babe Ruth copied his swing bab Bruce said when I was coming up I looked around the league and when I

saw Joe Jackson I quit looking the son of a South Carolina sharecropper Jackson was born with nothing and it only seemed to get worse from there there were eight kids in the family and they were all dirt poor in those days there were no child labor laws so he had to go to work 12 to 14 hours a day to help support the family Joe Jackson never learned to read or right but by age 13 he was playing Semi-Pro ball in South Carolina's Mill leagues it was there he earned the nickname he'd carry with him

the rest of his life he had bought a new pair of spikes they wore blister on his feet so he took the spikes off and he played in his stockings and about the seventh inning he hit a triple and as he was sliding into third one of the opposing fans stood up and hollered you shoess son of a gun you there was a reporter for the Greenville paper he heard it and he coined the term Shoeless Joe Jackson Joe didn't care for the nickname he actually hated it and he compensated he bought a lot of

nice shoes to got of say I'm not shoess but that's how the world knew him Jackson made it to the big leagues in the summer of 1908 in his first full season he hit 408 one of the highest batting averages for a rookie in baseball history four years later shess Joe was one of the most coveted ball players in the game Charles Kaminsky told his secretary to go to Cleveland he gave him a blank check and he said bring Jackson back I don't care what I have to pay for him we need Joe Jackson on

the south side of Chicago Jackson was dropped into a locker room full of big names and even bigger egos there was future Hall of Famer Eddie Collins fiery catcher Ray shul and one of the game's highest paid players Buck Weaver they had all the stars they played in the best ballpark and they had the history that Baseball fans like to wrap their emotions around but all was not well on the South Side not even close so the white socks of this era uh did not get along there had been two separate clicks that had developed

in the white socks you had the better educated higher paid players such as Eddie Collins the Colombia man true blue American Patriot Eddie Collins had a reputation for being you know very arrogant uh very confident his nickname was cocky and he earned it there are stories of the white sock infielders not throwing the ball to Eddie Collins because they simply didn't like him on the other side of the locker room sat a group of Mal contents swed risberg happy Felch and chick gandal to name a few these were tough men weathered with little to no

refinement and they were being paid for the most part a lot less than their high-profile teammates they had come from Hard Scrabble mostly rural childhoods tobacco chewing guys with limited education and a pension for alcohol and rowdyism chick gandal was a big Burly first baseman early in the 1919 season he got in a fight with Tris speaker and supposedly the white socks teammates um let Tris speaker beat him up chick gandal was not well liked but he was respected or feared in a lot of ways so you had by 1919 two despar groups who rarely

talk to each other but somehow these guys played an excellent brand of baseball the only thing this collection of ball players might have disliked more than each other was their owner charles kamissy well the legend has grown up about this club that they were all United in their hatred of Charles kamsky that he was the cheapest owner in sports name me a business owner in any business who did not want to maximize his profits those were the baseball owners they wanted tox maximize the profits the owners had the power to keep player salaries artificially low

with something called The Reserve Clause the reserve Clause was a provision in the standard Major League contract that player could not sign with any other team because his original team held him in reserve the reserve Clause made ball players essentially indentured servants your labor is your only Power in this world and if you can't sell your labor to the highest bidder I can see resentment building up baseball owners like kamsky were raking in money hand over fist it was only a matter of time before the players decided they deserved a bigger piece of the pie

and it all started with white socks Ace Eddie seot in the summer of 1919 Cott and his teammates spent a lot of time riding the rails they smoked they drank they played cards and sometimes they talked a little treason the way it started we were going east on the tra that's Eddie seot telling a Cook County grand jury how the whole thing got started somebody made a crack about getting money if we got into the series to throw the Series Baseball was always seen as the purest form of athletic competition what the public did not

