1 00:01:31,149 --> 00:01:32,687 CHARLEY MCDOWELL: Baseball is thought of 2 00:01:32,771 --> 00:01:34,670 as this game of geometry. 3 00:01:34,773 --> 00:01:36,189 It's perfect. 4 00:01:36,292 --> 00:01:40,193 It's 90 feet, it's 60 feet, it's this, it's that. 5 00:01:40,296 --> 00:01:42,195 Everything's perfect right angles. 6 00:01:42,298 --> 00:01:44,611 Then it has the strictest rules 7 00:01:44,749 --> 00:01:46,613 and the strictest history... 8 00:01:46,751 --> 00:01:48,339 Everything interpreted. 9 00:01:48,477 --> 00:01:51,480 And kids play it all over the place 10 00:01:51,618 --> 00:01:53,482 with two bases, one base, 11 00:01:53,620 --> 00:01:56,623 with a car parked where they're playing. 12 00:01:56,761 --> 00:01:58,625 They play in the street. 13 00:01:58,763 --> 00:02:01,145 We played it in the hollow, 14 00:02:01,282 --> 00:02:02,629 used trees for bases. 15 00:02:02,767 --> 00:02:04,665 We had wonderful baseball games. 16 00:02:04,803 --> 00:02:07,668 You can improvise baseball in a living room. 17 00:02:07,806 --> 00:02:11,155 You can improvise baseball on a New York street 18 00:02:11,293 --> 00:02:15,642 you can play it in the pasture, on a hillside. 19 00:02:15,780 --> 00:02:17,816 You can play baseball anywhere. 20 00:02:19,991 --> 00:02:22,649 [THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER PLAYING] 21 00:03:27,645 --> 00:03:30,096 [CROWD CHEERING AS SONG ENDS] 22 00:03:46,388 --> 00:03:49,149 NARRATOR: Between 1910 and 1920, 23 00:03:49,253 --> 00:03:52,758 Albert Einstein published his Theory of Relativity, 24 00:03:52,842 --> 00:03:55,727 the first ships moved through the Panama Canal, 25 00:03:55,811 --> 00:04:00,747 and 22 million people died of influenza. 26 00:04:03,612 --> 00:04:07,049 The war to end all wars was fought, 27 00:04:07,133 --> 00:04:10,343 the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, 28 00:04:10,446 --> 00:04:13,434 and immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe 29 00:04:13,518 --> 00:04:15,520 streamed into the United States, 30 00:04:15,624 --> 00:04:18,903 more than a million of them a year. 31 00:04:21,526 --> 00:04:25,012 Harriet Tubman and Julia Ward Howe 32 00:04:25,116 --> 00:04:28,050 and Albert Goodwill Spalding died. 33 00:04:28,154 --> 00:04:32,502 Orson Welles and Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson 34 00:04:32,605 --> 00:04:35,090 were born. 35 00:04:39,474 --> 00:04:43,547 Americans turned out to watch the Racine Malted Milks 36 00:04:43,651 --> 00:04:47,551 and Rockford Drys and Milwaukee Brewers... 37 00:04:47,655 --> 00:04:50,485 The Jackson Convicts, Quincy Crybabies, 38 00:04:50,623 --> 00:04:53,385 Zanesville Flood-Sufferers, 39 00:04:53,488 --> 00:04:56,974 and the Telluride, Colorado, Baseball Club, 40 00:04:57,112 --> 00:04:59,494 champions of the Western Slope, 41 00:04:59,632 --> 00:05:04,499 whose home field was 8,745 feet above sea level. 42 00:05:06,018 --> 00:05:09,627 Thousands of small-town players dreamed of moving on 43 00:05:09,711 --> 00:05:11,679 to still greater fame. 44 00:05:11,817 --> 00:05:15,683 "I didn't expect to make it to the big leagues," 45 00:05:15,821 --> 00:05:17,671 said Cincinnati outfielder Edd Roush, 46 00:05:17,787 --> 00:05:19,514 "but I didn't care. 47 00:05:19,652 --> 00:05:23,518 I had to get away from those damn cows." 48 00:05:23,656 --> 00:05:25,356 Baseball transformed the language. 49 00:05:25,486 --> 00:05:28,301 A success was now a home run, 50 00:05:28,385 --> 00:05:31,526 crazy ideas came out of left field, 51 00:05:31,664 --> 00:05:35,220 and inappropriate behavior was off-base. 52 00:05:38,533 --> 00:05:41,018 Bleacher seats now cost a quarter. 53 00:05:41,156 --> 00:05:43,972 Box seats went for a dollar. 54 00:05:44,056 --> 00:05:47,009 A hot dog cost a nickel. 55 00:05:47,093 --> 00:05:51,013 The game was still fast and furious. 56 00:05:51,097 --> 00:05:54,722 Speed and strategy took precedence over power. 57 00:05:54,860 --> 00:05:59,554 Ty Cobb and John McGraw still set the pace. 58 00:06:13,603 --> 00:06:15,521 When the decade began, 59 00:06:15,605 --> 00:06:18,539 baseball had never been more popular. 60 00:06:20,610 --> 00:06:24,476 By its end, fans everywhere would feel betrayed 61 00:06:24,579 --> 00:06:28,050 as some of the finest players in the game 62 00:06:28,134 --> 00:06:31,399 sought to sell out the national pastime. 63 00:06:31,483 --> 00:06:36,231 JOHN SAYLES: There had been many, many, many scandals and incidents 64 00:06:36,315 --> 00:06:39,545 because wherever there was any kind of sporting event, 65 00:06:39,629 --> 00:06:41,029 there were gamblers, 66 00:06:41,113 --> 00:06:43,460 and basically, gamblers want an edge, 67 00:06:43,598 --> 00:06:45,462 and that edge often is 68 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:48,465 having paid one or the other players 69 00:06:48,603 --> 00:06:51,468 or having gotten the opposing pitcher drunk 70 00:06:51,606 --> 00:06:53,953 the night before or that morning 71 00:06:54,091 --> 00:06:55,645 or distracting them 72 00:06:55,783 --> 00:06:58,391 by shooting bullets at the left fielder. 73 00:06:58,475 --> 00:07:01,394 The early games didn't have a fence 74 00:07:01,478 --> 00:07:03,914 that you could hit it over. 75 00:07:03,998 --> 00:07:06,794 You got a home run by hitting it, 76 00:07:06,932 --> 00:07:08,313 and it would roll. 77 00:07:08,451 --> 00:07:11,749 There was less separation between fans and the game. 78 00:07:11,833 --> 00:07:14,974 If you hit a line drive 2 inches foul, 79 00:07:15,112 --> 00:07:16,493 you hit a spectator. 80 00:07:16,631 --> 00:07:18,875 They sold not only the seats, 81 00:07:18,978 --> 00:07:21,981 but all the room up to the sidelines. 82 00:07:22,119 --> 00:07:23,983 In the 1919 World Series, 83 00:07:24,121 --> 00:07:26,986 they put a rope across left field, 84 00:07:27,124 --> 00:07:28,678 and people stood there. 85 00:07:28,816 --> 00:07:32,682 And if the ball went into that group of people, 86 00:07:32,820 --> 00:07:34,684 you would get a triple. 87 00:07:34,822 --> 00:07:37,514 So if your guy hit a foul ball, 88 00:07:37,652 --> 00:07:39,087 you would surge forward. 89 00:07:39,171 --> 00:07:41,346 If it was the other guy, 90 00:07:41,484 --> 00:07:43,348 you'd pull the rope back 91 00:07:43,486 --> 00:07:45,488 so your guy could catch it. 92 00:07:45,626 --> 00:07:49,492 What this led to is, there was much more familiarity. 93 00:07:49,630 --> 00:07:51,494 There were guys yelling out, 94 00:07:51,632 --> 00:07:54,497 "15 bucks if you drop that ball." 95 00:07:54,635 --> 00:07:58,501 If the other guy said, "20 if you catch it," 96 00:07:58,639 --> 00:08:00,537 he might catch it. 97 00:08:00,675 --> 00:08:03,540 And that thing that kind of existed 98 00:08:03,678 --> 00:08:05,059 in hometown baseball 99 00:08:05,197 --> 00:08:08,062 certainly was not strange to the major leagues, 100 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:11,065 because it was so hometown in the beginning. 101 00:08:11,203 --> 00:08:14,551 It still was a we-know-our-boys-personally 102 00:08:14,689 --> 00:08:16,173 kind of game. 103 00:08:22,110 --> 00:08:24,995 GEORGE WILL: If you look at pictures 104 00:08:25,079 --> 00:08:27,031 of, say, the 1915 Pirates, 105 00:08:27,115 --> 00:08:31,035 you're going to see a very different kind of face 106 00:08:31,119 --> 00:08:33,521 than you see today... hard men. 107 00:08:33,605 --> 00:08:36,662 Baseball was a way out of the mines. 108 00:08:36,746 --> 00:08:39,665 This was a career option for immigrant Americans. 109 00:08:39,749 --> 00:08:42,614 They were tough men, hungry young men 110 00:08:42,717 --> 00:08:46,050 coming after the established older men. 111 00:08:46,134 --> 00:08:48,536 Baseball was played with a ferocity, 112 00:08:48,620 --> 00:08:51,055 a kind of life-and-death, 113 00:08:51,139 --> 00:08:54,384 which in a sense it was for these players, 114 00:08:54,522 --> 00:08:57,387 so it represented the rise of American striving. 115 00:09:01,564 --> 00:09:04,463 "That's the way it is in baseball. 116 00:09:04,567 --> 00:09:06,534 It's a tough racket." 117 00:09:07,915 --> 00:09:10,814 "There's always someone sitting on the bench 118 00:09:10,918 --> 00:09:13,008 "itching to get your place, 119 00:09:13,092 --> 00:09:15,045 "thinks he can do better, 120 00:09:15,129 --> 00:09:17,959 "wants your job in the worst way. 121 00:09:18,097 --> 00:09:21,238 "Back to the coal mines for you, pal. 122 00:09:21,376 --> 00:09:23,482 "The pressure never lets up. 123 00:09:23,586 --> 00:09:26,485 "It doesn't matter what you did yesterday. 124 00:09:26,589 --> 00:09:27,969 "That's history. 125 00:09:28,072 --> 00:09:30,006 "It's tomorrow that counts, 126 00:09:30,109 --> 00:09:32,802 "so you worry all the time. 127 00:09:32,905 --> 00:09:34,735 It never ends." 128 00:09:37,288 --> 00:09:40,499 "Lord, baseball is a worrying thing." 129 00:09:40,603 --> 00:09:42,812 Stanley Coveleski. 130 00:10:04,592 --> 00:10:08,976 "The game of baseball is a clean, straight game, 131 00:10:09,114 --> 00:10:11,979 "and it summons to its presence 132 00:10:12,117 --> 00:10:16,466 everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics." 133 00:10:16,604 --> 00:10:19,365 William Howard Taft. 134 00:10:19,469 --> 00:10:21,885 NARRATOR: In 1910, William Howard Taft 135 00:10:21,989 --> 00:10:26,476 became the first president ever to attend Opening Day, 136 00:10:26,614 --> 00:10:29,479 and he saw a novel sight... 137 00:10:29,617 --> 00:10:32,482 A victory by the Washington Senators 138 00:10:32,620 --> 00:10:35,781 over the Philadelphia Athletics. 139 00:10:35,865 --> 00:10:37,660 It was an aberration. 140 00:10:37,798 --> 00:10:39,163 The mighty Athletics 141 00:10:39,247 --> 00:10:42,443 took the pennant and the series that year. 142 00:10:42,527 --> 00:10:44,445 They would win the pennant 143 00:10:44,529 --> 00:10:47,448 three more times in the next four years 144 00:10:47,532 --> 00:10:49,499 and take two more World Series. 145 00:10:49,637 --> 00:10:51,501 They were a remarkable team, 146 00:10:51,639 --> 00:10:54,504 sparked by the fine clutch pitching 147 00:10:54,642 --> 00:10:58,508 of Albert Bender, who was a Chippewa Indian 148 00:10:58,646 --> 00:11:01,323 and therefore known as "Chief," 149 00:11:01,407 --> 00:11:04,031 and the so-called $100,000 infield 150 00:11:04,169 --> 00:11:07,034 of Stuffy McGinnis, Eddie Collins, 151 00:11:07,172 --> 00:11:10,520 "Black Jack" Barry, and Frank Baker... 152 00:11:10,658 --> 00:11:14,628 Who led the league with 12 home runs. 153 00:11:21,669 --> 00:11:26,156 But it was their manager who deserved most of the credit. 154 00:11:28,193 --> 00:11:30,022 "I will not tolerate profanity, 155 00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:31,541 "obscene language, 156 00:11:31,679 --> 00:11:34,544 "or personal insults from my bench. 157 00:11:34,682 --> 00:11:36,063 "I will always insist 158 00:11:36,201 --> 00:11:39,549 "as long as I am manager of the club 159 00:11:39,687 --> 00:11:42,068 "that my boys be gentlemen. 160 00:11:42,206 --> 00:11:43,986 "There is room for gentlemen 161 00:11:44,070 --> 00:11:45,988 in any profession." 162 00:11:46,072 --> 00:11:48,074 Connie Mack. 163 00:11:50,594 --> 00:11:54,514 The real name of the man who built the Athletics 164 00:11:54,598 --> 00:11:56,738 was Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy. 165 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:02,522 Born in 1862 to Irish immigrants, 166 00:12:02,606 --> 00:12:04,558 he began as a catcher, 167 00:12:04,642 --> 00:12:08,044 known for his ability to simulate with his fingers 168 00:12:08,128 --> 00:12:11,531 the sound of a ball just touching the bat 169 00:12:11,615 --> 00:12:13,533 that fooled the umpire 170 00:12:13,617 --> 00:12:16,585 into believing he had caught a foul tip. 171 00:12:16,723 --> 00:12:19,623 He spent 11 years in the majors, 172 00:12:19,761 --> 00:12:23,592 managed to play every position except third base and pitcher, 173 00:12:23,730 --> 00:12:26,112 and vigorously supported John Montgomery Ward 174 00:12:26,250 --> 00:12:29,065 and his ill-fated Players' League. 175 00:12:29,149 --> 00:12:33,553 In 1901, he became part owner of the Philadelphia Athletics 176 00:12:33,637 --> 00:12:36,072 and immediately made himself manager, 177 00:12:36,156 --> 00:12:39,455 a post he held for 50 years. 178 00:12:39,539 --> 00:12:43,079 Connie Mack became baseball's most conspicuous gentleman, 179 00:12:43,163 --> 00:12:45,510 managing in coat and tie, 180 00:12:45,649 --> 00:12:49,569 demanding that his players be on their best behavior. 181 00:12:49,653 --> 00:12:52,572 "He could be as tough as rawhide 182 00:12:52,656 --> 00:12:55,091 "and as gentle as a mother, 183 00:12:55,175 --> 00:12:57,488 "reasonable and obstinate beyond reason 184 00:12:57,626 --> 00:13:00,629 and courtly and benevolent and fierce." 185 00:13:02,631 --> 00:13:05,013 "He was kindhearted and hard-fisted, 186 00:13:05,151 --> 00:13:06,497 "drove a close bargain 187 00:13:06,635 --> 00:13:09,500 "and was suckered in a hundred deals. 188 00:13:09,638 --> 00:13:12,020 "He was generous and thoughtful 189 00:13:12,158 --> 00:13:15,023 "and autocratic and shy and independent 190 00:13:15,161 --> 00:13:17,128 and altogether completely lovable." 191 00:13:18,543 --> 00:13:21,685 Red Smith. New York Herald Tribune. 192 00:13:24,170 --> 00:13:26,034 DANIEL OKRENT: Connie Mack... 193 00:13:26,172 --> 00:13:28,519 In the words of Wilfred Sheed, 194 00:13:28,657 --> 00:13:31,522 "Like a tree from the Garden of Eden"... 195 00:13:31,660 --> 00:13:34,042 Came into baseball in the 1880s. 196 00:13:34,180 --> 00:13:36,561 He began as an average player 197 00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:40,876 and took instead his passion for the game and his brains 198 00:13:41,014 --> 00:13:42,449 and became a mogul, 199 00:13:42,533 --> 00:13:44,397 a great manager and owner, 200 00:13:44,535 --> 00:13:48,401 and then as soon as they had reached their pinnacle, 201 00:13:48,539 --> 00:13:52,163 he'd sell the players for as much money as possible. 202 00:13:54,614 --> 00:13:58,534 "It is more profitable for me to have a team 203 00:13:58,618 --> 00:14:02,020 "that is in contention for most of the season, 204 00:14:02,104 --> 00:14:03,504 "but finishes about fourth. 205 00:14:03,588 --> 00:14:06,507 "A team like that will draw well enough 206 00:14:06,591 --> 00:14:09,510 "for the first part of the season 207 00:14:09,594 --> 00:14:12,548 "to show a profit for the year, 208 00:14:12,632 --> 00:14:15,655 and you don't have to give losing players raises." 209 00:14:15,739 --> 00:14:17,568 Baseball was Mack's livelihood, 210 00:14:17,706 --> 00:14:20,176 but it was also his life, 211 00:14:20,260 --> 00:14:23,179 and he was worried about the game's integrity. 212 00:14:23,263 --> 00:14:26,044 Violent players, like Detroit's Ty Cobb, 213 00:14:26,128 --> 00:14:27,528 distressed him. 214 00:14:27,612 --> 00:14:30,566 When the tigers came to town, 215 00:14:30,650 --> 00:14:35,759 Connie Mack advised his team to "never get Mr. Cobb angry." 216 00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:49,462 "They may not have liked him, 217 00:14:49,565 --> 00:14:50,981 "but they admired him. 218 00:14:51,084 --> 00:14:52,983 "Cobb had that terrific fire, 219 00:14:53,086 --> 00:14:54,501 "that terrific drive. 220 00:14:54,605 --> 00:14:58,471 "I never saw a fella with the drive Cobb had. 221 00:14:58,574 --> 00:15:01,474 "It was his game. It was his base. 222 00:15:01,577 --> 00:15:03,510 "Everything was his. 223 00:15:03,614 --> 00:15:06,479 "He would just... he dominated the game. 224 00:15:06,582 --> 00:15:09,654 I never saw a fella like that." 225 00:15:09,758 --> 00:15:11,898 Rube Bressler. 226 00:15:13,693 --> 00:15:17,524 In 1910, Ty Cobb was locked in a fierce battle 227 00:15:17,628 --> 00:15:20,616 with Napoleon Lajoie of the Cleveland Indians 228 00:15:20,700 --> 00:15:24,585 for the batting championship of the American League. 229 00:15:24,669 --> 00:15:26,844 The hugely popular Lajoie 230 00:15:26,948 --> 00:15:29,882 had led the league in batting twice before 231 00:15:29,985 --> 00:15:34,300 and was considered the greatest second baseman in the game. 232 00:15:34,438 --> 00:15:37,303 The Chalmers Motor Company offered a new car 233 00:15:37,441 --> 00:15:39,911 to the winner of the title. 234 00:15:39,995 --> 00:15:42,032 Cobb wanted that car, 235 00:15:42,135 --> 00:15:44,966 but he was so detested by his opponents 236 00:15:45,104 --> 00:15:48,452 that when he and Lajoie were neck and neck 237 00:15:48,590 --> 00:15:51,095 for the title at the end, 238 00:15:51,179 --> 00:15:54,098 the manager of the St. Louis Browns, 239 00:15:54,182 --> 00:15:56,494 just to spite Cobb, 240 00:15:56,632 --> 00:15:59,497 ordered his third baseman to play so deep 241 00:15:59,635 --> 00:16:03,156 that Lajoie got six bunt singles in a row. 242 00:16:03,294 --> 00:16:06,159 The manager was found out and fired. 