The 1919 Chicago White Sox (aka Black Sox) are perhaps the
most tragic of all teams in baseball history. A powerful squad, they lost that
year’s World Series to the Cincinnati Reds despite being heavily favored, and
were later had eight of their players banished from the sport for their
involvement or knowledge of a plot to intentionally throw the Series. One of
those eight was third baseman Buck Weaver,
who maintained his innocence until his death, yet was never reinstated.
Unfortunately, he was sometimes his own worst enemy when it came to pleading
his case.
Gambling plagued baseball during the early part of the twentieth
century. Ballparks were gathering places for willing bettors who couldn’t turn
around without finding someone willing to take their money on some kind of
wager. In retrospect, it’s not that surprising that it finally reached the
level that it did with the fixing
of the 1919 World Series.
Buck Weaver was a second tier star of the White Sox, always
popular but never as statistically productive as teammates like Shoeless Joe
Jackson and Eddie
Cicotte. The switch hitting third baseman (He was primarily a shortstop for
his first five seasons) was a flashy fielder who hit .272 over nine major
league seasons. He was better known for his ability to play small ball (He is
still 43rd all time in sacrifice hits) and putting everything he had on the
field. Therefore, when news broke about the fix, the inclusion of the infielder
was more surprising than most.
On the surface, one can’t say that Weaver ever laid down
during the Series. He played all eight games, hitting .324 without committing
and error in the field. Although he was never proven to have done anything
other than play his best that postseason, it was determined that he was
generally aware of the plot of some of his teammates, and that was enough to
earn his lifetime ban when baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis
thundered down his ruling in August, 1921.
In hindsight, Weaver didn’t exactly help his cause leading
up to his permanent suspension. A January
20, 1921 newspaper account details how he was so confident he would be exonerated
and able to continue his professional career that he publically offered a group
of mostly journalists a $500 bet that he would be a member of the 1921 White
Sox. “I will prove to everybody that I am innocent of the charges against me,”
he told a group of people. “They can’t start that trial too soon to suit me.
When it is over I’ll be cleared.”
He turned out to be partially correct, as he and his
teammates were cleared in court. However, they could have never imagined they
would feel the wrath of Landis the way they did after proving their
“innocence.”
Although there’s no evidence that Weaver’s boastful (and
and most certainly tongue in cheek) attempt
to secure a bet against his innocence played any role in Landis’ decision, it
certainly was not the smartest thing for someone facing severe charges related
to gambling could do. At least as the newspaper noted, nobody took him up on
his offer.
Weaver played semi-pro ball for years after his expulsion
from the majors and exerted great effort in trying to have his case appealed.
He was never successful, and even now, decades after his death in 1956, he
remains on the outside looking in of professional baseball.
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