know it's that behind the scenes of this wonderful whole game lurks a very Sinister Dark Side the presence of gamblers who were slowly infiltrating the professional game it was one thing for a ball player to shave a run on a game in June but fixing the World Series that was different wasn't it the boys on the club got a talking and we all agreed that for a piece of the money we would throw the World Series it started with sort of idle conversations what about fixing the World Series you think we can do that no

that's impossible that can't be done then the next conversation is well I heard it was done before well who can you get can you get Jackson can you get Williams can you get [Music] Weaver so the conversation spreads ever outward the Chicago White Socks clinched the American League pennant on September 24th 1919 now a decision had to be made who was in who was out and what would be their price for betrayal it boils down to a moral question do I deserve this money enough to be betray my city to betray my teammates and to

betray the sport of baseball for the coin of the realm well for these eight players the answer was a resounding yes the eight players settled on their price a cool 100,000 for fixing the series then they turned to one of their own to orchestrate the scheme former major leager turned Gambler sleepy Bill Burns and his buddy Billy Mahar to fix a long World Series you need a bunch of people involved so you need a bunch of payoffs financing the fix was going to take someone with Deep Pockets someone who could float a big bank roll

[Music] by the beginning of the 20th century certainly New York City has become the capital of America it's where everything is happening and in the center of it all is Arnold Rothstein Arnold rosin was a Manhattan racketeer a genius figure who had come up to command the Jewish faction of organized crime in New York City he's a money lender he provides Finance of hit Broadway shows speak easys and rum running and the international drug trade and if muscle has to be applied it will be applied Arnold Rothstein made it his business to always be one

step ahead so when Burns and mahark asked for a meeting Rothstein already knew what they wanted to [Music] discuss and they make their pitch that they want to fix the World Series If Only They had the cash to do it and Rothstein he blows up I want no part of this crooked scheme I don't want to corrupt the world series get out never never darken this door again Rothstein show of anger was exactly that a show staged for anyone who might be watching Arnold Rothstein wants an alibi and he wants it to be said by

the people witnessing this that he's clean the black socks may be black but he's white as the driven snow Burns and Mahar were out and Arnold Rothstein was in but the socks still had one problem how does the best team in the league make losing look natural the critical meeting in all of this happened at the Warner hotel which was a hotel in the kamsky Park neighborhood and in the proverbial Smoke Filled Room ideas are exchanged back and forth that was when they discussed how do we do this how do we actually go about fixing

a game without being caught without looking foolish that was when Cott said we're expert ball players we can do this Eddie secot was slated to start game one of the series at at the meeting with rothstein's men he said he was going to need his money UPF front or the deal was off Eddie Cott is in a lot of ways the most fascinating character in this whole story he set his terms and stuck to them I would not do this for less than $10,000 and I would need that $10,000 in advance secot made his demand

and walked [Music] out when he got back to his hotel later that night he found $10,000 under his pillow once Eddie Cott had the money in hand there was no turning back the next day the white socks left for Cincinnati and the start of the best of nine World Series the fix was in Vin Scully once said that the the mound was the loneliest place in the world you've got the ball in your hand and everybody's waiting on you game one of the 1919 World Series Eddie seot took the mound and Eddie is saying to

himself this is it there's no going back I either do this or I don't it was the biggest pitch of Eddie cot's life and it hit Red's leadoff hitter Mory wrath Square in the back it gave wrath first base and sent the gambling World a clear signal the Chicago white socks were in the bag and the game is a foot as they would say in Sherlock Holmes Stories the Reds pushed across one run in that fateful first inning and then broke it open in the fourth there was a ball hit back to the mound and