243 00:16:06,297 --> 00:16:08,644 Cobb ended up winning the title 244 00:16:08,782 --> 00:16:10,474 by a single percentage point. 245 00:16:10,612 --> 00:16:12,510 Years later, it was discovered 246 00:16:12,648 --> 00:16:15,479 that, in fact, Lajoie should have won. 247 00:16:15,617 --> 00:16:17,481 Cobb's average had been inflated 248 00:16:17,619 --> 00:16:19,655 by counting one game twice. 249 00:16:19,793 --> 00:16:22,486 But both men got cars. 250 00:16:22,624 --> 00:16:25,661 It would be the first of 10 cars 251 00:16:25,799 --> 00:16:28,630 Cobb would receive over his career. 252 00:16:35,671 --> 00:16:40,538 He was now widely hailed at the best player in the game 253 00:16:40,676 --> 00:16:45,198 and was one of the best-paid, making $9,500 a year. 254 00:16:46,406 --> 00:16:48,808 He was careful with his money 255 00:16:48,892 --> 00:16:51,327 and had already begun to invest 256 00:16:51,411 --> 00:16:54,848 in the small Georgia soft drink company, Coca-Cola, 257 00:16:54,932 --> 00:16:58,334 that would soon help make him baseball's richest player, 258 00:16:58,418 --> 00:17:02,560 but no degree of success could exorcise his demons. 259 00:17:03,907 --> 00:17:08,482 OKRENT: Cobb is the great black mark 260 00:17:08,566 --> 00:17:12,003 on the history of baseball. 261 00:17:12,087 --> 00:17:15,524 There's no question that he was a great player, 262 00:17:15,608 --> 00:17:18,438 but he was a man of vile temperament 263 00:17:18,576 --> 00:17:20,716 and vile habit... terribly racist, brutal. 264 00:17:20,854 --> 00:17:23,719 In one of the most awful moments 265 00:17:23,857 --> 00:17:26,722 in a career that was filled with them, 266 00:17:26,860 --> 00:17:28,724 he went into the stands 267 00:17:28,862 --> 00:17:32,713 and brutally beat up a handicapped heckler. 268 00:17:32,797 --> 00:17:34,715 NARRATOR: On May 15, 1912, 269 00:17:34,799 --> 00:17:36,752 at Hilltop Park in Manhattan, 270 00:17:36,836 --> 00:17:40,756 Ty Cobb endured the taunts of a New York fan, 271 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:43,947 Claude Luecker, until after the third inning, 272 00:17:44,085 --> 00:17:47,951 when Luecker shouted that Cobb was a "half-nigger." 273 00:17:48,089 --> 00:17:51,471 Cobb vaulted the railing, knocked down the heckler, 274 00:17:51,609 --> 00:17:54,474 and began stomping him with his spikes. 275 00:17:54,612 --> 00:17:58,444 When the crowd shouted that the man was helpless 276 00:17:58,582 --> 00:18:00,480 because he had no hands, 277 00:18:00,618 --> 00:18:04,968 Cobb replied, "I don't care if he doesn't have any feet," 278 00:18:05,105 --> 00:18:06,486 and kept kicking him 279 00:18:06,624 --> 00:18:09,578 until a park policeman pulled him away. 280 00:18:09,662 --> 00:18:12,976 Ban Johnson, president of the American League, 281 00:18:13,114 --> 00:18:15,461 suspended Cobb from organized baseball 282 00:18:15,599 --> 00:18:17,256 indefinitely. 283 00:18:18,498 --> 00:18:20,949 "Everybody took it as a joke. 284 00:18:21,086 --> 00:18:23,469 "I was only kidding that fellow, 285 00:18:23,606 --> 00:18:25,954 "and I frightened him to death, 286 00:18:26,092 --> 00:18:28,957 "but I wouldn't take from the United States Army 287 00:18:29,095 --> 00:18:30,476 "what that man said. 288 00:18:30,614 --> 00:18:34,445 "The fans in New York cheered me to the echo 289 00:18:34,583 --> 00:18:36,482 "when I left the field. 290 00:18:36,620 --> 00:18:40,486 "I don't look for applause, but for the first time, 291 00:18:40,624 --> 00:18:43,351 I was glad the fans were with me." 292 00:18:43,489 --> 00:18:45,959 Although his teammates despised Cobb, 293 00:18:46,043 --> 00:18:48,390 they thought he'd been justified. 294 00:18:48,494 --> 00:18:50,392 Being called a half-nigger 295 00:18:50,496 --> 00:18:53,793 was an insult too great for any white man. 296 00:18:53,877 --> 00:18:57,280 They refused to play until he was reinstated. 297 00:18:57,364 --> 00:19:01,284 It was the first players' strike in major league history. 298 00:19:01,368 --> 00:19:05,288 The tiger manager desperately rounded up a team of amateurs 299 00:19:05,372 --> 00:19:08,153 for the next day's game against Philadelphia. 300 00:19:08,237 --> 00:19:13,173 A seminary student pitched for Detroit that afternoon, 301 00:19:13,311 --> 00:19:16,644 and the new tigers lost, 24-2. 302 00:19:16,728 --> 00:19:19,386 The next game was canceled. 303 00:19:19,524 --> 00:19:21,388 Ban Johnson now warned 304 00:19:21,526 --> 00:19:24,874 that he would suspend every tiger from the game 305 00:19:25,012 --> 00:19:27,187 unless they returned to the field. 306 00:19:27,325 --> 00:19:30,190 Cobb urged his teammates to give in, 307 00:19:30,328 --> 00:19:34,041 and when they did, they were each fined $100. 308 00:19:34,125 --> 00:19:39,011 After Cobb paid only a $50 fine for the savage beating, 309 00:19:39,095 --> 00:19:41,580 Johnson lifted his suspension. 310 00:19:43,824 --> 00:19:45,722 The more his fires burned, 311 00:19:45,860 --> 00:19:48,725 the more that provoked him on the field. 312 00:19:48,863 --> 00:19:52,695 I suppose one could say that the happy by-product 313 00:19:52,833 --> 00:19:54,455 was the extraordinary baseball 314 00:19:54,559 --> 00:19:57,458 that he gave the fans of the time, 315 00:19:57,562 --> 00:20:00,944 but there's a moment when it's not worth it. 316 00:20:01,048 --> 00:20:03,947 I think Ty Cobb, in his totality, 317 00:20:04,051 --> 00:20:05,708 embarrassed baseball. 318 00:20:18,065 --> 00:20:21,448 NARRATOR: On November 13, 1911, John Jordan O'Neil, 319 00:20:21,551 --> 00:20:23,484 who would one day 320 00:20:23,588 --> 00:20:27,488 become one of baseball's greatest ambassadors, 321 00:20:27,592 --> 00:20:31,975 was born in the Gulf Coast port town of Carrabelle, Florida, 322 00:20:32,079 --> 00:20:34,392 the grandson of a slave. 323 00:20:36,083 --> 00:20:38,499 Every town had a baseball team. 324 00:20:38,603 --> 00:20:42,917 In my town, Carrabelle, that's where I was born, 325 00:20:43,055 --> 00:20:45,920 they had a little local baseball team, 326 00:20:46,058 --> 00:20:48,923 and my father played on the baseball team, 327 00:20:49,061 --> 00:20:51,961 and he would take me around with him 328 00:20:52,099 --> 00:20:54,964 to the baseball fields wherever they would play. 329 00:20:55,102 --> 00:20:58,968 And I loved it, and I could catch the ball. 330 00:20:59,106 --> 00:21:02,937 The older fellows liked to throw the ball to me 331 00:21:03,075 --> 00:21:05,457 because I was a little show. 332 00:21:05,595 --> 00:21:09,979 Here's a boy catching the ball. People kind of liked this. 333 00:21:10,117 --> 00:21:13,155 That started me in wanting to play baseball. 334 00:21:21,163 --> 00:21:24,545 For years, Andrew "Rube" Foster and other black stars 335 00:21:24,649 --> 00:21:27,030 had organized dozens of barnstorming teams 336 00:21:27,134 --> 00:21:30,551 in the hope that they might one day play 337 00:21:30,655 --> 00:21:32,435 in the major leagues. 338 00:21:32,519 --> 00:21:34,037 But in 1911, 339 00:21:34,141 --> 00:21:36,902 the gentleman's agreement among the owners 340 00:21:37,006 --> 00:21:40,561 still kept all black players, no matter how good, 341 00:21:40,665 --> 00:21:43,115 out of organized white baseball. 342 00:21:45,635 --> 00:21:47,035 Nevertheless, that same year, 343 00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:48,983 the Cincinnati Reds 344 00:21:49,121 --> 00:21:52,987 signed two light-skinned players from Cuba... 345 00:21:53,125 --> 00:21:55,941 Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida. 346 00:21:56,025 --> 00:21:57,992 When questions arose 347 00:21:58,130 --> 00:22:01,030 about their playing a white man's game, 348 00:22:01,168 --> 00:22:03,515 the Cincinnati management assured the public 349 00:22:03,653 --> 00:22:06,622 they were "as pure white as Castile soap." 350 00:22:08,175 --> 00:22:11,040 "Now that the first shock is over, 351 00:22:11,178 --> 00:22:13,042 "it would not be surprising 352 00:22:13,180 --> 00:22:16,045 "to see a Cuban a few shades darker 353 00:22:16,183 --> 00:22:18,032 "breaking into the professional ranks. 354 00:22:18,116 --> 00:22:21,533 "It would then be easier for colored players 355 00:22:21,671 --> 00:22:24,536 "who are citizens of this country 356 00:22:24,674 --> 00:22:27,021 to get into fast company." 357 00:22:27,159 --> 00:22:29,161 New York Age. 358 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,649 But black Americans were still barred. 359 00:22:36,238 --> 00:22:40,103 BUCK O'NEIL: It was only four high schools in Florida 360 00:22:40,207 --> 00:22:42,140 a black kid could attend, 361 00:22:42,244 --> 00:22:45,557 so just elementary education... Well, this was by design 362 00:22:45,695 --> 00:22:50,168 because they were thinking this is all a black kid needed. 363 00:22:50,252 --> 00:22:53,688 So I got to go to the celery field, 364 00:22:53,772 --> 00:22:56,691 started working in the celery field, 365 00:22:56,775 --> 00:23:00,695 and in that celery field, I was a box boy. 366 00:23:00,779 --> 00:23:03,698 I'm sitting behind the boxes one day, 367 00:23:03,782 --> 00:23:06,184 and it was hot in Florida, 368 00:23:06,268 --> 00:23:09,187 and I was sweaty, and that muck was... 369 00:23:09,271 --> 00:23:10,705 I'm itching. 370 00:23:10,789 --> 00:23:13,708 My father was the foreman on this job, 371 00:23:13,792 --> 00:23:18,625 and he was on this side of the boxes, all over me. 372 00:23:18,763 --> 00:23:21,938 I said, "damn. There must be something better." 373 00:23:22,076 --> 00:23:23,975 I'm saying it aloud, see. 374 00:23:24,113 --> 00:23:26,978 When we get off the truck that night, 375 00:23:27,116 --> 00:23:31,465 my daddy say, "I heard what you said behind the boxes." 376 00:23:31,603 --> 00:23:34,468 I thought he'd reprimand me for saying "damn," 377 00:23:34,606 --> 00:23:37,471 see, because he'd never heard me say damn, 378 00:23:37,609 --> 00:23:40,992 and I doubt if I'd ever said damn, really. 379 00:23:41,130 --> 00:23:43,477 He said, "Yeah, there's something better", 380 00:23:43,615 --> 00:23:46,431 "but you know you can't get it here. 381 00:23:46,515 --> 00:23:49,138 You'll have to go someplace else." 382 00:23:49,276 --> 00:23:52,175 That's one reason I wanted to play baseball. 383 00:23:52,314 --> 00:23:56,663 I wanted to get out of that field, and I did. 384 00:23:56,801 --> 00:23:59,769 Baseball got me out of that field. 385 00:24:06,949 --> 00:24:08,847 For years and years, 386 00:24:08,985 --> 00:24:11,850 baseball was the one where you could say, 387 00:24:11,988 --> 00:24:14,336 "Nobody plays shortstop like this guy," 388 00:24:14,474 --> 00:24:17,339 "Nobody has a batting stance like this guy." 389 00:24:17,477 --> 00:24:20,342 Originally, there was a local feel to it. 390 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,345 Certainly, in the teens, twenties, and thirties, 391 00:24:23,483 --> 00:24:25,381 it was your hometown team. 392 00:24:25,519 --> 00:24:29,351 In the twenties, they were still living in boarding houses 393 00:24:29,489 --> 00:24:32,975 and sometimes putting their uniform on there. 394 00:24:35,667 --> 00:24:37,531 NARRATOR: Back in 1909, 395 00:24:37,669 --> 00:24:40,051 a rookie outfielder named Harry Hooper 396 00:24:40,189 --> 00:24:43,848 reported for spring training with the Red Sox. 397 00:24:43,986 --> 00:24:48,286 He was a college man and began to keep a diary 398 00:24:48,370 --> 00:24:51,289 of the often dreary life on the road. 399 00:24:51,373 --> 00:24:55,998 "Thursday, March 25th... played the bench. 400 00:24:56,136 --> 00:24:58,518 "Came near getting into the game 401 00:24:58,656 --> 00:25:01,521 "when Tris Speaker got hit sliding home, 402 00:25:01,659 --> 00:25:03,335 "but he stayed in. 403 00:25:03,419 --> 00:25:05,337 "Harry Wolter and myself 404 00:25:05,421 --> 00:25:08,493 take in moving pictures in the evening." 405 00:25:10,081 --> 00:25:11,516 "Friday, April 16th 406 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,519 "walk to the top of Washington Monument 407 00:25:14,603 --> 00:25:16,037 "with Nickerson. 408 00:25:16,121 --> 00:25:18,434 "Play left field in the afternoon. 409 00:25:18,538 --> 00:25:21,526 "Get two hits in four, one stolen base, 410 00:25:21,610 --> 00:25:25,096 three put-outs, and an assist to the plate." 411 00:25:27,616 --> 00:25:31,413 "Monday, April 19th... President Taft sees game." 412 00:25:33,104 --> 00:25:35,022 "Monday, April 26th... 413 00:25:35,106 --> 00:25:37,058 "Doc Powers, who took sick 414 00:25:37,142 --> 00:25:40,027 "at the finish of the opening game, 415 00:25:40,111 --> 00:25:41,546 "died today. 416 00:25:41,630 --> 00:25:44,169 "We sent $25 for a wreath. 417 00:25:44,253 --> 00:25:45,979 "Monday, May 10th 418 00:25:46,082 --> 00:25:48,982 "rained all day. Sat around in the hotel. 419 00:25:49,085 --> 00:25:51,950 "We were all invited to the burlesque 420 00:25:52,054 --> 00:25:53,952 "at the Empire. 421 00:25:54,056 --> 00:25:56,265 Good show... for its kind." 422 00:25:57,646 --> 00:26:00,994 "Monday, June 28th... beat Washington. 423 00:26:01,097 --> 00:26:04,479 "Get a hit off Walter Johnson 424 00:26:04,583 --> 00:26:06,964 which scores the winning run." 425 00:26:07,068 --> 00:26:08,897 Harry Hooper. 426 00:26:26,605 --> 00:26:29,504 "The plain fact," the New York Times wrote, 427 00:26:29,608 --> 00:26:33,025 "is that the art and mystery of professional baseball 428 00:26:33,128 --> 00:26:36,028 "have never taken so strong a hold 429 00:26:36,131 --> 00:26:40,101 on so large a public as they are now taking." 430 00:26:50,594 --> 00:26:51,975 Though Ty Cobb 431 00:26:52,113 --> 00:26:54,978 and the Washington Senators' star pitcher Walter Johnson 432 00:26:55,116 --> 00:26:56,980 were the decade's greatest players, 433 00:26:57,118 --> 00:27:00,466 Harry Hooper and a host of other stars 434 00:27:00,604 --> 00:27:03,573 vied for an adoring public's attention. 435 00:27:04,643 --> 00:27:06,990 Tris Speaker was Harry Hooper's teammate, 436 00:27:07,128 --> 00:27:10,925 the Boston Red Sox's regal center fielder. 437 00:27:12,167 --> 00:27:14,480 A former rodeo cowboy 438 00:27:14,618 --> 00:27:17,483 whose fans called him the Gray Eagle, 439 00:27:17,621 --> 00:27:19,485 he transformed outfield play. 440 00:27:19,623 --> 00:27:21,487 He played so shallow 441 00:27:21,625 --> 00:27:24,490 that he often recorded unassisted double plays 442 00:27:24,628 --> 00:27:26,009 at second base. 443 00:27:26,147 --> 00:27:30,013 He threw out a record 35 American League base runners 444 00:27:30,151 --> 00:27:33,257 in a single season... twice. 445 00:27:33,361 --> 00:27:37,745 During a slump in 1910, he was asked by his manager 446 00:27:37,848 --> 00:27:41,714 to give up his third spot in the batting order. 447 00:27:41,852 --> 00:27:44,184 "Like hell I will," he said, 448 00:27:44,268 --> 00:27:47,582 and ended the season the Red Sox's best hitter. 449 00:27:47,686 --> 00:27:49,584 Eddie Collins first played 450 00:27:49,688 --> 00:27:52,330 in Connie Mack's celebrated $100,000 infield, 451 00:27:52,414 --> 00:27:55,472 but was sent to the Chicago White Sox 452 00:27:55,556 --> 00:27:59,821 when Mack sold off his championship team. 453 00:27:59,905 --> 00:28:02,824 Collins hit over .340 for 10 seasons 454 00:28:02,908 --> 00:28:05,965 and played second base with such cheerful confidence 455 00:28:06,049 --> 00:28:08,001 in his own skills 456 00:28:08,085 --> 00:28:10,487 that opponents and teammates alike 457 00:28:10,571 --> 00:28:12,883 called him Cocky Collins. 458 00:28:18,544 --> 00:28:21,498 First baseman Hal Chase... Prince Hal... 459 00:28:21,582 --> 00:28:23,534 Was charming and skilled enough 460 00:28:23,618 --> 00:28:27,415 to have become one of baseball's most popular stars, 461 00:28:27,553 --> 00:28:31,542 but he was also so unabashed about consorting with gamblers 462 00:28:31,626 --> 00:28:35,512 that three different managers accused him of throwing games, 463 00:28:35,596 --> 00:28:38,687 and fans took to chanting, "What's the odds?" 464 00:28:38,771 --> 00:28:41,207 Whenever he took the field. 465 00:28:41,291 --> 00:28:45,122 OKRENT: Chase was a great fielding, decent hitting first baseman 466 00:28:45,260 --> 00:28:48,609 for the New York team in the American League. 467 00:28:48,747 --> 00:28:50,127 He was a gambler, 468 00:28:50,265 --> 00:28:54,097 and he lived well on the winnings that he got 469 00:28:54,235 --> 00:28:56,064 for making timely errors. 470 00:28:56,202 --> 00:28:58,101 He was a scary figure... 471 00:28:58,239 --> 00:29:00,103 Scary because he was tolerated. 472 00:29:00,241 --> 00:29:02,588 Scary because of what he did. 473 00:29:02,726 --> 00:29:04,590 Scary, too, because in 1916, 474 00:29:04,728 --> 00:29:07,593 as Christy Mathewson, the great Christian Gentleman, 475 00:29:07,731 --> 00:29:10,596 is completing his career with the Cincinnati Reds, 476 00:29:10,734 --> 00:29:12,598 Chase is on that team, 477 00:29:12,736 --> 00:29:14,600 and Chase's open vituperative scorn 478 00:29:14,738 --> 00:29:18,037 for somebody who lived so well and so purely 479 00:29:18,121 --> 00:29:19,916 was beyond ugliness. 480 00:29:28,131 --> 00:29:30,996 One of baseball's most beloved stars 481 00:29:31,134 --> 00:29:34,087 was Cleveland pitcher Addie Joss. 482 00:29:34,171 --> 00:29:36,573 He was nicknamed the Human Hairpin 483 00:29:36,657 --> 00:29:38,091 because of his height 484 00:29:38,175 --> 00:29:42,095 and the exaggerated motion with which he hurled the ball. 485 00:29:42,179 --> 00:29:46,494 He'd won 20 or more games 4 seasons in a row 486 00:29:46,632 --> 00:29:49,497 and was a favorite with fans and players. 487 00:29:49,635 --> 00:29:52,465 Even opposing players enjoyed hearing him harmonize 488 00:29:52,603 --> 00:29:55,606 with Ed Walsh of the Chicago White Sox. 489 00:29:57,229 --> 00:29:59,630 But Joss had a terrible secret... 490 00:29:59,714 --> 00:30:01,977 He was suffering from meningitis. 491 00:30:02,061 --> 00:30:04,980 He struggled through the 1910 season... 492 00:30:05,064 --> 00:30:09,295 He even pitched a no-hitter... Without telling anyone, 493 00:30:09,379 --> 00:30:12,263 but he collapsed before an exhibition game 494 00:30:12,347 --> 00:30:14,472 the following spring. 495 00:30:14,556 --> 00:30:17,475 Joss died 11 days later. 496 00:30:17,559 --> 00:30:20,493 He was just 31. 497 00:30:20,631 --> 00:30:22,480 Afraid that their owner 498 00:30:22,564 --> 00:30:25,483 would refuse to give them the day off 499 00:30:25,567 --> 00:30:27,175 to attend the funeral, 500 00:30:27,259 --> 00:30:29,744 his grieving teammates simply skipped town. 501 00:30:29,848 --> 00:30:33,008 The players were growing increasingly rebellious. 502 00:30:33,092 --> 00:30:38,201 They now began to talk seriously about organizing again. 503 00:30:38,339 --> 00:30:41,154 They wanted to abolish the reserve clause 504 00:30:41,238 --> 00:30:43,018 which made each player 505 00:30:43,102 --> 00:30:45,503 the exclusive property of his team 506 00:30:45,587 --> 00:30:48,521 and kept all salaries artificially low. 507 00:30:51,110 --> 00:30:55,030 Workers all across the country were demanding their fair share. 508 00:30:55,114 --> 00:30:57,515 Textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 509 00:30:57,599 --> 00:30:59,517 went out on strike. 510 00:30:59,601 --> 00:31:02,520 So did coal miners and steelworkers, 511 00:31:02,604 --> 00:31:05,040 even policemen in Boston. 512 00:31:05,124 --> 00:31:11,564 In 1911, Walter Johnson was paid $6,500 a year, 513 00:31:11,648 --> 00:31:17,363 while his great rival Christy Mathewson made 10,000. 514 00:31:17,447 --> 00:31:20,573 Johnson complained in an article he wrote 515 00:31:20,657 --> 00:31:23,576 for Baseball Magazine called "baseball slavery... 516 00:31:23,660 --> 00:31:27,940 The great American principle of dog eat dog." 517 00:31:31,668 --> 00:31:35,070 "The employer tries to starve out the laborer, 518 00:31:35,154 --> 00:31:38,902 "and the laborer tries to ruin the employer's business. 519 00:31:38,986 --> 00:31:41,559 "They quarrel over a bone 520 00:31:41,643 --> 00:31:44,577 "and rend each other like coyotes, 521 00:31:44,715 --> 00:31:47,511 "and we are freeborn Americans 522 00:31:47,615 --> 00:31:51,999 "with a Constitution and public schools. 523 00:31:52,102 --> 00:31:56,486 Business philosophy is that of the wolf pack." 524 00:31:56,589 --> 00:31:58,419 Walter Johnson. 525 00:32:05,115 --> 00:32:06,530 It's a game where... 526 00:32:06,634 --> 00:32:09,499 Where the emphasis, during the course of it, 527 00:32:09,602 --> 00:32:12,590 is put on a single individual. 528 00:32:12,674 --> 00:32:17,024 You know, a fly ball goes out towards the left fielder. 529 00:32:17,127 --> 00:32:20,510 He has this moment of, "What's going to happen?" 530 00:32:20,613 --> 00:32:23,030 You know, the, uh, Fred Snodgrass, 531 00:32:23,133 --> 00:32:27,034 who was one of the great players for the Giants 532 00:32:27,137 --> 00:32:29,036 back in the old days, 533 00:32:29,139 --> 00:32:33,523 I think it was in 1912 he missed a fly ball 534 00:32:33,626 --> 00:32:35,559 which lost the World Series. 535 00:32:35,663 --> 00:32:39,529 When he died, this enormously successful man at age 83, 536 00:32:39,632 --> 00:32:42,049 a banker in California or whatever, 537 00:32:42,152 --> 00:32:44,465 Fred Snodgrass dies 538 00:32:44,603 --> 00:32:48,987 "muffed fly ball in 1912." 539 00:32:49,125 --> 00:32:50,505 And despite his success, 540 00:32:50,643 --> 00:32:53,508 despite his joys of grandchildren and so forth, 541 00:32:53,646 --> 00:32:56,477 there was this one stigma attached to him 542 00:32:56,615 --> 00:32:58,997 for the rest of his life. 543 00:32:59,135 --> 00:33:00,999 It has to do with, 544 00:33:01,137 --> 00:33:03,484 "You better catch that fly ball, 545 00:33:03,622 --> 00:33:05,693 or you're marked forever." 546 00:33:15,150 --> 00:33:17,531 John McGraw's New York Giants 547 00:33:17,669 --> 00:33:20,500 had never really recovered from the Merkle boner... 548 00:33:20,638 --> 00:33:22,019 The base-running error 549 00:33:22,157 --> 00:33:25,022 that cost them the pennant in 1908. 550 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,026 Though they remained a perennial National League power 551 00:33:29,164 --> 00:33:30,544 with superb pitchers 552 00:33:30,682 --> 00:33:33,030 like Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard 553 00:33:33,168 --> 00:33:35,549 and won the pennant in 1911, 554 00:33:35,687 --> 00:33:39,519 they couldn't seem to win a World Series. 555 00:33:39,657 --> 00:33:41,555 Then, in 1912, 556 00:33:41,693 --> 00:33:44,509 after dominating the league throughout the season, 557 00:33:44,593 --> 00:33:49,479 they faced one of the greatest of all Boston Red Sox teams 558 00:33:49,563 --> 00:33:52,083 in the World Series. 559 00:33:53,567 --> 00:33:56,486 The Red Sox had won 105 games, 560 00:33:56,570 --> 00:33:58,005 an American League record, 561 00:33:58,089 --> 00:34:00,007 and their intimidating line-up 562 00:34:00,091 --> 00:34:03,217 included Harry Hooper, Tris Speaker, 563 00:34:03,301 --> 00:34:06,013 and a dazzling fast ball pitcher 564 00:34:06,097 --> 00:34:08,065 named Smoky Joe Wood. 565 00:34:09,445 --> 00:34:12,019 OKRENT: Smoky Joe Wood was a pitcher, 566 00:34:12,103 --> 00:34:15,540 who though not remembered as well as Walter Johnson, 567 00:34:15,624 --> 00:34:17,937 was, at his peak, his equal. 568 00:34:18,075 --> 00:34:19,544 In the 1912 season, 569 00:34:19,628 --> 00:34:22,803 they both had streaks of winning 16 consecutive games. 570 00:34:22,907 --> 00:34:25,377 When he was at his prime, 571 00:34:25,461 --> 00:34:28,380 it was Walter Johnson who said of him, 572 00:34:28,464 --> 00:34:32,606 "no man alive throws as hard Ns Smoky Joe Wood." 573 00:34:35,126 --> 00:34:39,046 The 1912 World Series was a fiercely fought contest 574 00:34:39,130 --> 00:34:42,409 on and off the field. 575 00:34:46,103 --> 00:34:48,968 Fans followed the action by telegraph 576 00:34:49,106 --> 00:34:51,487 and on scoreboards mounted in saloons 577 00:34:51,625 --> 00:34:54,594 and city squares all across the country. 578 00:34:56,906 --> 00:34:59,979 "When I was 13 years old, 579 00:35:00,117 --> 00:35:03,982 "I got a job posting scores in a corner saloon 580 00:35:04,121 --> 00:35:06,468 "at 85th Street and 1st Avenue. 581 00:35:06,605 --> 00:35:07,987 "At World Series time, 582 00:35:08,125 --> 00:35:11,507 "a complete play-by-play came over the ticker. 583 00:35:11,645 --> 00:35:15,511 "Management had me read the tape in a loud voice. 584 00:35:15,649 --> 00:35:19,515 "This was 1912, remember, the Giants and the Red Sox." 585 00:35:19,653 --> 00:35:22,000 "The saloon was jammed to overflowing" 586 00:35:22,139 --> 00:35:24,520 "with hundreds inside and out" 587 00:35:24,658 --> 00:35:27,489 "eagerly following each game's progress." 588 00:35:27,627 --> 00:35:29,284 Specs Toporcer 589 00:35:30,699 --> 00:35:33,529 Today's program! Program! 590 00:35:33,667 --> 00:35:36,498 "No individual, whether player, manager, 591 00:35:36,636 --> 00:35:38,534 "owner, critic, or spectator 592 00:35:38,672 --> 00:35:41,502 "who went through the 1912 World Series 593 00:35:41,641 --> 00:35:43,022 "will ever forget it. 594 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,492 "There never was another like it. 595 00:35:45,576 --> 00:35:48,494 "From the lofty perch of the bleacherite, 596 00:35:48,578 --> 00:35:51,981 "it was a series crammed with thrills and gulps, 597 00:35:52,065 --> 00:35:54,501 "Cheers and gasps, 598 00:35:54,585 --> 00:35:56,828 "dejection and wild exultation, 599 00:35:56,966 --> 00:35:59,989 "recrimination and adoration, 600 00:36:00,073 --> 00:36:05,561 "excuse and condemnation." Spalding Guide. 601 00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,048 [CROWD CHEERING] 602 00:36:30,103 --> 00:36:32,021 The first game was played 603 00:36:32,105 --> 00:36:35,507 in front of a huge, noisy New York crowd 604 00:36:35,591 --> 00:36:37,544 of more than 35,000. 605 00:36:37,628 --> 00:36:41,030 The Giants took an early 2-0 lead, 606 00:36:41,114 --> 00:36:43,944 but Smoky Joe Wood held steady, 607 00:36:44,048 --> 00:36:45,981 Boston came back, 608 00:36:46,085 --> 00:36:49,950 and after Wood snuffed out a 9th-inning rally, 609 00:36:50,054 --> 00:36:53,057 the Red Sox won 4-3. 610 00:36:57,061 --> 00:37:00,444 The next game would be in Boston. 611 00:37:02,066 --> 00:37:04,482 Mayor John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, 612 00:37:04,586 --> 00:37:06,484 grandfather of John F. Kennedy, 613 00:37:06,588 --> 00:37:09,487 was there to throw out the first ball. 614 00:37:09,591 --> 00:37:12,924 He was a loyal member of the Royal Rooters, 615 00:37:13,008 --> 00:37:15,976 a hard-drinking band of 1,000 fanatical fans 616 00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,979 who'd been cheering on the Red Sox 617 00:37:19,083 --> 00:37:21,327 since the turn of the century. 618 00:37:21,430 --> 00:37:24,502 Game two was enlivened by a fist fight 619 00:37:24,606 --> 00:37:27,988 between Tris Speaker and the Giant third baseman 620 00:37:28,092 --> 00:37:29,906 Buck Herzog. 621 00:37:29,990 --> 00:37:33,994 The score was tied 6-6 in the 11th inning 622 00:37:34,098 --> 00:37:37,515 when the contest was inexplicably called 623 00:37:37,619 --> 00:37:40,242 because of "impending" darkness. 624 00:37:41,623 --> 00:37:43,521 After heated discussion, 625 00:37:43,625 --> 00:37:47,456 officials declared that game two would not count. 626 00:37:47,594 --> 00:37:51,564 If necessary, the series would go to eight games. 627 00:37:58,605 --> 00:38:00,469 For the next four games, 628 00:38:00,607 --> 00:38:02,989 the series seesawed back and forth, 629 00:38:03,127 --> 00:38:06,475 the two teams shuttling between Boston and New York 630 00:38:06,613 --> 00:38:08,477 with hardly a day off. 631 00:38:08,615 --> 00:38:12,964 At the end of game six, Boston had the upper hand, 632 00:38:13,102 --> 00:38:15,001 ahead three games to two. 633 00:38:15,139 --> 00:38:17,920 Even the great Christy Mathewson, it seemed, 634 00:38:18,004 --> 00:38:20,095 couldn't stop the Red Sox. 635 00:38:20,179 --> 00:38:22,491 They needed only one more victory, 636 00:38:22,629 --> 00:38:25,494 and they were heading back to Boston... 637 00:38:25,632 --> 00:38:28,014 Friendly territory... Where Smoky Joe Wood, 638 00:38:28,152 --> 00:38:32,984 the hero of games one and four, would pitch the next game. 639 00:38:33,122 --> 00:38:35,504 Just before the seventh game began, 640 00:38:35,642 --> 00:38:38,507 the Royal Rooters filed onto the field 641 00:38:38,645 --> 00:38:41,510 on the way to their accustomed seats 642 00:38:41,648 --> 00:38:45,480 just beyond the left field foul line. 643 00:38:48,552 --> 00:38:50,470 But when they got there, 644 00:38:50,554 --> 00:38:54,040 they found that their seats had already been sold. 645 00:38:57,077 --> 00:39:01,703 The Rooters refused to leave until they got them back. 646 00:39:01,841 --> 00:39:05,485 Mounted policemen had to be called in 647 00:39:05,569 --> 00:39:08,054 to drive them behind the bleachers. 648 00:39:09,573 --> 00:39:11,974 The near riot in the stands 649 00:39:12,058 --> 00:39:14,578 kept Smoky Joe from warming up. 650 00:39:16,580 --> 00:39:19,982 "When he walked to the pitching mound this afternoon, 651 00:39:20,066 --> 00:39:21,984 "Wood wore a halo, 652 00:39:22,068 --> 00:39:24,504 "but before three hours had gone, 653 00:39:24,588 --> 00:39:26,506 "fickle fandom was looking about 654 00:39:26,590 --> 00:39:29,509 "for someone else to put on his pedestal. 655 00:39:29,593 --> 00:39:31,511 "Wood lasted but one inning, 656 00:39:31,595 --> 00:39:34,514 "and, during that, he pitched only 13 balls. 657 00:39:34,598 --> 00:39:36,516 "They were more than enough, 658 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:40,520 "for they produced no less than seven safe hits 659 00:39:40,604 --> 00:39:44,366 "and six runs." New York Times. 660 00:39:47,058 --> 00:39:48,439 It was a rout. 661 00:39:48,577 --> 00:39:52,374 The Giants won the 7th game 11-4. 662 00:39:53,789 --> 00:39:55,446 Back in New York, 663 00:39:55,584 --> 00:39:57,931 scoreboards throughout the city 664 00:39:58,069 --> 00:40:01,314 relayed the happy news in minutes. 665 00:40:01,418 --> 00:40:04,455 Because the second game had not counted, 666 00:40:04,593 --> 00:40:09,080 the series was tied three games apiece. 667 00:40:13,602 --> 00:40:14,948 "Write in the pages 668 00:40:15,086 --> 00:40:17,468 "of World Series baseball history 669 00:40:17,606 --> 00:40:19,953 "the name of Snodgrass. 670 00:40:20,091 --> 00:40:24,474 "Write it large and black, not as a hero, 671 00:40:24,612 --> 00:40:25,993 "truly not. 672 00:40:26,131 --> 00:40:29,997 "Put him with Merkle, who was in such a hurry 673 00:40:30,135 --> 00:40:32,965 "that he gave away a National League championship. 674 00:40:33,103 --> 00:40:35,485 "Snodgrass was in such a hurry 675 00:40:35,623 --> 00:40:37,004 "that he gave away 676 00:40:37,142 --> 00:40:40,110 "a world championship." New York Times. 677 00:40:42,630 --> 00:40:45,495 Christy Mathewson would pitch again for New York 678 00:40:45,633 --> 00:40:48,153 in the eighth and deciding game. 679 00:40:51,156 --> 00:40:54,504 The Giants went ahead 1-0 in the 3rd, 680 00:40:54,642 --> 00:40:57,507 and only two brilliant catches by Harry Hooper 681 00:40:57,645 --> 00:41:00,786 kept New York from scoring two more runs. 682 00:41:02,443 --> 00:41:05,343 Boston tied it up in the seventh, 683 00:41:05,481 --> 00:41:08,035 but a single by Fred Merkle 684 00:41:08,173 --> 00:41:12,004 drove home New York's go-ahead run in the 10th. 685 00:41:12,142 --> 00:41:14,524 Now, all Mathewson had to do 686 00:41:14,662 --> 00:41:17,527 was hold Boston for one more inning, 687 00:41:17,665 --> 00:41:20,530 and the Giants could take the championship 688 00:41:20,668 --> 00:41:22,049 home to New York. 689 00:41:22,187 --> 00:41:26,018 The first man up for Boston was a pinch hitter, 690 00:41:26,156 --> 00:41:27,537 Clyde Engle. 691 00:41:27,675 --> 00:41:30,540 "He hit a big, lazy, high fly ball," 692 00:41:30,678 --> 00:41:33,025 recalled Giant center fielder Fred Snodgrass. 693 00:41:33,163 --> 00:41:36,028 It looked like an easy out. 694 00:41:36,166 --> 00:41:38,893 Snodgrass and the left fielder 695 00:41:39,031 --> 00:41:41,467 both moved toward the ball. 696 00:41:41,551 --> 00:41:43,070 Snodgrass called for it. 697 00:41:43,208 --> 00:41:46,507 "I yelled and waved him off," he remembered, 698 00:41:46,591 --> 00:41:51,512 "and then, well, I dropped the darn thing." 699 00:41:51,596 --> 00:41:54,515 Engle ended up on second. 700 00:41:54,599 --> 00:41:57,518 Snodgrass put out the very next batter... 701 00:41:57,602 --> 00:41:59,520 Harry Hooper... 702 00:41:59,604 --> 00:42:01,694 With a spectacular catch, 703 00:42:01,778 --> 00:42:06,058 but it was his muff that fans would remember. 704 00:42:07,612 --> 00:42:10,531 Mathewson walked the next Boston batter. 705 00:42:10,615 --> 00:42:14,535 Tris Speaker drove Engle home to tie the game, 706 00:42:14,619 --> 00:42:17,538 and Larry Gardner followed with a sacrifice fly 707 00:42:17,622 --> 00:42:20,418 that drove in the winning run. 708 00:42:21,798 --> 00:42:25,423 Boston had won it 3-2. 709 00:42:27,148 --> 00:42:30,551 It had taken them eight games to get there, 710 00:42:30,635 --> 00:42:34,121 but the Boston Red Sox were the world champions. 711 00:42:36,123 --> 00:42:40,955 The Royal Rooters went wild. 712 00:42:56,592 --> 00:42:59,491 "I broke down and found it almost impossible 713 00:42:59,595 --> 00:43:04,151 "to announce the tragic events to the hushed crowd. 