Cott fielded it and turned very slowly to second base made a low throw to swed risberg the short stop they were trying to get a double play to end the inning and risberg made a poor throw to first base and so the Reds were able to keep the inning alive and they immediately went on to score five runs and blow the game open and knock Cott out the favored socks got buried in game one I think most White Sox fans after losing game one thought it was just an aberration they said we're going to get

him in game two the White Soxs trotted out 23 game winner Lefty Williams for game two of the series known for his control Williams walked six and when he did put the ball over the plate the red sent it back even harder he pitched ineffectively giving up three runs in the fourth inning of what ultimately would become a four or two white sock loss the fixing game to wasn't as obvious as the opener but the result was just as crooked there were probably handshakes all around and the feeling that boys we did it we fooled

them didn't we the rest of this is going to be a cakewalk there was never any moment where the white socks fans weren't hopeful of bouncing back I think every white socks fan believed and bet money in support of it [Music] the series shifted to Chicago for game three where right-hander Dicky Kerr a rookie who was not in on the scheme threw a wrench in the works Dicky Kerr goes out and throws a magnificent game the White Socks play cleanly and they win so this sends a little bit of a jolt to the gamblers if

the gamblers were getting nervous they didn't show it as fresh money came in on the Reds and odds on the white socks continue to plummet Eddie Cott again found himself on the bump for game four the Reds got a couple Runners on and ball was hit to left field Sheil Joe Jackson made a throw into home plate and Eddie Cott stuck his glove up and it deflected off his glove and rolled away and allowed the Reds to score their second run that was all they needed to win game four to make that kind of school

boy error was just uh inexcusable it was as if he had completely forgotten how to play the game of baseball completely forgotten how to play the game of baseball that pretty much described the white socks effort through four games of the series up in the Press Box the men who wrote about the game for a living took notice the sports Riders smell something is wrong right as it's happening ring lardner the great columnist he begins to have [Music] doubts before the first game in C Cincinnati there was an onfield band playing I'm forever blowing bubbles

which was one of the hit songs of the time and after the game after the white socks lost badly lardner in the bar composed these lyrics I'm forever blowing ball games I come from shy I hardly try lardner's shameful serenade of the white socks had no obvious effect as the boys from the Southside proceeded to get shut out in game five and so the Whispers grew even louder the team was one loss away from blowing the series and a handful of its players one loss away from collecting on their scheme to fix the series or

so they thought the gamblers who had promised the White Sox players some bribe money definitely did not pay off they contact Arnold rosstein in New York and demand more money rosin is not of a mind to send more money because he believes he's got them over a barrel now what are they going to go and blow the whistle and incriminate themselves and at that point the players are thinking that these greedy gamblers are going to Welch on them and they're going to break the promise but then something funny happened I rate at being stiffed by

Rothstein the white socks suddenly remembered how to hit how to feeli how to win ball games they stormed back to take gamees six and seven the latter behind a masterful performance from none other than Eddie seot the tide had seemingly turned the socks were on the verge of tying the [Applause] series but Arnold Rothstein didn't become Arnold Rothstein by being outsmarted on the eve of the pivotal game 8 the gamblers turned the screws on the players it is very likely that the gamblers paid off the players a little bit more and said okay this this

has to end you have to lose game eight was over before it began pitcher Lefty Williams never made it out of the first inning giving up four runs and putting the white socks in a hole they could never dig out of the Reds won the game and captured the world series five games to three you look at that eighth game and you look at the sloppy way the white socks played and it was all over with as the Cincinnati Reds celebrated their world championship the numbers on the south side of Chicago told an ugly story

pitchers Eddie Cott and Lefty Williams took all five losses giving up 19 runs swed risberg went just two for 25 at the plate and Joe Jackson hit an impressive 375 for the series and played a Flawless left field but the big hits he was known for never came and there were too many times when he and the team just didn't look right we can only surmise the number of sleepless nights they might have felt in fear of detection how does any fan base react to their team losing the World Series keenly disappointed but the White