714 00:43:04,254 --> 00:43:06,015 "After it was all over, 715 00:43:06,118 --> 00:43:10,019 "I sat on the platform silently reading and rereading 716 00:43:10,122 --> 00:43:12,470 "the doleful news on the tape, 717 00:43:12,608 --> 00:43:18,924 as though repeated reading would erase the awful words." 718 00:43:21,617 --> 00:43:23,515 "For over half a century, 719 00:43:23,619 --> 00:43:26,518 "I've had to live with the fact 720 00:43:26,622 --> 00:43:30,039 "that I dropped a ball in a World Series 721 00:43:30,142 --> 00:43:33,042 "you're the guy that dropped that ball. 722 00:43:33,145 --> 00:43:35,527 "Whenever I'd be introduced to somebody, 723 00:43:35,631 --> 00:43:38,979 "they'd start saying something and then stop, you know, 724 00:43:39,117 --> 00:43:41,291 afraid of hurting my feelings." 725 00:43:44,122 --> 00:43:47,988 John McGraw felt so bad for his center fielder 726 00:43:48,126 --> 00:43:51,923 that he raised Snodgrass' salary $1,000. 727 00:43:54,995 --> 00:43:56,997 When you play it yourself, 728 00:43:57,135 --> 00:43:59,965 there are moments that stay with you 729 00:44:00,103 --> 00:44:02,002 for 40 and 50 years. 730 00:44:02,140 --> 00:44:06,489 I can remember pitching for my school here in New York 731 00:44:06,627 --> 00:44:07,973 called St. Bernard's. 732 00:44:08,111 --> 00:44:09,492 I was the pitcher, 733 00:44:09,630 --> 00:44:12,978 and I could throw a great big roundhouse curve, 734 00:44:13,116 --> 00:44:15,015 being long-armed, 735 00:44:15,153 --> 00:44:18,452 and someone taught me how to throw the thing, 736 00:44:18,536 --> 00:44:21,504 and it was a great sweeping curve, 737 00:44:21,642 --> 00:44:25,025 and I used to be devastating with this thing. 738 00:44:25,163 --> 00:44:27,510 I mean, these 11-year-olds 739 00:44:27,648 --> 00:44:30,513 would back out of the batter's box, 740 00:44:30,651 --> 00:44:33,033 and this thing would sail in. 741 00:44:33,171 --> 00:44:37,002 I used to strike out 17, 18 men a game 742 00:44:37,140 --> 00:44:39,039 with this curve ball. 743 00:44:39,177 --> 00:44:42,007 I can remember a pitch I threw. 744 00:44:42,145 --> 00:44:43,994 It was the final out, 745 00:44:44,078 --> 00:44:46,997 a lazy fly ball out to left field. 746 00:44:47,081 --> 00:44:50,484 Someone had gotten his bat on this curve ball. 747 00:44:50,568 --> 00:44:55,523 They had a man on third, and the score was 1-1. 748 00:44:55,607 --> 00:45:00,060 My 12-year-old classmate out there, Charlie Lee... 749 00:45:02,062 --> 00:45:03,497 Dropped the ball. 750 00:45:03,581 --> 00:45:07,017 I can see it falling out of his glove. 751 00:45:07,101 --> 00:45:10,020 I see that man coming home from third. 752 00:45:10,104 --> 00:45:13,990 I remember sitting next to Charlie on the bus back... 753 00:45:14,074 --> 00:45:15,213 Tears. 754 00:47:04,184 --> 00:47:06,999 In 1912, Boston fans had both a championship 755 00:47:07,083 --> 00:47:11,225 and a bright new ball park to boast about. 756 00:47:17,611 --> 00:47:21,531 It was there they had beaten the New York Giants, 757 00:47:21,615 --> 00:47:25,584 and fans were convinced it had brought them good luck. 758 00:47:38,596 --> 00:47:41,550 Built in a marshy area called the Fens, 759 00:47:41,634 --> 00:47:44,001 the park's most prominent features included 760 00:47:44,085 --> 00:47:47,951 a badly sloping left field that was called Duffy's Cliff 761 00:47:48,054 --> 00:47:50,954 because Red Sox left fielder Duffy Lewis 762 00:47:51,057 --> 00:47:54,026 had learned to play it so well. 763 00:47:56,062 --> 00:47:58,962 The left field wall was just 320 feet 764 00:47:59,065 --> 00:48:00,480 from home plate 765 00:48:00,584 --> 00:48:03,483 and was very friendly to right-handed hitters 766 00:48:03,587 --> 00:48:06,970 and very damaging to the windows of store owners 767 00:48:07,073 --> 00:48:08,557 across the street. 768 00:48:10,421 --> 00:48:12,838 OKRENT: Canadian forests have been destroyed 769 00:48:12,941 --> 00:48:16,807 to print the paper on which people have written paeans 770 00:48:16,911 --> 00:48:18,257 to Fenway Park. 771 00:48:18,395 --> 00:48:20,328 There's something in its intimacy. 772 00:48:20,431 --> 00:48:22,986 There's something in that incredible greenness. 773 00:48:23,089 --> 00:48:24,988 There's something in the peculiarity 774 00:48:25,091 --> 00:48:27,991 of the way that the outfield wall 775 00:48:28,094 --> 00:48:30,994 follows its meandering path from right to left. 776 00:48:31,097 --> 00:48:34,998 There's something about how it fits neatly into the city, 777 00:48:35,101 --> 00:48:37,517 and there's something about the fact 778 00:48:37,621 --> 00:48:41,521 that it has been the site of so much baseball... 779 00:48:41,625 --> 00:48:44,939 Tragedy might be too much, might be an overstatement... 780 00:48:45,077 --> 00:48:47,942 So much baseball sorrow has gone down there. 781 00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:51,428 You can compare it to a Civil War battlefield. 782 00:48:51,566 --> 00:48:53,913 It is a vale of tears. 783 00:49:03,095 --> 00:49:06,477 "There is no greater optimist in baseball 784 00:49:06,615 --> 00:49:08,963 "than President Charles Hercules Ebbets 785 00:49:09,101 --> 00:49:10,965 "of the Brooklyn club. 786 00:49:11,103 --> 00:49:13,968 "For 30 years, he's been in baseball, 787 00:49:14,106 --> 00:49:16,971 "and, all that time, he has had confidence 788 00:49:17,109 --> 00:49:18,973 "in the Brooklyn fan. 789 00:49:19,111 --> 00:49:22,493 "Through many seasons of losses and disappointments, 790 00:49:22,631 --> 00:49:24,979 "he has carried the Trolley Dodgers, 791 00:49:25,117 --> 00:49:26,981 "losing money year after year 792 00:49:27,119 --> 00:49:30,467 "when those about him lost faith in the game 793 00:49:30,605 --> 00:49:32,469 "as a paying proposition. 794 00:49:32,607 --> 00:49:34,989 "But the confidence of Mr. Ebbets 795 00:49:35,127 --> 00:49:37,060 "has never been shaken. 796 00:49:37,163 --> 00:49:40,511 "He believed years ago, as he does today, 797 00:49:40,649 --> 00:49:43,430 "that Brooklyn is a major league city 798 00:49:43,514 --> 00:49:45,467 "and that it would 799 00:49:45,551 --> 00:49:49,486 "support a good team." New York Times. 800 00:49:51,039 --> 00:49:52,474 Over the years, 801 00:49:52,558 --> 00:49:55,442 Brooklyn would be represented by many teams 802 00:49:55,526 --> 00:49:57,444 with many names... 803 00:49:57,528 --> 00:49:59,530 The Atlantics and Excelsiors, 804 00:49:59,668 --> 00:50:03,796 the Bridegrooms, Bushwicks, and Superbas, 805 00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:06,971 the Tiptops, after the baker of Tip Top Bread 806 00:50:07,055 --> 00:50:09,525 who owned them for a time, 807 00:50:09,609 --> 00:50:13,855 the Robins, after their manager Wilbert Robinson, 808 00:50:13,993 --> 00:50:15,980 the Trolley Dodgers, 809 00:50:16,064 --> 00:50:18,860 and finally, just the Dodgers. 810 00:50:20,586 --> 00:50:22,987 The story of the Brooklyn Dodgers 811 00:50:23,071 --> 00:50:28,165 is the story of one of the five boroughs in New York. 812 00:50:28,249 --> 00:50:31,651 Brooklyn was an independent city to itself until 1898. 813 00:50:31,735 --> 00:50:34,688 It was one of the great cities. 814 00:50:34,772 --> 00:50:37,691 It had a population bigger than Chicago. 815 00:50:37,775 --> 00:50:40,694 Because of the subway, because of the bridges, 816 00:50:40,778 --> 00:50:43,697 because of the water and electric facilities, 817 00:50:43,781 --> 00:50:47,667 the state forced Brooklyn into the city of New York 818 00:50:47,751 --> 00:50:49,013 in 1898, 819 00:50:49,097 --> 00:50:52,534 and Brooklyn didn't want to be in New York. 820 00:50:52,618 --> 00:50:55,537 New York had tall buildings and railroad stations. 821 00:50:55,621 --> 00:50:58,540 Brooklyn was just "The Bedroom of New York." 822 00:50:58,624 --> 00:51:01,025 One thing they had in Brooklyn 823 00:51:01,109 --> 00:51:04,028 was a baseball club called the Dodgers. 824 00:51:04,112 --> 00:51:07,031 Brooklyn centered its attention on the Dodgers 825 00:51:07,115 --> 00:51:10,739 and used the Dodgers against the buildings of Manhattan. 826 00:51:12,293 --> 00:51:14,211 NARRATOR: Charles Ebbets was convinced 827 00:51:14,295 --> 00:51:16,213 the team's fortunes would improve 828 00:51:16,297 --> 00:51:19,733 if they had a new park to play in. 829 00:51:19,817 --> 00:51:23,737 The site he picked was a garbage dump called Pigtown 830 00:51:23,821 --> 00:51:27,396 in one of the poorest sections of the borough... Flatbush. 831 00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:31,055 "I've made more money than I ever expected to, 832 00:51:31,139 --> 00:51:34,576 "but I'm putting all of it, and more, too, 833 00:51:34,660 --> 00:51:37,579 "into the new plant for the Brooklyn fans. 834 00:51:37,663 --> 00:51:42,066 "Of course, it's one thing to have a fine ball club 835 00:51:42,150 --> 00:51:43,585 "and win a pennant, 836 00:51:43,669 --> 00:51:46,983 "but to me, there's something more important than that 837 00:51:47,121 --> 00:51:48,501 "about a ball club. 838 00:51:48,639 --> 00:51:51,988 "I believe the fans should be taken care of. 839 00:51:52,126 --> 00:51:54,991 "A club should provide a suitable home 840 00:51:55,129 --> 00:51:56,770 "for its patrons. 841 00:51:56,854 --> 00:51:59,512 "This home should be in a location 842 00:51:59,650 --> 00:52:01,998 "that's healthy, it should be safe, 843 00:52:02,136 --> 00:52:05,622 and it should be convenient." Charles Hercules Ebbets. 844 00:52:07,141 --> 00:52:09,005 My father used to talk 845 00:52:09,143 --> 00:52:11,440 about the building of Ebbets Field. 846 00:52:11,524 --> 00:52:15,011 He was 11 years old when they started construction, 847 00:52:15,149 --> 00:52:17,964 and he somehow remembered what the hopes were 848 00:52:18,048 --> 00:52:20,533 for that whole area of Brooklyn 849 00:52:20,671 --> 00:52:23,019 because he lived right near there. 850 00:52:23,157 --> 00:52:25,538 They would have their own stadium. 851 00:52:25,676 --> 00:52:30,026 He used to go by daily and watch it being built. 852 00:52:30,164 --> 00:52:32,545 When he first took me there, 853 00:52:32,683 --> 00:52:37,550 it was showing me his history, not just a stadium. 854 00:52:37,688 --> 00:52:39,518 NARRATOR: Ebbets spent $750,000 855 00:52:39,656 --> 00:52:41,520 to build his park 856 00:52:41,658 --> 00:52:43,039 with its marble rotunda 857 00:52:43,177 --> 00:52:47,028 and chandeliers made in the form of bats and balls... 858 00:52:47,112 --> 00:52:51,998 So much that he had to sell half his interest in the team 859 00:52:52,082 --> 00:52:53,704 to pay his debts. 860 00:53:03,093 --> 00:53:06,012 Ebbets Field opened to the public 861 00:53:06,096 --> 00:53:09,375 on April 5, 1913... 862 00:53:11,101 --> 00:53:14,020 With an exhibition game against the Highlanders, 863 00:53:14,104 --> 00:53:17,023 who officially changed their name that spring 864 00:53:17,107 --> 00:53:19,508 to the New York Yankees. 865 00:53:19,592 --> 00:53:22,063 Brooklyn won 3-2. 866 00:53:22,147 --> 00:53:27,033 An inside-the-park home run by a young former dental student 867 00:53:27,117 --> 00:53:30,258 named Casey Stengel made the difference. 868 00:53:32,467 --> 00:53:36,042 Over the next 45 summers, Ebbets Field would witness 869 00:53:36,126 --> 00:53:39,563 some of the worst baseball ever played 870 00:53:39,647 --> 00:53:42,098 and some of the very best. 871 00:53:53,557 --> 00:53:56,422 "Why is baseball, you ask? 872 00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:58,424 "Because it is like charity 873 00:53:58,562 --> 00:53:59,908 "it never faileth. 874 00:54:00,046 --> 00:54:01,427 "It is always there, 875 00:54:01,565 --> 00:54:04,036 "except on Mondays or wet grounds. 876 00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:07,039 "And to the man who is too old 877 00:54:07,123 --> 00:54:09,558 "to keep up with the attempt 878 00:54:09,642 --> 00:54:11,043 "to civilize football 879 00:54:11,127 --> 00:54:14,440 "and too young to need a sedative like golf, 880 00:54:14,578 --> 00:54:16,925 "who works hard when he works 881 00:54:17,063 --> 00:54:19,396 "and wants to rest hard when he rests, 882 00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:20,914 "who wants a drama 883 00:54:20,998 --> 00:54:23,400 "that's as full of surprises for the actors 884 00:54:23,484 --> 00:54:25,885 "as it is for the audience, 885 00:54:25,969 --> 00:54:27,404 "who wants a race 886 00:54:27,488 --> 00:54:30,234 "that cannot be fixed like a horse race, 887 00:54:30,318 --> 00:54:32,754 "who is so genuine an American 888 00:54:32,838 --> 00:54:35,895 "he wants something to kick about without meaning it 889 00:54:35,979 --> 00:54:37,931 "and something to yell about 890 00:54:38,015 --> 00:54:40,555 "that everyone around him will think more of him 891 00:54:40,639 --> 00:54:41,950 "for yelling about 892 00:54:42,088 --> 00:54:44,903 "to that man, 893 00:54:44,987 --> 00:54:48,424 "baseball is the one great lifesaver 894 00:54:48,508 --> 00:54:51,427 in the good old summertime." 895 00:54:51,511 --> 00:54:54,169 Los Angeles Times. 896 00:54:55,618 --> 00:54:59,952 Baseball suits the character of this democratic nation. 897 00:55:00,036 --> 00:55:02,921 Democracy is government by persuasion. 898 00:55:03,005 --> 00:55:04,957 That means it requires patience. 899 00:55:05,041 --> 00:55:08,444 That means it involves a lot of compromise. 900 00:55:08,528 --> 00:55:12,965 Democracy is the slow politics of the half-loaf. 901 00:55:13,049 --> 00:55:15,968 Baseball is the game of the long season, 902 00:55:16,052 --> 00:55:17,852 where small, incremental differences 903 00:55:17,985 --> 00:55:20,367 decide who wins and who loses 904 00:55:20,505 --> 00:55:23,370 particular games, series, seasons. 905 00:55:23,508 --> 00:55:26,856 In baseball, you know going to the ball park 906 00:55:26,994 --> 00:55:29,376 that you may win or lose. 907 00:55:29,514 --> 00:55:31,378 There's no certainty, no given. 908 00:55:31,516 --> 00:55:35,382 You know when a season starts that the best team 909 00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,385 will get beaten a third of the time, 910 00:55:38,523 --> 00:55:42,389 the worst team will win a third of the time. 911 00:55:42,527 --> 00:55:45,910 The argument over 162 games... That middle third. 912 00:55:46,048 --> 00:55:49,879 So it's a game you can't like if winning's everything, 913 00:55:50,017 --> 00:55:51,847 and democracy's that way, too. 914 00:56:04,031 --> 00:56:05,412 "Dear sir, 915 00:56:05,550 --> 00:56:09,416 "I don't give a damn to be in the big leagues 916 00:56:09,554 --> 00:56:12,419 "unless I get something for my work. 917 00:56:12,557 --> 00:56:14,732 "I'll pick shit with the chickens 918 00:56:14,870 --> 00:56:16,699 before I play for less." 919 00:56:18,391 --> 00:56:21,896 After Cleveland's great pitcher Addie Joss died, 920 00:56:21,980 --> 00:56:24,865 his fellow ballplayers staged a benefit game 921 00:56:24,949 --> 00:56:26,384 to aid his widow. 922 00:56:26,468 --> 00:56:29,387 All the great stars came... 923 00:56:29,471 --> 00:56:32,390 Walter Johnson, Smoky Joe Wood, 924 00:56:32,474 --> 00:56:35,393 Napoleon Lajoie, and Ty Cobb. 925 00:56:35,477 --> 00:56:39,397 The game was a great success. 926 00:56:39,481 --> 00:56:42,400 They managed to raise $12,931. 927 00:56:42,484 --> 00:56:46,921 But it only increased the players' anxieties. 928 00:56:47,005 --> 00:56:50,408 With no pensions of their own or job security 929 00:56:50,492 --> 00:56:53,411 or grievance procedure with the owners, 930 00:56:53,495 --> 00:56:55,930 they felt powerless. 931 00:56:56,014 --> 00:56:58,899 They now formed a players' fraternity. 932 00:56:58,983 --> 00:57:00,935 It had two goals... 933 00:57:01,019 --> 00:57:03,938 To rid baseball of the hated reserve clause 934 00:57:04,022 --> 00:57:07,425 and to gain a larger share of the profits 935 00:57:07,509 --> 00:57:10,428 for the men who made those profits possible. 936 00:57:10,512 --> 00:57:12,947 At first, they got nowhere. 937 00:57:13,031 --> 00:57:16,138 The owners simply ignored them. 938 00:57:16,276 --> 00:57:18,278 Then, in 1914, 939 00:57:18,416 --> 00:57:20,867 a band of rich businessmen 940 00:57:20,970 --> 00:57:23,835 hoping to get in on the baseball action 941 00:57:23,939 --> 00:57:25,354 formed their own league... 942 00:57:25,458 --> 00:57:27,598 The Federal League. 943 00:57:29,185 --> 00:57:32,070 They began offering big money to big stars 944 00:57:32,154 --> 00:57:35,453 willing to sign up with their teams. 945 00:57:35,537 --> 00:57:37,455 They even gave the players 946 00:57:37,539 --> 00:57:40,507 the right to become free agents. 947 00:57:40,645 --> 00:57:43,510 81 players were lured to the new league, 948 00:57:43,648 --> 00:57:45,892 including Three Finger Brown, 949 00:57:45,995 --> 00:57:49,171 Joe Tinker, and Chief Bender. 950 00:57:49,309 --> 00:57:52,657 Old ball parks were renovated and new ones built, 951 00:57:52,795 --> 00:57:55,142 including one on Chicago's North Side 952 00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:59,008 that would one day be called Wrigley Field. 953 00:57:59,146 --> 00:58:02,495 For a time, the Federal League was a success, 954 00:58:02,633 --> 00:58:04,497 with teams in eight cities, 955 00:58:04,635 --> 00:58:08,397 including Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, St. Louis, 956 00:58:08,501 --> 00:58:10,365 and Kansas City. 957 00:58:10,503 --> 00:58:11,883 [CRACK] 958 00:58:11,987 --> 00:58:13,989 [CROWD CHEERING] 959 00:58:16,992 --> 00:58:18,289 But the upstart league 960 00:58:18,373 --> 00:58:21,341 was a direct challenge to Ban Johnson, 961 00:58:21,479 --> 00:58:22,914 who resented the interlopers, 962 00:58:22,998 --> 00:58:25,863 just as National League owners had resented him 963 00:58:26,001 --> 00:58:29,556 when he launched the American League in 1901. 964 00:58:29,694 --> 00:58:32,041 Johnson denounced the competition as pirates 965 00:58:32,179 --> 00:58:33,560 and threatened to blacklist 966 00:58:33,698 --> 00:58:37,204 any players who jumped to the new league, 967 00:58:37,288 --> 00:58:40,207 but to stem the flood of deserting players, 968 00:58:40,291 --> 00:58:43,210 he and his owners also raised the salaries 969 00:58:43,294 --> 00:58:46,213 of remaining stars and pledged to do better 970 00:58:46,297 --> 00:58:49,354 even by average players in the future. 971 00:58:49,438 --> 00:58:56,203 Tris Speaker's salary rose from $9,000 to $18,000 a season. 972 00:58:59,517 --> 00:59:01,899 The Federal League owners fought back, 973 00:59:02,037 --> 00:59:05,903 charging that the major leagues constituted a monopoly, 974 00:59:06,041 --> 00:59:09,872 and they sued organized baseball in federal court 975 00:59:10,010 --> 00:59:12,496 in Chicago in 1915. 976 00:59:16,051 --> 00:59:20,351 The presiding judge was said to be death on trusts, 977 00:59:20,435 --> 00:59:24,093 but he was also a baseball fan. 978 00:59:24,231 --> 00:59:28,876 He refused to rule quickly, and the months dragged on. 979 00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:30,878 Finally, Federal League owners, 980 00:59:30,962 --> 00:59:34,848 increasingly strapped for cash after two shaky seasons, 981 00:59:34,932 --> 00:59:36,451 gave up. 982 00:59:38,453 --> 00:59:40,888 The new league collapsed... 983 00:59:40,972 --> 00:59:44,892 So did Ban Johnson's promises of better pay. 984 00:59:44,976 --> 00:59:47,895 Tris Speaker's salary was cut in half. 985 00:59:47,979 --> 00:59:52,900 The players were as powerless as they had been before, 986 00:59:52,984 --> 00:59:57,472 and still the federal judge had not ruled. 987 00:59:58,956 --> 01:00:00,391 "Do you realize 988 01:00:00,475 --> 01:00:02,910 "that a decision in this case 989 01:00:02,994 --> 01:00:07,398 "may tear down the very foundations of this game 990 01:00:07,482 --> 01:00:09,400 "so loved by thousands? 991 01:00:09,484 --> 01:00:12,403 "Any blows at the thing called baseball 992 01:00:12,487 --> 01:00:15,923 "would be regarded by this court 993 01:00:16,007 --> 01:00:19,839 as a blow to a national institution." 994 01:00:19,977 --> 01:00:22,600 Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. 995 01:00:26,984 --> 01:00:28,848 "They have work to do, 996 01:00:28,986 --> 01:00:31,851 "and they should be sleeping or eating. 997 01:00:31,989 --> 01:00:33,853 "They'd rather do without sleep 998 01:00:33,991 --> 01:00:36,856 "or without a square meal deliberately eaten 999 01:00:36,994 --> 01:00:39,859 "than miss a minute of a ball game, 1000 01:00:39,997 --> 01:00:42,862 "even if they go on their night turn 1001 01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:44,864 "in the mill or factory 1002 01:00:45,002 --> 01:00:47,383 minus the rest that should be theirs." 1003 01:00:49,006 --> 01:00:50,870 DONALD HALL: Baseball has been 1004 01:00:51,008 --> 01:00:52,388 a passion of immigrants 1005 01:00:52,527 --> 01:00:55,875 because it is a way into the United States. 1006 01:00:56,013 --> 01:00:58,360 It's a citizenship perhaps more authentic 1007 01:00:58,498 --> 01:01:01,175 than anything on a piece of paper. 1008 01:01:01,259 --> 01:01:03,661 Sometimes it was the youngster's rebellion 1009 01:01:03,745 --> 01:01:05,179 against his father, 1010 01:01:05,263 --> 01:01:07,147 becoming less polish, more American 1011 01:01:07,231 --> 01:01:09,183 by taking up a baseball. 1012 01:01:09,267 --> 01:01:11,546 It became an enormously important part 1013 01:01:11,684 --> 01:01:13,340 of the American identity. 1014 01:01:21,038 --> 01:01:22,902 Companies of every kind 1015 01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:26,422 promoted baseball for their workers. 1016 01:01:26,561 --> 01:01:28,908 Management believed it encouraged teamwork, 1017 01:01:29,046 --> 01:01:32,428 provided a healthy way to fill spare time 1018 01:01:32,567 --> 01:01:35,915 that might otherwise be devoted to labor agitation, 1019 01:01:36,053 --> 01:01:41,023 and taught immigrant workers how to be "real Americans." 1020 01:01:42,749 --> 01:01:45,150 Nearly every industry had a league... 1021 01:01:45,234 --> 01:01:47,547 Railroads, steel, 1022 01:01:47,685 --> 01:01:50,673 electricity, coal and iron, 1023 01:01:50,757 --> 01:01:54,553 textiles, meat packing, automobiles... 1024 01:01:54,691 --> 01:01:56,072 And thousands of workers 1025 01:01:56,210 --> 01:02:01,077 came out for factory games on the weekends. 1026 01:02:35,007 --> 01:02:38,444 On September 20, 1914, 1027 01:02:38,528 --> 01:02:43,932 more than 100,000 people filled Cleveland's Brookside Stadium 1028 01:02:44,016 --> 01:02:49,159 to see the Telling Strollers beat the Hanna Cleaners 8-3. 1029 01:02:55,027 --> 01:02:57,463 SHELBY FOOTE: The ones I remember 1030 01:02:57,547 --> 01:02:59,430 are the Greenville, Mississippi, Buckshots, 1031 01:02:59,514 --> 01:03:00,949 who were semi-pro, 1032 01:03:01,033 --> 01:03:03,952 I guess they were called in those days. 1033 01:03:04,036 --> 01:03:05,436 Maybe they still are. 1034 01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:07,473 They had jobs around town. 1035 01:03:07,557 --> 01:03:10,664 The main thing they did was play baseball. 1036 01:03:10,802 --> 01:03:13,149 They were a tobacco-chewing crowd, 1037 01:03:13,287 --> 01:03:14,668 and men were fearful 1038 01:03:14,806 --> 01:03:18,533 that their daughters might go out with one of them, 1039 01:03:18,637 --> 01:03:20,141 that kind of thing. 1040 01:03:20,225 --> 01:03:21,625 They were wonderful people. 1041 01:03:21,709 --> 01:03:24,628 They hung around the pool hall a lot 1042 01:03:24,712 --> 01:03:27,631 when they weren't working or playing baseball, 1043 01:03:27,715 --> 01:03:31,117 and they were all looking forward to a career. 1044 01:03:31,201 --> 01:03:32,636 I remember a pitcher... 1045 01:03:32,720 --> 01:03:36,122 The reason I remember is his name was Mahady. 1046 01:03:36,206 --> 01:03:38,159 He went with my aunt. 1047 01:03:38,243 --> 01:03:41,162 He gave me a baseball uniform of his. 1048 01:03:41,246 --> 01:03:43,317 That was a great treat. 1049 01:03:46,009 --> 01:03:48,425 Women workers demanded to play, too, 1050 01:03:48,529 --> 01:03:51,428 and soon the Goodyear Girls, the Westinghouse Maids, 1051 01:03:51,532 --> 01:03:55,156 and the Miller Rubber Maids took the field. 1052 01:03:59,022 --> 01:04:01,404 "July 24, 1914... 1053 01:04:01,507 --> 01:04:03,924 "Miss Elizabeth Murphy, 1054 01:04:04,027 --> 01:04:05,926 "a young girl baseball player 1055 01:04:06,029 --> 01:04:07,410 "from East Warren, 1056 01:04:07,513 --> 01:04:09,412 "will accompany the local team 1057 01:04:09,515 --> 01:04:10,931 "to Rocky Point Sunday, 1058 01:04:11,034 --> 01:04:13,416 "where she'll be given another opportunity 1059 01:04:13,519 --> 01:04:15,418 "to appear in the game 1060 01:04:15,521 --> 01:04:17,282 "between the Warren Shoe Company 1061 01:04:17,385 --> 01:04:19,165 "and the American Enamel Works. 1062 01:04:19,249 --> 01:04:22,168 "Miss Murphy played with the local nine 1063 01:04:22,252 --> 01:04:24,654 "on the Child Street Grounds Sunday 1064 01:04:24,738 --> 01:04:27,173 "and held down the first sack 1065 01:04:27,257 --> 01:04:28,658 in an excellent manner." 1066 01:04:28,742 --> 01:04:30,433 Warren and Barrington Gazette. 1067 01:04:30,571 --> 01:04:35,265 At progressive Sing Sing Prison on the Hudson River, 1068 01:04:35,403 --> 01:04:37,751 convicts played and beat visiting teams 1069 01:04:37,889 --> 01:04:42,376 made up of electrical workers, insurance salesmen, 1070 01:04:42,514 --> 01:04:44,881 and stock exchange clerks. 1071 01:04:44,965 --> 01:04:47,884 "I want to go back to Sing Sing," 1072 01:04:47,968 --> 01:04:49,402 one ex-con remembered. 1073 01:04:49,486 --> 01:04:51,888 "Down here, I'm just a bum, 1074 01:04:51,972 --> 01:04:55,527 but up there, I was on the ball team." 1075 01:05:00,152 --> 01:05:04,555 George Stallings was the manager of the Miracle Braves of 1914, 1076 01:05:04,639 --> 01:05:07,593 who went from last place on July 4th 1077 01:05:07,677 --> 01:05:11,079 to winning the pennant and eventually the World Series 1078 01:05:11,163 --> 01:05:13,081 against the highly favored Athletics. 1079 01:05:13,165 --> 01:05:15,961 When he was dying, so the story goes, 1080 01:05:16,790 --> 01:05:19,053 one of the soon-to-be mourners said, 1081 01:05:19,137 --> 01:05:21,400 "George, what's killing you?" 1082 01:05:21,484 --> 01:05:25,937 Stallings replied, "Bases on balls." 1083 01:05:39,985 --> 01:05:42,421 "He never complained, never alibied. 1084 01:05:42,505 --> 01:05:45,424 "He was never known to criticize a teammate 1085 01:05:45,508 --> 01:05:49,428 "or call an opposing ballplayer lucky. 1086 01:05:49,512 --> 01:05:52,914 "He accepted his great success modestly 1087 01:05:52,998 --> 01:05:55,917 "and the many vicissitudes of his life 1088 01:05:56,001 --> 01:05:57,919 "in silence. 1089 01:05:58,003 --> 01:06:02,441 He was easy to like and hard to know." 1090 01:06:02,525 --> 01:06:05,839 New York World Telegram. 1091 01:06:05,977 --> 01:06:08,412 NARRATOR: If Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson 1092 01:06:08,496 --> 01:06:12,362 had a challenger for the title of best pitcher in baseball, 1093 01:06:12,500 --> 01:06:15,937 it was a troubled young right-hander 1094 01:06:16,021 --> 01:06:18,368 named Grover Cleveland Alexander. 1095 01:06:26,998 --> 01:06:28,378 A Nebraska farm boy, 1096 01:06:28,516 --> 01:06:31,865 the son and grandson of alcoholics, 1097 01:06:32,003 --> 01:06:34,384 and one of 13 children, 1098 01:06:34,522 --> 01:06:36,870 he had honed his startling accuracy 1099 01:06:37,008 --> 01:06:41,219 by hurling rocks to kill birds to help feed his family. 1100 01:06:41,357 --> 01:06:44,222 He was a minor league star at 22 1101 01:06:44,360 --> 01:06:47,225 when a shortstop's throw to first 1102 01:06:47,363 --> 01:06:49,710 hit him squarely between the eyes. 1103 01:06:49,848 --> 01:06:52,230 He was unconscious for two days, 1104 01:06:52,368 --> 01:06:54,232 then stricken with double vision. 1105 01:06:54,370 --> 01:06:55,716 He kept throwing anyway. 1106 01:06:55,854 --> 01:06:57,718 He was afraid, he remembered, 1107 01:06:57,856 --> 01:07:01,722 that if he did not, he would "go to pieces," 1108 01:07:01,860 --> 01:07:04,242 and after months of relentless work, 1109 01:07:04,380 --> 01:07:05,780 his vision suddenly cleared, 1110 01:07:05,899 --> 01:07:08,729 though he remained subject to epileptic seizures 1111 01:07:08,867 --> 01:07:11,249 for the rest of his life. 1112 01:07:11,387 --> 01:07:15,425 Alexander stormed into the majors in 1911, 1113 01:07:15,563 --> 01:07:19,380 striking out 227 men for the Philadelphia Phillies 1114 01:07:19,464 --> 01:07:22,881 in his very first season. 1115 01:07:23,019 --> 01:07:27,886 He would win 30 or more games 3 seasons in a row. 1116 01:07:28,024 --> 01:07:30,889 He pitched four one-hitters in 1915 1117 01:07:31,027 --> 01:07:34,878 and 90 shutouts during his long career. 1118 01:07:34,962 --> 01:07:37,916 He was utterly businesslike on the mound, 1119 01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:42,506 throwing an arsenal of pitches with pinpoint accuracy. 1120 01:07:42,590 --> 01:07:44,025 "Game after game, 1121 01:07:44,109 --> 01:07:47,028 he'd pitch in an hour and a half," 1122 01:07:47,112 --> 01:07:48,512 a teammate recalled. 1123 01:07:48,596 --> 01:07:50,031 "No fussing around. 1124 01:07:50,115 --> 01:07:52,896 No stalling. No wasted motion." 1125 01:07:52,980 --> 01:07:57,418 Even the men he struck out so consistently liked him. 1126 01:07:57,502 --> 01:08:00,421 Between games, he was modest, good-humored, 1127 01:08:00,505 --> 01:08:02,906 and kept mostly to himself, 1128 01:08:02,990 --> 01:08:06,131 but then he began to drink. 1129 01:08:11,619 --> 01:08:16,920 The greatest competitions, I think, in sports 1130 01:08:17,004 --> 01:08:20,525 is the pitcher and the hitter. 1131 01:08:20,628 --> 01:08:23,528 Now, I'm going to hit this ball. 1132 01:08:23,631 --> 01:08:28,360 See, right now, I'm going to be better than you, 1133 01:08:28,464 --> 01:08:31,881 and this pitcher's saying the same thing... 1134 01:08:31,985 --> 01:08:37,369 I'm going to be better than you at this particular moment. 1135 01:08:37,473 --> 01:08:40,338 This is in a pressure situation, so... 1136 01:08:40,441 --> 01:08:41,856 You are competing, 1137 01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:43,858 and nobody can help you. 1138 01:08:43,962 --> 01:08:46,861 Nobody can block for you in this. 1139 01:08:46,965 --> 01:08:48,380 Uh-uh. No. 1140 01:08:48,484 --> 01:08:51,383 You got to do it on your own. 1141 01:08:51,487 --> 01:08:54,386 You're just standing there with that bat, 1142 01:08:54,490 --> 01:08:57,458 and he's standing there with that ball. 1143 01:09:02,498 --> 01:09:04,395 NARRATOR: On May 28th, 1916, 1144 01:09:04,499 --> 01:09:06,915 Jimmy Claxton pitched his first game 1145 01:09:07,019 --> 01:09:10,401 for the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. 1146 01:09:10,505 --> 01:09:11,885 A capable left-hander, 1147 01:09:11,989 --> 01:09:14,888 he had been introduced to the club's owner 1148 01:09:14,992 --> 01:09:17,407 by a part-Indian friend 1149 01:09:17,512 --> 01:09:20,342 as a fellow member of his Oklahoma tribe. 1150 01:09:20,480 --> 01:09:22,344 The Zee-Nut Candy Company 1151 01:09:22,482 --> 01:09:26,299 rushed out a baseball card with his portrait on it. 1152 01:09:26,383 --> 01:09:28,301 But just six days later, 1153 01:09:28,385 --> 01:09:31,871 he was fired after another friend let slip 1154 01:09:32,009 --> 01:09:36,840 that he had black as well as Indian ancestry. 1155 01:09:36,978 --> 01:09:39,361 Claxton was the first black man 1156 01:09:39,499 --> 01:09:43,365 to play organized white baseball in the 20th century 1157 01:09:43,503 --> 01:09:46,472 and the last for 30 years. 1158 01:09:55,514 --> 01:09:59,864 "Hitting alone will not win ball games. 1159 01:10:00,001 --> 01:10:02,384 "I want speed on my team, 1160 01:10:02,522 --> 01:10:05,870 "and I also want every man on the squad 1161 01:10:06,008 --> 01:10:08,513 "to know how to slide. 1162 01:10:08,597 --> 01:10:13,223 "I intend to have my players taught how to run. 1163 01:10:13,361 --> 01:10:16,121 "I don't say we will win any pennants. 1164 01:10:16,226 --> 01:10:17,951 "I think my systematic training 1165 01:10:18,090 --> 01:10:21,388 "will be laying the foundation of a pennant-winner. 1166 01:10:21,472 --> 01:10:24,046 "If this is theory, 1167 01:10:24,130 --> 01:10:27,961 it is blamed good practical theory." 1168 01:10:28,065 --> 01:10:29,362 Branch Rickey. 1169 01:10:29,446 --> 01:10:32,365 OKRENT: He was Leonardo in baseball. 1170 01:10:32,449 --> 01:10:33,849 He did everything. 1171 01:10:33,933 --> 01:10:36,368 He was artist, scientist, and genius 1172 01:10:36,452 --> 01:10:37,853 of a million kinds. 1173 01:10:37,937 --> 01:10:39,854 He invented the farm systems. 1174 01:10:39,938 --> 01:10:42,858 He devised ways of playing the game 1175 01:10:42,942 --> 01:10:44,377 and of training players 1176 01:10:44,461 --> 01:10:47,326 that had never before been considered. 1177 01:10:47,429 --> 01:10:48,829 NARRATOR: Branch Rickey graduated 1178 01:10:48,913 --> 01:10:50,348 from Ohio Wesleyan University, 1179 01:10:50,432 --> 01:10:53,332 struggled as a catcher for a few years 1180 01:10:53,435 --> 01:10:54,850 in the major leagues, 1181 01:10:54,954 --> 01:10:58,820 got a law degree but failed to drum up any clients, 1182 01:10:58,958 --> 01:11:00,787 and gratefully returned to baseball, 1183 01:11:00,925 --> 01:11:03,307 working for the St. Louis Browns, 1184 01:11:03,445 --> 01:11:06,310 one of the poorest teams in the majors. 