Sox fans after their initial disappointment turned right back into ever hopeful I think there was the expectation amongst the gamblers and the ball players that this would blow over and would soon be forgotten the 1919 season faded away and Chicago's winter set in but the rumors persisted and the drum beat of Suspicion around the white socks grew louder and louder L speaking the sport media in a big city like Chicago kind of was like a PR arm of the ball Club they were expected to write positive stuff about the team if they didn't the owner

might not let them into the game for free to watch in December of 1919 Hugh Fullerton Baseball scribe for the Chicago Tribune sat down and started to type the column he wrote was anything but a puff piece in fact it would help to change American Sports forever Hugh fulleren wrote a story that says baseball is in the control of the gamblers who are fixing the games for their own interest he was planting the seeds of suspicion that spread across the country Fullerton never singled out any specific players but many fans who picked up the paper

could read between the lines it was inevitable that the lid was going to come off this so Charles kamsky shrewd businessman that he was decided that he would be the one to blow the lid off kamsky hired a team of private detectives kamsky was not looking to get to the bottom of the story so that he might expel the players and save the honor of the game kamsky wanted to know whether something was going to blow up that would prevent him from resigning these players kamy's detectives found hints of a fix but no Smoking Gun

and it seemed like all the speculation about the series might remain just that [Applause] speculation but everything changed on August 31st 19 1920 when the socks cross town rival Chicago Cubs lost a meaningless game in August to the Philadelphia [Applause] Phillies Bill ve then the president of the Chicago Cubs got a call that said watch your players this afternoon this game is fixed so he Cubs switched out their starting pitchers still lost the game but Bill V then went to the Cook County grand jury so the first Grand Jury was convened in September 1920 and

the focus was whether or not there was any corruption in a single game between the Phillies and the Cubs and so 3 weeks into this investigation the grand jury then turned its attention to whether or not there is any corruption in baseball as a whole corruption in baseball as a hole in other words forget the Cubs did the team on the south side of town actually throw the World Series as the grand jury began its work the Press was once again sniffing around this time it was Billy Mahar disgruntled from being pushed out of the

fix by Arnold Rothstein who gave a tella that was the first time that anyone said yes it happened these are the players who made it happen I was there when it happened it was a national story that had literally pushed all the other news off of the front page and thereafter the lid blew off it's 1919 and here are leading investigators in probe of recently finished work World Series the ensuing investigation engulfed the white socks and turned the club into a national punchline here are actual films of Sensational fourth inning of first game between white

socks and Cincinnati Reds something wasn't right and thousands mourned the proof that baseball wasn't fully honest so the newspaper reporters the sports Riders were traveling on the trains with them and Eddie was listening to these guys what's wrong with the arm at are you feeling a little nervous about your future the pressure is building so much Eddie Cott finally cracks he goes to Charles kamy's office he admits yeah we were crooked we fixed the World Series and Charles kamsky said we'll go tell it to the Grand Jury I don't know why I did it I

must have been crazy confession they say is best for the soul so he without lawyers present spilled the beans I've lived a thousand years in the last 12 months now I've lost everything job reputation everything they then brought in Joe Jackson and at that point it's the biggest Sports story maybe of all time shoess Joe icon to Millions took the stand on September 28th 1920 in a tight spot Jackson tried to walk a fine line admitting some guilt while trying to salvage his Integrity as a ball player I don't know that Joe ever saw the

major leagues coming I really don't he he just loved playing the game the Brandon Mill their ball field is right next to the actual meals and Joe could look out lendon and see the men out there practicing baseball so that was his motivation he wanted to get out there and play baseball as opposed to work 12 hours a day did you do anything to throw those games no sir I tried to win all the time Joe Jackson was illiterate he wasn't stupid he knew he knew his teammates were trying to lose did anybody pay you

any money to help throw that Series in favor of Cincinnati they did they promised me 20,000 and paid me [Music] five Lefty Williams Joe's roommate came to Joe's room and threw down a envelope Joe Jackson asked him what's this and he said this is this this is your part of the money I think Joe knew it was wrong he knew that there could be some serious repercussions for having that money the prosecutor pressed Jackson asking if his wife knew what he had done she said she thought it was an awful thing to do cried about