1185 01:11:06,448 --> 01:11:09,313 He moved up quickly within the organization... 1186 01:11:09,451 --> 01:11:11,404 Scout, club secretary, 1187 01:11:11,488 --> 01:11:13,923 and in 1913, manager. 1188 01:11:14,007 --> 01:11:17,410 Rickey was a genius at making do with less. 1189 01:11:17,494 --> 01:11:20,413 He approached his job scientifically, 1190 01:11:20,497 --> 01:11:22,898 introducing unusual calisthenics, 1191 01:11:22,982 --> 01:11:27,159 batting cages, and sliding pits. 1192 01:11:27,297 --> 01:11:30,162 "No ballplayer can learn to steal bases 1193 01:11:30,300 --> 01:11:33,165 "by practicing sliding into pits. 1194 01:11:33,303 --> 01:11:35,738 "I wouldn't ask a veteran 1195 01:11:35,822 --> 01:11:37,775 "to slide into a pit. 1196 01:11:37,859 --> 01:11:40,743 I don't think much of this theory stuff." 1197 01:11:40,827 --> 01:11:42,726 Miller Huggins. 1198 01:11:42,829 --> 01:11:45,729 Rickey barred profanity and poker playing and liquor, 1199 01:11:45,832 --> 01:11:50,270 offered evening lectures on baseball theory... 1200 01:11:50,354 --> 01:11:51,789 Called skull sessions... 1201 01:11:51,873 --> 01:11:54,930 And, keeping a promise to his mother, 1202 01:11:55,014 --> 01:11:57,672 managed just six days a week, 1203 01:11:57,810 --> 01:12:01,054 leaving an assistant to take over on Sundays. 1204 01:12:01,158 --> 01:12:04,940 In 1919, the Browns' crosstown rivals, 1205 01:12:05,024 --> 01:12:06,976 the hapless St. Louis Cardinals, 1206 01:12:07,060 --> 01:12:10,463 offered him a still bigger job as general manager 1207 01:12:10,547 --> 01:12:12,465 at double the salary. 1208 01:12:12,549 --> 01:12:16,986 He would spend the next 23 years with the Cardinals 1209 01:12:17,070 --> 01:12:22,006 and in the process profoundly change the game of baseball. 1210 01:12:49,724 --> 01:12:53,989 In 1916, the Boston Red Sox, 1211 01:12:54,073 --> 01:12:55,508 playing in Braves Field 1212 01:12:55,592 --> 01:12:57,421 because Fenway Park couldn't hold 1213 01:12:57,559 --> 01:13:00,942 all the fans who wanted to see them, 1214 01:13:01,080 --> 01:13:03,945 took on Brooklyn in the World Series 1215 01:13:04,083 --> 01:13:06,948 and gave spectators and one overwrought sportswriter 1216 01:13:07,086 --> 01:13:10,538 something to talk about for years to come. 1217 01:13:13,575 --> 01:13:16,391 "October 8th, 1916 1218 01:13:16,475 --> 01:13:19,305 "the withered stalk of the baseball season 1219 01:13:19,409 --> 01:13:22,880 "burst with a crash into radiant bloom 1220 01:13:22,964 --> 01:13:24,399 "at Braves Field today 1221 01:13:24,483 --> 01:13:28,763 "with the opening of the World's Series. 1222 01:13:28,901 --> 01:13:30,405 "The Superbas, 1223 01:13:30,489 --> 01:13:33,408 "pride of Brooklyn and of the National League, 1224 01:13:33,492 --> 01:13:36,411 "and the carmine-hosed Boston warriors 1225 01:13:36,495 --> 01:13:40,415 "scrambled for the petals of the first blossom, 1226 01:13:40,499 --> 01:13:43,418 "and the entrants from New York 1227 01:13:43,502 --> 01:13:46,421 "started their scrambling a little late. 1228 01:13:46,505 --> 01:13:48,423 "They emerged from the struggle 1229 01:13:48,507 --> 01:13:51,993 on the short end of a 6-5 score." 1230 01:13:53,684 --> 01:13:56,431 "October 10th, 1916 1231 01:13:56,515 --> 01:13:58,433 "under lowering gray skies 1232 01:13:58,517 --> 01:14:01,436 "that finally yielded splashing tears of sympathy 1233 01:14:01,520 --> 01:14:05,405 "for a team mighty even in defeat, 1234 01:14:05,489 --> 01:14:07,890 "the Brooklyn Superbas went down today 1235 01:14:07,974 --> 01:14:09,927 "before the Boston Red Sox 1236 01:14:10,011 --> 01:14:14,360 "in the second encounter of the World's Series. 1237 01:14:14,464 --> 01:14:15,879 "14 innings were needed 1238 01:14:15,982 --> 01:14:18,763 "to establish a final score of 2-1, 1239 01:14:18,847 --> 01:14:21,816 "and they were 14 innings of such baseball 1240 01:14:21,954 --> 01:14:24,784 "as shuttles the heart of the genuine fan 1241 01:14:24,922 --> 01:14:26,303 "back and forth 1242 01:14:26,441 --> 01:14:29,341 "between his mouth and his heels, 1243 01:14:29,479 --> 01:14:31,826 "and every inning was a gem, 1244 01:14:31,964 --> 01:14:34,380 "clear-cut and flashing, 1245 01:14:34,484 --> 01:14:38,453 its colors now blue, now rosy." 1246 01:14:39,972 --> 01:14:41,387 "October 13, 1916 1247 01:14:41,491 --> 01:14:44,873 "the Red Sox celebrated Columbus Day 1248 01:14:44,977 --> 01:14:46,392 "in their hometown 1249 01:14:46,496 --> 01:14:49,395 "by wresting the world's championship banner free 1250 01:14:49,499 --> 01:14:51,399 "from the trembling, nerveless fingers 1251 01:14:51,501 --> 01:14:53,917 "of the Superbas 1252 01:14:54,020 --> 01:14:57,403 "and throwing it wide to the wind 1253 01:14:57,507 --> 01:14:59,405 "that swept Braves Field, 1254 01:14:59,509 --> 01:15:01,890 theirs for another year." 1255 01:15:01,994 --> 01:15:03,996 New York Times. 1256 01:15:14,731 --> 01:15:17,132 America's entry into World War I 1257 01:15:17,216 --> 01:15:20,081 was very near in the spring of 1917. 1258 01:15:20,219 --> 01:15:23,360 Millions had died on battlefields in Europe, 1259 01:15:23,498 --> 01:15:27,832 and Americans could no longer stand by. 1260 01:15:27,916 --> 01:15:30,367 Baseball was eager to show 1261 01:15:30,505 --> 01:15:33,405 that it was ready to do its part. 1262 01:15:33,543 --> 01:15:37,892 Ban Johnson ordered teams to learn close-order drill, 1263 01:15:38,030 --> 01:15:41,846 and the Washington Senators showed off their marching skill, 1264 01:15:41,930 --> 01:15:45,850 led by the athletic young assistant secretary of the Navy 1265 01:15:45,934 --> 01:15:49,213 Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 1266 01:15:49,351 --> 01:15:50,732 But baseball had become 1267 01:15:50,870 --> 01:15:53,217 one of the biggest entertainment industries 1268 01:15:53,355 --> 01:15:54,736 in the country, 1269 01:15:54,874 --> 01:15:57,739 and when war actually came in April, 1270 01:15:57,877 --> 01:16:01,571 the owners saw no reason to stop playing. 1271 01:16:03,055 --> 01:16:04,455 "With an astonishing disregard 1272 01:16:04,539 --> 01:16:07,404 "for the new proprieties and new decencies, 1273 01:16:07,542 --> 01:16:09,924 "the so-called magnates of baseball 1274 01:16:10,062 --> 01:16:11,926 "have proclaimed in both leagues 1275 01:16:12,064 --> 01:16:13,414 "their unswerving adherence 1276 01:16:13,547 --> 01:16:16,412 "to their wretched fallacy of business as usual. 1277 01:16:16,550 --> 01:16:18,276 "That policy is not calculated 1278 01:16:18,414 --> 01:16:20,884 "to make us proud of baseball 1279 01:16:20,968 --> 01:16:22,852 as an American institution." 1280 01:16:22,936 --> 01:16:24,455 New York Times. 1281 01:16:25,663 --> 01:16:27,581 The owners argued that baseball 1282 01:16:27,665 --> 01:16:30,584 should be declared an essential wartime industry 1283 01:16:30,668 --> 01:16:34,070 so that players would be exempt from the draft. 1284 01:16:34,154 --> 01:16:37,088 It didn't work. 1285 01:16:38,641 --> 01:16:39,903 Washington Star. 1286 01:16:39,987 --> 01:16:42,389 "July the 21st, 1918 1287 01:16:42,473 --> 01:16:44,908 "baseball received a knockout wallop yesterday 1288 01:16:44,992 --> 01:16:46,393 "when Secretary Baker ruled 1289 01:16:46,477 --> 01:16:49,396 "players in the draft age must obtain employment 1290 01:16:49,480 --> 01:16:51,398 "calculated to aid 1291 01:16:51,482 --> 01:16:54,918 "in the successful prosecution of the war 1292 01:16:55,002 --> 01:16:57,749 or shoulder guns and fight." 1293 01:16:57,833 --> 01:17:00,752 Fresh recruits drilled on the Elysian Fields 1294 01:17:00,836 --> 01:17:02,409 in Hoboken, New Jersey, 1295 01:17:02,493 --> 01:17:04,928 where Brooklyn and Manhattan teams 1296 01:17:05,012 --> 01:17:07,414 had developed the game of baseball 1297 01:17:07,498 --> 01:17:09,623 70 years before. 1298 01:17:09,707 --> 01:17:12,626 Some ballplayers found jobs in defense industries 1299 01:17:12,710 --> 01:17:14,938 where they were paid handsomely 1300 01:17:15,022 --> 01:17:17,424 to play on company teams. 1301 01:17:17,508 --> 01:17:20,821 Critics denounced them as slackers. 1302 01:17:20,959 --> 01:17:24,342 But 247 major leaguers did serve, 1303 01:17:24,480 --> 01:17:27,966 and three were killed in action. 1304 01:17:29,243 --> 01:17:32,039 Soldiers played ball in camps and on battleships, 1305 01:17:32,143 --> 01:17:34,835 on fields in Flanders, 1306 01:17:34,973 --> 01:17:39,633 and in hastily constructed ball parks throughout France. 1307 01:17:53,992 --> 01:17:55,994 [EXPLOSION] 1308 01:18:02,035 --> 01:18:03,381 Grover Cleveland Alexander 1309 01:18:03,519 --> 01:18:06,384 served in the trenches with an artillery unit 1310 01:18:06,522 --> 01:18:09,387 and emerged from the fighting shell-shocked, 1311 01:18:09,525 --> 01:18:11,182 his hearing damaged, 1312 01:18:11,320 --> 01:18:13,184 drinking more heavily than ever 1313 01:18:13,322 --> 01:18:16,670 to forget the horrors he had seen. 1314 01:18:18,051 --> 01:18:21,399 Though Branch Rickey was 36 and had 4 children, 1315 01:18:21,537 --> 01:18:23,401 he went to war, too, 1316 01:18:23,539 --> 01:18:26,438 became a major, and commanded a unit 1317 01:18:26,577 --> 01:18:30,270 that included captains Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson. 1318 01:18:30,408 --> 01:18:33,238 Cobb and Mathewson did not get to France 1319 01:18:33,376 --> 01:18:35,240 until after the shooting stopped, 1320 01:18:35,378 --> 01:18:36,759 but during a drill, 1321 01:18:36,897 --> 01:18:39,885 Mathewson was exposed to poison gas 1322 01:18:39,969 --> 01:18:43,026 that fatally seared his lungs. 1323 01:18:43,110 --> 01:18:46,029 He would live for seven more years, 1324 01:18:46,113 --> 01:18:49,600 but his great career was over. 1325 01:18:58,988 --> 01:19:02,908 "September 6, 1919 1326 01:19:02,992 --> 01:19:04,910 "far different from any incident 1327 01:19:04,994 --> 01:19:06,394 "that has ever occurred 1328 01:19:06,478 --> 01:19:08,396 "in the history of baseball 1329 01:19:08,480 --> 01:19:09,915 "was the great moment 1330 01:19:09,999 --> 01:19:12,400 "of the first World Series game 1331 01:19:12,484 --> 01:19:13,919 "between the Chicago Cubs 1332 01:19:14,003 --> 01:19:15,921 "and the Boston Red Sox, 1333 01:19:16,005 --> 01:19:17,766 "which came at Comiskey Park 1334 01:19:17,904 --> 01:19:19,837 "this afternoon 1335 01:19:19,940 --> 01:19:21,908 during the seventh-inning stretch." 1336 01:19:23,426 --> 01:19:25,843 "As the crowd of 19,274 spectators 1337 01:19:25,946 --> 01:19:29,363 "stood up to take the afternoon yawn, 1338 01:19:29,467 --> 01:19:33,333 "the band broke forth to the strains of 1339 01:19:33,436 --> 01:19:36,301 the Star-Spangled Banner." 1340 01:19:38,959 --> 01:19:40,374 "The yawn was checked 1341 01:19:40,478 --> 01:19:43,861 "as the ballplayers turned quickly about 1342 01:19:43,964 --> 01:19:46,933 and faced the music." 1343 01:19:48,451 --> 01:19:51,869 "First the song was taken up by a few, 1344 01:19:51,972 --> 01:19:53,456 then others joined..." 1345 01:19:54,872 --> 01:19:57,273 "And when the final notes came, 1346 01:19:57,357 --> 01:19:59,275 "a great volume of melody 1347 01:19:59,359 --> 01:20:01,879 "rolled across the field. 1348 01:20:01,982 --> 01:20:04,364 "It was at the very end 1349 01:20:04,467 --> 01:20:06,400 "that the onlookers 1350 01:20:06,504 --> 01:20:08,886 "exploded into thunderous applause 1351 01:20:08,989 --> 01:20:12,890 "and rent the air with a cheer 1352 01:20:12,993 --> 01:20:14,892 "that marked the highest point 1353 01:20:14,995 --> 01:20:16,982 of today's enthusiasm." 1354 01:20:17,066 --> 01:20:19,655 New York Times. 1355 01:20:36,983 --> 01:20:40,331 The wartime crowd sang so enthusiastically 1356 01:20:40,469 --> 01:20:42,333 that the performance was repeated 1357 01:20:42,471 --> 01:20:44,956 at every game of the series. 1358 01:20:46,475 --> 01:20:47,856 From then on, 1359 01:20:47,994 --> 01:20:51,860 the song was an integral part of the national pastime, 1360 01:20:51,998 --> 01:20:55,346 though it did not become the official national anthem 1361 01:20:55,484 --> 01:20:56,968 until 1931. 1362 01:20:59,350 --> 01:21:02,698 The Red Sox won the World Series that year, 1363 01:21:02,836 --> 01:21:07,565 beating the Chicago Cubs four games to two. 1364 01:21:07,703 --> 01:21:12,052 One of the series' stars was the young pitcher Babe Ruth, 1365 01:21:12,190 --> 01:21:14,537 who had won both his starts, 1366 01:21:14,675 --> 01:21:18,093 including a masterful 1-0 shutout. 1367 01:21:18,231 --> 01:21:20,578 It was Boston's fourth world championship 1368 01:21:20,716 --> 01:21:22,891 in the decade. 1369 01:21:23,029 --> 01:21:26,515 They have never won another. 1370 01:21:48,054 --> 01:21:50,401 "Who is he anyhow, an actor? 1371 01:21:50,539 --> 01:21:51,920 "No. 1372 01:21:52,058 --> 01:21:53,404 "A dentist? 1373 01:21:53,542 --> 01:21:55,924 "No. He's a gambler. 1374 01:21:56,062 --> 01:21:58,409 "Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly, 1375 01:21:58,547 --> 01:21:59,928 "he's the man 1376 01:22:00,066 --> 01:22:03,448 "who fixed the World Series "back in 1919. 1377 01:22:03,586 --> 01:22:06,417 "Fixed the World Series? I repeated. 1378 01:22:06,555 --> 01:22:08,419 "The idea staggered me. 1379 01:22:08,557 --> 01:22:10,421 "It never occurred to me 1380 01:22:10,559 --> 01:22:13,458 "that one man could start to play 1381 01:22:13,596 --> 01:22:16,427 "with the faith of 50 million people 1382 01:22:16,565 --> 01:22:17,896 "with the single-mindedness 1383 01:22:17,980 --> 01:22:20,416 "of a burglar blowing a safe. 1384 01:22:20,500 --> 01:22:23,384 "How did he happen to do that? 1385 01:22:23,468 --> 01:22:25,421 "I asked after a minute. 1386 01:22:25,505 --> 01:22:27,388 "He just saw the opportunity. 1387 01:22:27,472 --> 01:22:29,425 "Why isn't he in jail? 1388 01:22:29,509 --> 01:22:32,428 They can't get him. He's a smart man." 1389 01:22:32,512 --> 01:22:35,929 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. 1390 01:22:39,001 --> 01:22:43,439 In 1919, no team played better than the Chicago White Sox, 1391 01:22:43,523 --> 01:22:45,924 pennant winners in the American League, 1392 01:22:46,008 --> 01:22:49,410 and few teams were paid as poorly 1393 01:22:49,494 --> 01:22:52,532 or got along as badly. 1394 01:22:52,670 --> 01:22:54,553 Players deliberately crossed each other 1395 01:22:54,637 --> 01:22:56,018 on the field. 1396 01:22:56,156 --> 01:22:57,537 During infield practice, 1397 01:22:57,675 --> 01:23:01,541 no one threw the ball to second baseman Eddie Collins, 1398 01:23:01,679 --> 01:23:04,978 Chicago's highest-paid player, all season long. 1399 01:23:05,062 --> 01:23:06,496 Teammate Chick Gandil 1400 01:23:06,580 --> 01:23:10,466 had not spoken to Collins since 1915. 1401 01:23:10,550 --> 01:23:13,434 "I thought you couldn't win without teamwork," 1402 01:23:13,518 --> 01:23:14,953 Collins said later, 1403 01:23:15,037 --> 01:23:17,473 "until I joined the White Sox. 1404 01:23:17,557 --> 01:23:20,836 We won 100 games and the pennant that year." 1405 01:23:20,974 --> 01:23:23,355 The White Sox were heavy favorites 1406 01:23:23,493 --> 01:23:27,221 to beat the better-paid but far-weaker Cincinnati Reds 1407 01:23:27,359 --> 01:23:28,705 in the World Series. 1408 01:23:28,843 --> 01:23:31,881 The Chicago owner was "The Old Roman," 1409 01:23:32,019 --> 01:23:35,401 Charles A. Comiskey, himself a former player, 1410 01:23:35,539 --> 01:23:39,509 but now among the game's most parsimonious executives. 1411 01:23:41,028 --> 01:23:45,032 They were abused horribly by Charles Comiskey, 1412 01:23:45,170 --> 01:23:49,381 who was a man of a small mind, a tight fist, 1413 01:23:49,519 --> 01:23:51,901 and a nasty temperament. 1414 01:23:52,039 --> 01:23:55,993 The climate was too good for it not to happen. 1415 01:23:56,077 --> 01:23:59,909 It was a kind of have-and-have-not thing. 1416 01:24:00,047 --> 01:24:01,945 The baseball players were expendable. 1417 01:24:02,083 --> 01:24:06,432 If you got hurt, you were gone. There was no pension, 1418 01:24:06,570 --> 01:24:09,919 and they saw people making money hand over fist. 1419 01:24:10,057 --> 01:24:11,921 The owners... in Comiskey's case, 1420 01:24:12,059 --> 01:24:13,923 he owned the ball park. 1421 01:24:14,061 --> 01:24:16,408 He bottled soda in the basement. 1422 01:24:16,546 --> 01:24:18,306 He was making a nickel 1423 01:24:18,410 --> 01:24:21,398 on everything that moved in that ball park. 1424 01:24:21,482 --> 01:24:24,884 There they were... they were nicknamed the Black Sox 1425 01:24:24,968 --> 01:24:27,922 even before they threw the World Series 1426 01:24:28,006 --> 01:24:31,408 because he started charging them for laundering their uniforms. 