it for a while Joe says some disturbing things in that confession and he talks a lot about money the first thing I would have done if I was Joe's lawyer as I would have told him to shut up and when after the famed white sock Fielder shess Joe Jackson confessed his guilt it said that one weeping fan of his Cried Out Say It Isn't So when Arnold Rothstein was called To The Stand he stopped outside the courtroom for an impromptu chat with the press and he gives a very Pious speech about how his reputation has

been sullied by these rumors and then he goes into the grand jury and denies everything White Sox players were promised $100,000 to fix the series but in the end they'd get less than half that Arnold Rothstein on the other hand made a killing estimates put his take at more than $350,000 6.5 million in today's dollars this really is the Napoleon of crime the fellow with the nerve and with the vision to make things happen Rothstein walked away way Untouchable but not everyone would be so lucky on October 29th 1920 eight white socks players and a

handful of low-level gamblers were indicted and charged with conspiracy to defraud the public the revelation of this placed baseball in the same position position is price fighting and horse racing the last clean sport in America has sold out baseball went on trial in the summer of 1921 despite confessions from several players the burden of proof would be a difficult bar to reach the hard part actually came at the end of the trial the prosecutor had to show that each of the defendants not only conspired but they did so with a conscious intent to defraud the

public to defraud the white socks organization and to defraud various other victims there was no evidence at all at trial of what their intent was it was an impossible impossible thing to prove in closing arguments prosecutors went all in painting the black socks as killers and baseball their victim reached the Chicago jury didn't quite see it that way and only needed 3 hours to decide not guilty the Cook County courtroom erupted in a show of positive emotion the jurors the press the players they were throwing their hats in the air so they go outside they

take pictures it was just a big celebration those players once they heard the verdict believed that all their troubles had been swept away they look to the future with great optimism but they're dancing on a volcano that night the exonerated players hit the town the next morning their hangover arrived that was a bully ball game in the person of newly appointed baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis he's got the look I mean I love the Kenesaw Mountain Land this look the shock of white hair the craggy thin face and the look of disdain and judgment and

wrath when he looked down upon you from the judge's badge judge Landis was hired as baseball's commissioner in order to clean up the game there had been so many rumors about game fixing and other instances of corruption he was brought in with a mandate of let's clean this up Landis wasted no time the day after a jury acquitted what the Press were now calling the black socks baseball's commissioner banned them from the game for life it's like that you guys are gone judge landis's statement said regardless of the verdicts of juries no ball player who

conspires to throw a game or sits in the company of ball players where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not rep support such conversations will never play baseball again landis's band was effective immediately the careers of the eight black socks were finished all of America was done not just the baseball world from the children who were Weeping at the news to their parents and grandparents they had thrown their heart over to the game how can this be happening this is the national game but you've disgraced it and you've disgraced

your family you've disgraced your own name and reputation and for what in the aggregate they get something like0 or $40,000 the American psyche has been damaged at Bargain Basement prices the white socks betrayal of their brother play players Eddie Collins great shul Dicky Kerr kid gleon the manager the clean socks you don't think of the hurt and the Betrayal that uh that they suffered in this because there was so much other betrayal to go around I'm as guilty as the rest of them I got my 5,000 I could have got just as much if we

had won now I'm out of baseball the joke seems to be on [Music] us the immediate aftermath of the black sock Scandal was disillusionment anger and a dip in attendance at ball games baseball however had an answer for that sort of malaise a man named ru Babe Ruth was playing his first season for the New York Yankees he became the center not only of the baseball world but in a lot of ways the center of the celebrity world his first year in Yankee Pinstripes Ruth hit a record 54 home runs the next he hit 59