1427 01:24:31,492 --> 01:24:33,893 They said, "We won't launder them." 1428 01:24:33,977 --> 01:24:35,930 They got dirtier and dirtier 1429 01:24:36,014 --> 01:24:38,933 until the sportswriters called them the Black Sox. 1430 01:24:39,017 --> 01:24:41,901 Then Comiskey said, "OK, I'll launder your uniforms," 1431 01:24:41,985 --> 01:24:44,815 then took it from their World Series bonus. 1432 01:24:46,507 --> 01:24:47,942 NARRATOR: Comiskey's first baseman, 1433 01:24:48,026 --> 01:24:51,911 Chick Gandil, a former hobo and one-time club-fighter, 1434 01:24:51,995 --> 01:24:53,430 was tired of it. 1435 01:24:53,514 --> 01:24:56,433 He was nearing the end of his career 1436 01:24:56,517 --> 01:24:59,919 and wanted one shot at some really big money. 1437 01:25:00,003 --> 01:25:03,440 For the right money, Gandil let it be known, 1438 01:25:03,524 --> 01:25:06,443 he would talk some of his teammates 1439 01:25:06,527 --> 01:25:08,238 into throwing the series. 1440 01:25:08,322 --> 01:25:12,414 There was nothing new in working closely with gamblers 1441 01:25:12,498 --> 01:25:13,933 to throw games. 1442 01:25:14,017 --> 01:25:16,936 Many players supplemented their incomes that way. 1443 01:25:17,020 --> 01:25:18,780 The brilliant infielder Hal Chase 1444 01:25:18,918 --> 01:25:22,459 had made something of a career of it, 1445 01:25:22,543 --> 01:25:27,858 but throwing the World Series was something else again. 1446 01:25:27,962 --> 01:25:30,378 Still, Gandil was determined, 1447 01:25:30,482 --> 01:25:33,381 and now the right money was found. 1448 01:25:33,485 --> 01:25:35,383 An ex-boxer, Abe Attell, 1449 01:25:35,487 --> 01:25:39,870 and Sleepy Bill Burns, a one-time White Sox pitcher 1450 01:25:39,974 --> 01:25:41,872 served as go-betweens. 1451 01:25:42,011 --> 01:25:45,876 But behind it all was New York's most notorious gambler, 1452 01:25:45,980 --> 01:25:48,879 Arnold Rothstein, who was said to be willing 1453 01:25:48,983 --> 01:25:51,882 to bet on anything except the weather 1454 01:25:51,986 --> 01:25:55,403 because there was no way he could fix that. 1455 01:25:55,507 --> 01:25:59,407 SAYLES: Rothstein was basically a guy who never gambled. 1456 01:25:59,511 --> 01:26:02,410 He's known as a gambler and never gambled, 1457 01:26:02,514 --> 01:26:04,861 which is why he got wealthy. 1458 01:26:04,999 --> 01:26:09,417 He only put money on things he knew were sure things 1459 01:26:09,521 --> 01:26:12,420 or that he had covered so well 1460 01:26:12,524 --> 01:26:15,423 that there was no way he couldn't profit. 1461 01:26:15,527 --> 01:26:18,308 I don't think he really cared about sports. 1462 01:26:18,392 --> 01:26:21,360 He felt like, "These guys are schmucks." 1463 01:26:21,498 --> 01:26:24,363 "I'll still be making money off this game 1464 01:26:24,501 --> 01:26:26,227 when they're old men." 1465 01:26:28,505 --> 01:26:31,370 "The proposition to throw the World Series 1466 01:26:31,508 --> 01:26:34,373 "was brought to me in New York City 1467 01:26:34,511 --> 01:26:37,066 "in front of the Ansonia Hotel. 1468 01:26:37,204 --> 01:26:38,584 "Chick Gandil came 1469 01:26:38,722 --> 01:26:41,035 "and said he wanted a conference. 1470 01:26:41,173 --> 01:26:44,038 "He asked if anybody had approached me 1471 01:26:44,176 --> 01:26:46,903 "about fixing the 1919 World Series. 1472 01:26:47,041 --> 01:26:49,043 "I told him, not yet. 1473 01:26:49,181 --> 01:26:52,046 "He asked me, if it was fixed, 1474 01:26:52,184 --> 01:26:55,084 "would I be willing to get in. 1475 01:26:55,222 --> 01:26:59,881 I told him I would refuse to answer right then." 1476 01:27:00,019 --> 01:27:02,021 Lefty Williams. 1477 01:27:05,024 --> 01:27:07,889 NARRATOR: Gandil recruited six teammates... 1478 01:27:08,027 --> 01:27:10,927 Pitcher Claude "Lefty" Williams, 1479 01:27:11,065 --> 01:27:15,449 outfielder Oscar "Happy" Felsch, 1480 01:27:15,587 --> 01:27:18,762 third baseman Buck Weaver, 1481 01:27:18,900 --> 01:27:23,112 shortstop Swede Risberg, 1482 01:27:23,250 --> 01:27:27,461 right-handed pitcher Eddie Cicotte, 1483 01:27:27,599 --> 01:27:32,865 and the idol of schoolboys all over the Midwest... 1484 01:27:32,949 --> 01:27:35,952 Joseph Jefferson Jackson. 1485 01:27:38,472 --> 01:27:42,909 "In two years, he had risen from a poor mill boy 1486 01:27:42,993 --> 01:27:46,913 "to the rank of a player in the major leagues. 1487 01:27:46,997 --> 01:27:50,917 "The ignorant mill boy had become the hero of millions. 1488 01:27:51,001 --> 01:27:54,404 "Out on the hot prairies, teams of Joe Jacksons 1489 01:27:54,488 --> 01:27:57,890 "battled desperately with the Ty Cobbs. 1490 01:27:57,974 --> 01:27:59,926 "There came a day 1491 01:28:00,010 --> 01:28:03,413 "when a crook spread money before this ignorant idol, 1492 01:28:03,497 --> 01:28:04,897 "and he fell. 1493 01:28:04,981 --> 01:28:09,419 For a few dollars, he sold his honor." 1494 01:28:09,503 --> 01:28:11,470 New York World. 1495 01:28:14,197 --> 01:28:16,199 A South Carolina country boy, 1496 01:28:16,303 --> 01:28:20,030 he had learned how to bat from a Confederate veteran 1497 01:28:20,169 --> 01:28:22,826 who had learned his baseball from Union soldiers 1498 01:28:22,964 --> 01:28:24,863 in a Northern prison camp. 1499 01:28:25,001 --> 01:28:29,178 He had hoped to pitch, until he broke a batter's arm 1500 01:28:29,316 --> 01:28:30,662 with a wild pitch. 1501 01:28:30,800 --> 01:28:33,872 Jackson could neither read nor write, 1502 01:28:34,010 --> 01:28:39,878 but he could hit... .408 in his rookie year, 1503 01:28:40,016 --> 01:28:42,881 .356 lifetime, the third highest average in history. 1504 01:28:43,019 --> 01:28:45,884 His home runs were called Saturday Specials 1505 01:28:46,022 --> 01:28:48,887 because most of the textile workers' games 1506 01:28:49,025 --> 01:28:52,994 where he got his start were played on Saturdays. 1507 01:28:54,341 --> 01:28:58,862 He hit them with a special 48-ounce bat, Black Betsy, 1508 01:28:59,000 --> 01:29:01,900 made for him by a local lumberman 1509 01:29:02,038 --> 01:29:04,819 from the north side of a hickory tree 1510 01:29:04,903 --> 01:29:08,182 and darkened with coats of Jackson's tobacco juice. 1511 01:29:08,320 --> 01:29:10,909 Ty Cobb himself thought Joe Jackson 1512 01:29:11,047 --> 01:29:14,173 "the greatest natural hitter I ever saw." 1513 01:29:14,257 --> 01:29:17,866 "Blindfold me," another player remembered half a century later, 1514 01:29:17,950 --> 01:29:22,181 "and I could tell you when Joe Jackson hit the ball. 1515 01:29:22,265 --> 01:29:24,149 It had a special crack." 1516 01:29:24,233 --> 01:29:26,358 He was called Shoeless Joe 1517 01:29:26,442 --> 01:29:31,363 because he was said once to have been spotted in the minors 1518 01:29:31,447 --> 01:29:35,416 playing in his socks when new shoes proved too tight. 1519 01:29:37,694 --> 01:29:40,372 When Fred McMullin, Chicago's reserve infielder, 1520 01:29:40,456 --> 01:29:43,375 got wind of what was happening, 1521 01:29:43,459 --> 01:29:48,518 he demanded that Chick Gandil let him in on the fix. 1522 01:29:48,602 --> 01:29:52,384 Now eight White Sox were involved, 1523 01:29:52,468 --> 01:29:54,903 though Buck Weaver would later claim 1524 01:29:54,987 --> 01:29:58,079 that he had not agreed to participate. 1525 01:29:58,163 --> 01:30:02,616 The smart players demanded their money up front. 1526 01:30:04,100 --> 01:30:07,399 "The meeting was held about 8:00 in the evening. 1527 01:30:07,483 --> 01:30:10,402 "I said, there's so much double-crossing stuff, 1528 01:30:10,486 --> 01:30:12,921 "if I went in the series, 1529 01:30:13,005 --> 01:30:15,890 "I wanted the money put in my hand. 1530 01:30:15,974 --> 01:30:18,770 "I went back to my room at 11:30, 1531 01:30:18,908 --> 01:30:22,325 and the 10 grand was under my pillow." 1532 01:30:22,429 --> 01:30:24,396 Eddie Cicotte. 1533 01:30:28,952 --> 01:30:31,334 Rumors of wrongdoing were everywhere. 1534 01:30:31,438 --> 01:30:34,819 "You couldn't miss it," one New York gambler said. 1535 01:30:34,923 --> 01:30:36,856 "The thing had an odor. 1536 01:30:36,959 --> 01:30:40,860 "I saw smart guys take even money on the Sox 1537 01:30:40,963 --> 01:30:43,863 who should have been asking 5 to 1." 1538 01:30:43,966 --> 01:30:45,401 Chicago sportswriter Hugh Fullerton 1539 01:30:45,485 --> 01:30:49,869 was joined in the press box by an ailing Christy Mathewson 1540 01:30:49,972 --> 01:30:54,045 to judge if everything was on the up and up. 1541 01:30:54,149 --> 01:30:56,531 Mathewson and Fullerton would quickly see 1542 01:30:56,634 --> 01:30:58,049 that it was not. 1543 01:30:58,153 --> 01:31:00,983 OKRENT: Everybody in the game knew it was happening. 1544 01:31:01,121 --> 01:31:03,365 Nobody was pretending it wasn't happening. 1545 01:31:03,469 --> 01:31:06,299 No one was admitting it for the public. 1546 01:31:06,437 --> 01:31:08,784 How could you? What would that mean? 1547 01:31:23,281 --> 01:31:25,905 NARRATOR: To boost their gate receipts, 1548 01:31:26,008 --> 01:31:29,273 the owners decided that the 1919 World Series 1549 01:31:29,357 --> 01:31:32,877 would be a best-of-nine-game contest. 1550 01:31:36,881 --> 01:31:40,471 The first game was held in Cincinnati. 1551 01:31:48,030 --> 01:31:50,930 Eddie Cicotte, ordinarily a master of control, 1552 01:31:51,033 --> 01:31:53,898 hit the first batter in the back. 1553 01:31:54,036 --> 01:31:57,937 Then he threw wild, bobbled a grounder, 1554 01:31:58,040 --> 01:32:00,215 ignored his catcher's signals. 1555 01:32:00,353 --> 01:32:03,425 Swede Risberg ruined an easy double play 1556 01:32:03,529 --> 01:32:06,428 by failing to step on the bag. 1557 01:32:06,532 --> 01:32:09,431 Joe Jackson threw wide from the outfield 1558 01:32:09,535 --> 01:32:13,435 and seemed to slow down to miss balls near him. 1559 01:32:13,539 --> 01:32:16,714 Cincinnati won 9-1. 1560 01:32:16,852 --> 01:32:21,892 OKRENT: This contest between the Reds and the White Sox 1561 01:32:22,030 --> 01:32:23,894 is something that is concentrating 1562 01:32:24,032 --> 01:32:27,553 the nation's attention and its faith. 1563 01:32:27,691 --> 01:32:33,421 What was unsaid was the horror that existed in so many minds 1564 01:32:33,559 --> 01:32:36,907 as the baseball establishment watched the series being thrown. 1565 01:32:37,045 --> 01:32:39,910 It was visible from the very first pitch. 1566 01:32:40,048 --> 01:32:43,396 The first game, when the signal was put in 1567 01:32:43,534 --> 01:32:45,916 and Eddie Cicotte hit the batter, 1568 01:32:46,054 --> 01:32:49,402 that signaled the gamblers that the fix had worked. 1569 01:32:49,540 --> 01:32:51,922 The thing the gamblers did wrong 1570 01:32:52,060 --> 01:32:55,891 is that they let the Reds win the first game. 1571 01:32:56,029 --> 01:32:57,928 That drove the odds down. 1572 01:32:58,066 --> 01:33:01,449 If the Black Sox had won the first game, 1573 01:33:01,587 --> 01:33:05,073 Rothstein and his cohort would have made more money. 1574 01:33:06,557 --> 01:33:08,421 NARRATOR: In the second game, 1575 01:33:08,559 --> 01:33:11,251 it was Lefty Williams' turn. 1576 01:33:11,389 --> 01:33:15,152 He held the Reds to only four hits, 1577 01:33:15,290 --> 01:33:17,430 but he uncharacteristically walked six, 1578 01:33:17,568 --> 01:33:21,469 and Cincinnati won again, 4-2. 1579 01:33:21,607 --> 01:33:24,422 In the stands was Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, 1580 01:33:24,506 --> 01:33:28,909 who was impressed enough with Cincinnati's play to call them 1581 01:33:28,993 --> 01:33:32,480 "the most formidable machine I have ever seen." 1582 01:33:41,489 --> 01:33:44,940 The third game was held in Chicago. 1583 01:33:46,494 --> 01:33:52,016 Dickie Kerr, not in on the fix, threw a masterful 3-hit shutout, 1584 01:33:52,154 --> 01:33:55,019 and Chicago finally won 3-0. 1585 01:33:55,157 --> 01:33:59,457 But Chick Gandil made a critical error on the basepath, 1586 01:33:59,541 --> 01:34:02,426 and reporters continued to grumble among themselves 1587 01:34:02,510 --> 01:34:05,478 that all was not right with the Sox. 1588 01:34:05,616 --> 01:34:09,793 The public remained unaware of the conspiracy. 1589 01:34:12,865 --> 01:34:15,956 Cincinnati took the fourth game 2-0 1590 01:34:16,040 --> 01:34:19,009 behind the superb pitching of Jimmy Ring. 1591 01:34:19,147 --> 01:34:22,391 Eddie Cicotte had pitched well for the Sox, 1592 01:34:22,530 --> 01:34:28,501 but once again, he made several devastating errors in the field. 1593 01:34:32,505 --> 01:34:36,889 "There is no alibi for Cicotte. 1594 01:34:37,027 --> 01:34:39,892 "He pitched a great game, a determined game, 1595 01:34:40,030 --> 01:34:44,379 "and one that would have won 9 times out of 10, 1596 01:34:44,517 --> 01:34:47,332 "but he brought defeat upon his own head 1597 01:34:47,416 --> 01:34:50,385 "by trying to do all the defensive work. 1598 01:34:50,523 --> 01:34:52,421 "He made the wild throw 1599 01:34:52,560 --> 01:34:56,307 "that gave the Reds the only real opening they had. 1600 01:34:56,391 --> 01:34:57,910 "He followed that up 1601 01:34:58,048 --> 01:35:00,913 "by grabbing a ball thrown from the outfield 1602 01:35:01,051 --> 01:35:03,398 "and deflecting it past the catcher. 1603 01:35:03,536 --> 01:35:06,919 "A high fly to left blown by the wind 1604 01:35:07,057 --> 01:35:08,921 "over the head of Jackson, 1605 01:35:09,059 --> 01:35:11,924 "who was playing close in, followed, 1606 01:35:12,062 --> 01:35:15,928 "and Chicago was beaten." Hugh Fullerton. 1607 01:35:16,066 --> 01:35:19,882 Three White Sox... Felsch, Gandil, and Shoeless Joe, 1608 01:35:19,966 --> 01:35:25,075 all of them conspirators... Had managed hits that afternoon. 1609 01:35:25,213 --> 01:35:29,374 Only at bat did Jackson evidently forget the script. 1610 01:35:29,458 --> 01:35:33,378 He would bat .375 in the series. 1611 01:35:33,462 --> 01:35:36,899 Buck Weaver was having the series of his life. 1612 01:35:36,983 --> 01:35:41,421 By the time it was over, he would collect 11 hits. 1613 01:35:41,505 --> 01:35:44,389 It was enough to suggest that the series 1614 01:35:44,473 --> 01:35:47,220 was on the level after all, 1615 01:35:47,304 --> 01:35:50,395 but the heavier-than-usual betting 1616 01:35:50,479 --> 01:35:52,570 convinced most seasoned reporters 1617 01:35:52,654 --> 01:35:56,485 that something was still terribly wrong. 1618 01:36:05,529 --> 01:36:09,932 "After the game was over, I went up to my room. 1619 01:36:10,016 --> 01:36:12,935 "I was ill. I was sick all night. 1620 01:36:13,019 --> 01:36:14,937 "Felsch was in the room. 1621 01:36:15,021 --> 01:36:17,457 "I discussed the matter with him 1622 01:36:17,541 --> 01:36:20,855 "and said, Happy, it will never be done again. 1623 01:36:20,958 --> 01:36:23,858 I don't believe he even answered me." 1624 01:36:23,961 --> 01:36:25,929 Eddie Cicotte. 1625 01:36:30,968 --> 01:36:32,452 In game five, 1626 01:36:32,590 --> 01:36:35,352 Lefty Williams, pitching for the White Sox, 1627 01:36:35,455 --> 01:36:37,388 gave up only four hits, 1628 01:36:37,492 --> 01:36:43,138 but three of them came in a four-run Cincinnati sixth. 1629 01:36:43,222 --> 01:36:46,190 Happy felsch made a throwing error, 1630 01:36:46,328 --> 01:36:49,366 and the Reds won easily, 5-0, 1631 01:36:49,469 --> 01:36:50,954 for their fourth victory. 1632 01:36:55,475 --> 01:36:57,892 Cincinnati needed only one more win 1633 01:36:57,995 --> 01:37:01,812 to clinch the best-of-nine-game series. 1634 01:37:01,896 --> 01:37:07,384 White Sox manager Kid Gleason was stunned. 1635 01:37:07,487 --> 01:37:08,903 "They aren't hitting. 1636 01:37:09,006 --> 01:37:11,422 "I don't know what's the matter, 1637 01:37:11,526 --> 01:37:15,426 "but I do know that something's wrong with my gang. 1638 01:37:15,530 --> 01:37:19,361 "The bunch I had fighting in August for the pennant 1639 01:37:19,499 --> 01:37:21,847 "would have trimmed this Cincinnati bunch 1640 01:37:21,985 --> 01:37:23,331 "without a struggle. 1641 01:37:23,469 --> 01:37:25,333 "The bunch I have now 1642 01:37:25,471 --> 01:37:27,956 couldn't beat a high school team." 1643 01:37:34,514 --> 01:37:37,863 GARDNER STERN: I was at all the Chicago games, 1644 01:37:38,001 --> 01:37:40,866 and Eddie Cicotte, one of our pitchers 1645 01:37:41,004 --> 01:37:45,352 who had won 29 games and lost 7 during the season, 1646 01:37:45,490 --> 01:37:47,147 lost his two games. 1647 01:37:48,769 --> 01:37:51,876 And Lefty Williams lost his two games. 1648 01:37:52,014 --> 01:37:54,879 I've forgotten what his 1919 record was, 1649 01:37:55,017 --> 01:37:57,398 but it was great, 1650 01:37:57,536 --> 01:37:59,884 and it was just virtually impossible 1651 01:38:00,022 --> 01:38:03,370 for those two men to lose two games each 1652 01:38:03,508 --> 01:38:05,268 and be honest. 