fans across the country flocked to ballparks to see its newest hero and baseball entered what would become a golden [Applause] age on the south side of Chicago however the long shadow of the black socks proved harder to shake Charles kamsky was a villain he was a tightwad he was a crook those are the things that have just been perpetuated over time and it just simply is not true in 196 63 Elliot asenov published the book Eight Men Out And it crafted Charles kamsky in the role of consummate villain you said if I won 30 games

this year there'd be a $10,000 bonus so I think you owe me that bonus 29 is not 30 Edie you will get only the money you deserve the movie is what really sealed the deal in making him the bad person any bet against my socks this series is a sucker bet he was such uh an Enthusiast about the game of baseball he did a lot of important things that have just kind of been overlooked at a time when Major League Baseball was still segregated Charles kamsky supported both the all black eth Regiment of the Illinois

National Guard and Provident Hospital the first blackowned and operated Hospital in [Music] Chicago to be an astute business person that doesn't mean you can't be a good generous [Music] human every good story needs a villain and he was an easy one to Target if history has painted Charles kamsky as a villain he's one of many but no one and nothing has taken as big a hit as the game of baseball itself the questionable Integrity of the game has been a recurring issue uh throughout baseball history the banishment for life of Pete Rose from baseball is

the sad end of a sorry episode if it wasn't gambling and game fixing um you know you've got steroids and performance-enhancing drugs what I want to ask is what happened to sportsmanship the Houston Astros they have apologized in recent years you've got electronic sign stealing that has become a huge issue and led to a major scandal in the 21st century with the legalization of sports betting the Black Sox Scandal continues to have relevance today there's become a weird proximity between gambling and ballparks in a very physical sense which is very different from in years past

where it's been so taboo to even talk about gambling purists love to ponder if the game will ever regain the special luster it once enjoyed the essence of the Big Fix in the black sock Scandal is that it drives argument we're arguing about it now over 100 years later the issue with is whether the New England Patriots cheated I've always played within the rules I would never do anything to break the rules to be judged by a fair but other sports college sports basketball and football both tremendous number of Point fixing and other scandals and

it goes away faster because it's not baseball so what is it about the game that makes it so sacred perhaps the answer lies in the game's Origins baseball was exclusive to the American Experience baseball's place in American culture means that people have higher standards that it should be better even if it's not even if it's just as human as every other Sport and every other human endeavor in some ways the idea of baseball is more important than its reality the chasm between the two being where we find the remnants of our childhood dreams and the

Shadows of men like the black socks men whose imperfections off the field ultimately eclipsed their talent on it the game is a beautiful thing from the first pitch that last out if you concentrate on that you're going to be less likely to have your heartbroken [Music] my name's Mike Miller I'm a volunteer and a board member here with the shess Joe Jackson Museum we are standing here in the living room of shus Joe Jackson's [Music] house Joe actually had to house built in 1940 he and his wife Kate spent the last 10 years of his

life here he had a room in this house where he kept a lot of his trophies so I'm sure he spent a little bit of time in there looking over some old history and things that had happened during his [Music] career Joe ran a liquor store on Pendleton Street in Greenville South Carolina Joe Jackson's liquor store and there's a famous story about ta Cobb ta cob wanted to see Joe and he walked in and he walked around and Joe acted like he didn't know who he was and finally ta cob gets a little aggravated and

he's like Joe you don't know me and he said yeah Ty I know you he said I just didn't think anybody that knew me up be want to know me now I don't think Joe ever really reconciled getting kicked out of baseball that hurt him that hurt him bad because he never thought that he did anything wrong I was found innocent I was still banned for life I can say that my conscience is clear and I'll stand on my record in that World Series I'm willing to let the Lord be my judge I believe Joe

should have been punished for his guilty knowledge but I think you know 10 years whatever he should have been [Music] reinstated Joe's been dead since December 5th 1951 he's banned in perpetuity now the black sock Scandal remains baseball's original sin and so more than a 100 years after the fact Eight Men Who gambled and lost stand on the outside of History looking in all for a few thousand bucks Say It Ain't So Joe say it ain't so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]