1653 01:38:07,029 --> 01:38:10,377 NARRATOR: The two teams traveled back to Cincinnati 1654 01:38:10,515 --> 01:38:12,275 for game six. 1655 01:38:12,413 --> 01:38:15,194 OKRENT: Ring Lardner, who was covering the series, 1656 01:38:15,278 --> 01:38:17,852 he would walk on the train singing, 1657 01:38:17,936 --> 01:38:20,372 "I'm forever blowing ball games, 1658 01:38:20,456 --> 01:38:22,857 pretty ball games in the air." 1659 01:38:22,941 --> 01:38:25,860 The players all knew was he was saying, 1660 01:38:25,944 --> 01:38:28,552 and they were seething with rage. 1661 01:38:28,636 --> 01:38:31,555 Christy Mathewson sat in the press box 1662 01:38:31,639 --> 01:38:34,558 with Huey Fullerton, the great Chicago baseball writer. 1663 01:38:34,642 --> 01:38:37,561 Fullerton said, "Point out things that aren't kosher, 1664 01:38:37,645 --> 01:38:42,049 plays that look like these guys are not trying their hardest." 1665 01:38:42,133 --> 01:38:45,535 Mathewson had a string of them throughout the series. 1666 01:38:45,619 --> 01:38:47,310 It wasn't subtle. 1667 01:38:48,967 --> 01:38:51,368 NARRATOR: But now the conspirators rebelled. 1668 01:38:51,452 --> 01:38:52,887 They had not received 1669 01:38:52,971 --> 01:38:55,890 all the money they had been promised, 1670 01:38:55,974 --> 01:38:58,893 and the Black Sox now resolved among themselves 1671 01:38:58,977 --> 01:39:01,497 to play all-out. 1672 01:39:04,465 --> 01:39:07,453 In game six, Chicago came from behind 1673 01:39:07,537 --> 01:39:12,769 to win on dramatic 10th-inning hits by Jackson and Gandil. 1674 01:39:12,853 --> 01:39:15,910 In game seven, Cicotte again pitched well 1675 01:39:15,994 --> 01:39:18,292 and this time made no errors. 1676 01:39:18,376 --> 01:39:22,311 Jackson and felsch drove in all of the Sox runs. 1677 01:39:22,449 --> 01:39:25,348 Chicago won again, 4-1. 1678 01:39:25,486 --> 01:39:30,319 The series now stood four games to three in Cincinnati's favor. 1679 01:39:32,217 --> 01:39:36,325 Chicago fans, battered by their team's poor play, 1680 01:39:36,463 --> 01:39:39,535 now began to hope. 1681 01:39:45,990 --> 01:39:48,855 Game eight would be held in Chicago, 1682 01:39:48,993 --> 01:39:51,858 and Lefty Williams was scheduled to pitch. 1683 01:39:51,996 --> 01:39:53,860 Humiliated by his poor play 1684 01:39:53,998 --> 01:39:58,865 and angered at not being paid all the money he was owed, 1685 01:39:59,003 --> 01:40:02,301 he was now determined more than ever to win. 1686 01:40:02,385 --> 01:40:04,871 But the night before the game, 1687 01:40:05,009 --> 01:40:06,873 gamblers sent by Arnold Rothstein 1688 01:40:07,011 --> 01:40:08,391 came to his room 1689 01:40:08,529 --> 01:40:13,500 and threatened to harm his wife if he did not cooperate. 1690 01:40:20,438 --> 01:40:25,063 Game eight... Chicago had to win. 1691 01:40:26,582 --> 01:40:29,984 The entire city held its breath. 1692 01:40:30,068 --> 01:40:32,553 Lefty Williams walked to the mound. 1693 01:40:34,348 --> 01:40:37,854 As he had in game two and game five, 1694 01:40:37,938 --> 01:40:39,822 Williams pitched miserably. 1695 01:40:39,906 --> 01:40:43,564 He gave up four runs and was replaced 1696 01:40:43,702 --> 01:40:46,898 before the first inning was over. 1697 01:40:46,982 --> 01:40:51,868 Home runs and extra-base hits by Joe Jackson and Chick Gandil 1698 01:40:51,952 --> 01:40:55,009 did little to stop the inspired Reds, 1699 01:40:55,093 --> 01:40:58,392 who won the game going away 1700 01:40:58,476 --> 01:41:03,032 and the World Series five games to three. 1701 01:41:13,491 --> 01:41:16,928 "The Cincinnati Reds are the champions of the world. 1702 01:41:17,012 --> 01:41:21,415 "There will be a great deal written about the World Series. 1703 01:41:21,499 --> 01:41:25,522 "There will be inside stuff that never will be printed. 1704 01:41:25,606 --> 01:41:27,421 "The truth will remain 1705 01:41:27,505 --> 01:41:31,908 "that the team that was the hardest working won. 1706 01:41:31,992 --> 01:41:35,912 "The team which had the ability and individuality 1707 01:41:35,996 --> 01:41:37,949 "was beaten. 1708 01:41:38,033 --> 01:41:42,919 The fact is, the series was lost in the first game." 1709 01:41:43,003 --> 01:41:44,971 Hugh Fullerton. 1710 01:41:46,524 --> 01:41:49,443 BUCK O'NEIL: It was actually a sickening feeling 1711 01:41:49,527 --> 01:41:52,101 because this was the pure sport. 1712 01:41:52,185 --> 01:41:54,448 This was the pure sport. 1713 01:41:54,532 --> 01:41:56,933 You didn't cheat, because, you know, 1714 01:41:57,017 --> 01:41:59,936 a kid would tell you at that time, 1715 01:42:00,020 --> 01:42:02,456 if anything, say, "That's not fair." 1716 01:42:02,540 --> 01:42:06,598 That was the main word... "That's not fair." 1717 01:42:06,682 --> 01:42:11,465 STERN: I was 15 years old at the time of the Black Sox, 1718 01:42:11,549 --> 01:42:16,312 and I was the most disappointed kid in the city of Chicago. 1719 01:42:16,450 --> 01:42:20,868 I couldn't, at the age of 15, I couldn't understand it. 1720 01:42:20,972 --> 01:42:23,906 This was just a terrible thing to happen. 1721 01:42:24,010 --> 01:42:28,393 I didn't know about gambling or anything else of that kind. 1722 01:42:28,497 --> 01:42:29,912 I was just heartbroken, 1723 01:42:30,016 --> 01:42:34,882 and the stats show that certainly Shoeless Joe 1724 01:42:34,986 --> 01:42:37,885 and Buck Weaver on third base 1725 01:42:37,989 --> 01:42:42,890 had banner series stats. 1726 01:42:42,994 --> 01:42:47,412 And... thinking it was crooked? No. 1727 01:42:47,516 --> 01:42:50,484 Terribly disappointed? Yes. 1728 01:42:55,248 --> 01:42:59,424 NARRATOR: That winter, in an article for the New York World, 1729 01:42:59,528 --> 01:43:02,910 Hugh Fullerton suggested the series had been fixed. 1730 01:43:03,014 --> 01:43:07,432 The baseball establishment was outraged. 1731 01:43:07,536 --> 01:43:10,918 SAYLES: They didn't want to believe it. 1732 01:43:11,057 --> 01:43:13,921 The baseball establishment, even ones who knew 1733 01:43:14,025 --> 01:43:16,441 there was probably something to it, 1734 01:43:16,545 --> 01:43:18,325 said, "This is total fabrication." 1735 01:43:18,409 --> 01:43:21,377 There's a famous quote from one baseball magazine 1736 01:43:21,515 --> 01:43:26,382 that we should take the pressure off our boys in the field 1737 01:43:26,520 --> 01:43:27,901 and aim it toward 1738 01:43:28,039 --> 01:43:30,869 the thick-lipped, big-nosed gambling elements. 1739 01:43:31,007 --> 01:43:33,389 So there was a certain racism 1740 01:43:33,527 --> 01:43:36,910 in the reaction of, "How dare you even mention 1741 01:43:37,048 --> 01:43:40,519 something so unpatriotic as that this might be possible?" 1742 01:43:40,603 --> 01:43:43,399 "There's always some scandal of some kind 1743 01:43:43,537 --> 01:43:46,920 "following a big sporting event like the World Series. 1744 01:43:47,058 --> 01:43:49,923 "These yarns are manufactured out of whole cloth 1745 01:43:50,061 --> 01:43:53,754 "and grow out of bitterness due to losing wagers. 1746 01:43:53,892 --> 01:43:56,895 "I believe my boys fought the battles 1747 01:43:57,033 --> 01:43:59,933 "of the recent World Series on the level. 1748 01:44:00,071 --> 01:44:04,420 "I would be the first to want information to the contrary. 1749 01:44:04,558 --> 01:44:05,904 "I would give $20,000 1750 01:44:06,042 --> 01:44:07,906 "to anyone unearthing any information 1751 01:44:08,044 --> 01:44:10,806 "to that effect." Charles A. Comiskey. 1752 01:44:10,944 --> 01:44:14,430 NARRATOR: Charles Comiskey, afraid of losing his best players, 1753 01:44:14,568 --> 01:44:17,778 did not want to admit the truth 1754 01:44:17,916 --> 01:44:19,903 and refused to investigate, 1755 01:44:19,987 --> 01:44:22,872 even after several players from other teams 1756 01:44:22,956 --> 01:44:25,875 told him what they had heard 1757 01:44:25,959 --> 01:44:27,877 and after a letter arrived 1758 01:44:27,961 --> 01:44:30,914 from the wife of Joe Jackson himself 1759 01:44:30,998 --> 01:44:35,954 suggesting that the series had not been on the up and up. 1760 01:44:36,038 --> 01:44:38,405 But American League President Ban Johnson 1761 01:44:38,489 --> 01:44:40,407 hated Charles Comiskey. 1762 01:44:40,491 --> 01:44:43,977 He pursued the case without letup. 1763 01:44:45,944 --> 01:44:47,931 It took almost a year, 1764 01:44:48,015 --> 01:44:50,900 and the White Sox were in close contention 1765 01:44:50,984 --> 01:44:52,419 for the 1920 pennant 1766 01:44:52,503 --> 01:44:55,421 when a grand jury finally indicted players 1767 01:44:55,505 --> 01:44:58,941 and gamblers alike for conspiracy. 1768 01:44:59,025 --> 01:45:03,118 Eddie Cicotte confessed before the grand jury. 1769 01:45:03,202 --> 01:45:05,480 So did Joe Jackson. 1770 01:45:08,794 --> 01:45:11,003 [GAVEL POUNDING] 1771 01:45:12,522 --> 01:45:14,923 "What is your name?" 1772 01:45:15,007 --> 01:45:16,925 "Joe Jackson." 1773 01:45:17,009 --> 01:45:19,356 "Where is your home?" 1774 01:45:19,494 --> 01:45:21,841 "In Greenville, South Carolina." 1775 01:45:21,979 --> 01:45:24,879 "Did anybody pay you any money 1776 01:45:25,017 --> 01:45:28,848 to help throw that series in favor of Cincinnati?" 1777 01:45:28,986 --> 01:45:30,471 "They did." 1778 01:45:31,989 --> 01:45:34,371 "How much did they pay?" 1779 01:45:34,509 --> 01:45:36,373 "They promised me $20,000 1780 01:45:36,511 --> 01:45:37,857 and paid me 5,000." 1781 01:45:37,995 --> 01:45:40,860 "Who paid you the 5,000?" 1782 01:45:40,998 --> 01:45:42,379 "Lefty Williams brought it 1783 01:45:42,517 --> 01:45:45,850 in my hotel room and threw it down." 1784 01:45:45,934 --> 01:45:49,386 "Does Mrs. Jackson know that you got $5,000 1785 01:45:49,524 --> 01:45:52,665 for helping throw these games?" 1786 01:45:54,357 --> 01:45:56,876 "She did that night, yes." 1787 01:45:57,014 --> 01:45:59,914 "What did she say about it?" 1788 01:46:00,052 --> 01:46:03,504 "She said it was an awful thing to do." 1789 01:46:14,031 --> 01:46:16,847 Leaving Comiskey Park one afternoon, 1790 01:46:16,931 --> 01:46:20,851 Jackson was surrounded by a crowd of men and boys. 1791 01:46:20,935 --> 01:46:22,370 One boy called out, 1792 01:46:22,454 --> 01:46:25,856 "It ain't true, Joe. It ain't true." 1793 01:46:25,940 --> 01:46:27,892 Others joined in. 1794 01:46:27,976 --> 01:46:30,688 Jackson kept walking to his car. 1795 01:46:30,772 --> 01:46:33,864 The fans followed at a distance. 1796 01:46:33,948 --> 01:46:35,950 Jackson never said a word. 1797 01:46:45,994 --> 01:46:48,913 "Professional baseball is in a bad way, 1798 01:46:48,997 --> 01:46:51,916 "not so much because of the Chicago scandal 1799 01:46:52,000 --> 01:46:55,920 "as because that scandal has provoked it to bringing up 1800 01:46:56,004 --> 01:46:58,923 "all the rumors and suspicions of years past. 1801 01:46:59,007 --> 01:47:02,410 "The effect is to wrinkle the noses of fans 1802 01:47:02,494 --> 01:47:04,929 "who will quit going to games 1803 01:47:05,013 --> 01:47:08,416 "if they get the impression this sort of thing 1804 01:47:08,500 --> 01:47:11,419 has been going on underground for years." 1805 01:47:11,503 --> 01:47:13,574 New York Times. 1806 01:47:15,507 --> 01:47:18,771 "October 7th, 1920 1807 01:47:18,855 --> 01:47:23,396 "fix these faces in your memory. 1808 01:47:23,480 --> 01:47:26,794 "These are the White Sox players 1809 01:47:26,932 --> 01:47:28,830 "who committed the astounding 1810 01:47:28,934 --> 01:47:31,059 "and contemptible crime 1811 01:47:31,143 --> 01:47:34,767 of selling out the baseball world." 1812 01:47:37,045 --> 01:47:39,876 "They will be remembered from now on 1813 01:47:39,979 --> 01:47:42,844 "only for the depths of depravity 1814 01:47:42,948 --> 01:47:46,365 to which they could sink." 1815 01:47:46,469 --> 01:47:48,436 The Sporting News. 1816 01:47:58,998 --> 01:48:02,899 In the end, no one went to jail. 1817 01:48:03,002 --> 01:48:04,901 Arnold Rothstein indignantly denied 1818 01:48:05,004 --> 01:48:07,421 knowing anything about any fix. 1819 01:48:07,524 --> 01:48:11,908 He loved baseball, he said. It was the national game. 1820 01:48:12,011 --> 01:48:14,738 He moved on to bootlegging, drug peddling, 1821 01:48:14,842 --> 01:48:16,395 and labor racketeering, 1822 01:48:16,499 --> 01:48:20,330 and was eventually shot to death by a rival gambler 1823 01:48:20,468 --> 01:48:23,954 whom he had accused of fixing a poker game. 1824 01:48:25,473 --> 01:48:27,855 Abe Attell and Sleepy Bill Burns 1825 01:48:27,993 --> 01:48:30,340 were freed for lack of evidence 1826 01:48:30,478 --> 01:48:33,984 but were no longer welcome at ball parks. 1827 01:48:34,068 --> 01:48:38,348 All eight ballplayers were acquitted by a jury 1828 01:48:38,486 --> 01:48:39,867 after the transcripts 1829 01:48:40,005 --> 01:48:41,905 of Cicotte's and Jackson's confessions 1830 01:48:42,007 --> 01:48:46,874 mysteriously vanished from the court file. 1831 01:48:47,012 --> 01:48:52,845 STERN: They were tried and found innocent. 1832 01:48:52,983 --> 01:48:55,538 A travesty, really, 1833 01:48:55,676 --> 01:48:58,541 but it came out that Arnie Rothstein 1834 01:48:58,679 --> 01:49:01,889 and the rest of them were crooked gamblers 1835 01:49:02,027 --> 01:49:04,857 and were able to persuade the boys 1836 01:49:04,995 --> 01:49:06,376 to throw the games, 1837 01:49:06,514 --> 01:49:10,898 even though some of them, I guess, never got a dime. 1838 01:49:11,036 --> 01:49:14,867 And they weren't... most of the Black Sox weren't crooks. 1839 01:49:15,005 --> 01:49:16,904 They were dumb farm boys 1840 01:49:17,042 --> 01:49:22,219 who didn't know anything about finance or anything else. 1841 01:49:31,953 --> 01:49:34,838 "Baseball is something more than a game" 1842 01:49:34,922 --> 01:49:36,924 "to an American boy." 1843 01:49:38,443 --> 01:49:42,397 "It is his training field for life work. 1844 01:49:42,481 --> 01:49:46,367 "Destroy his faith in its squareness and honesty, 1845 01:49:46,451 --> 01:49:49,887 "and you have destroyed something more... 1846 01:49:49,971 --> 01:49:54,892 You have planted suspicion of all things in his heart." 1847 01:49:54,976 --> 01:49:57,945 Kenesaw Mountain Landis. 1848 01:50:02,501 --> 01:50:05,420 NARRATOR: The scandal had so disillusioned the public 1849 01:50:05,504 --> 01:50:08,906 that the owners felt compelled to take drastic action. 1850 01:50:08,990 --> 01:50:10,908 Even before the trial ended, 1851 01:50:10,992 --> 01:50:13,911 they had dissolved the old National Commission 1852 01:50:13,995 --> 01:50:15,430 that oversaw the game 1853 01:50:15,514 --> 01:50:19,311 and replaced it with a single independent commissioner 1854 01:50:19,449 --> 01:50:22,625 vested with extraordinary powers. 1855 01:50:26,974 --> 01:50:30,322 And to that post, they named a federal judge 1856 01:50:30,460 --> 01:50:32,842 with a reputation for willful independence 1857 01:50:32,980 --> 01:50:36,846 equaled only by his flair for self-promotion, 1858 01:50:36,984 --> 01:50:39,469 Kenesaw Mountain Landis. 1859 01:50:40,953 --> 01:50:43,818 Appearance is what mattered to Kenesaw Mountain Landis... 1860 01:50:43,956 --> 01:50:46,511 Primarily. 1861 01:50:47,995 --> 01:50:50,342 He was a very distinguished man. 1862 01:50:50,480 --> 01:50:53,345 You recall that famous pose of his, 1863 01:50:53,483 --> 01:50:56,382 leaning on his hands against the railing... 1864 01:50:56,521 --> 01:51:02,872 The nestor, the judge, balancing justice's scales. 1865 01:51:06,013 --> 01:51:08,498 GEORGE WILL: Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis 1866 01:51:08,636 --> 01:51:11,328 was brought in as an authority figure. 1867 01:51:11,466 --> 01:51:12,798 He looked the part... 1868 01:51:12,882 --> 01:51:15,367 Granite face, shock of white hair... 1869 01:51:15,505 --> 01:51:18,025 Like Jupiter in a bad mood. 1870 01:51:18,163 --> 01:51:21,856 OKRENT: Will Rogers used to say they needed a commissioner, 1871 01:51:21,994 --> 01:51:24,894 they looked down the first-base line, 1872 01:51:25,032 --> 01:51:30,071 and they gave this old guy who always sat there the job. 1873 01:51:30,209 --> 01:51:33,040 Also, he had found what the owners wanted 1874 01:51:33,178 --> 01:51:34,593 in an anti-trust lawsuit 1875 01:51:34,731 --> 01:51:38,528 when he was a sitting federal judge with the Federal League. 1876 01:51:38,666 --> 01:51:42,690 He surprised them. He ran the game as an autocrat. 1877 01:51:42,774 --> 01:51:45,086 In terms of being beyond reproach 1878 01:51:45,224 --> 01:51:48,918 and doing what he thought was right for the game, 1879 01:51:49,056 --> 01:51:51,921 he did what hasn't been done since... 1880 01:51:52,059 --> 01:51:54,544 He made the owners follow him. 1881 01:51:56,063 --> 01:51:57,498 NARRATOR: Born in Millville, Ohio, 1882 01:51:57,582 --> 01:52:00,412 Landis was named for the Civil War battlefield 1883 01:52:00,550 --> 01:52:03,882 on which his father had lost his leg. 1884 01:52:03,966 --> 01:52:08,246 As a judge, he had once sentenced an aging bank robber 1885 01:52:08,384 --> 01:52:10,283 to 15 years in jail. 1886 01:52:10,421 --> 01:52:13,942 "Your Honor," the man said, "I'm 72 years old. 1887 01:52:14,080 --> 01:52:16,427 I can't serve that long." 1888 01:52:16,565 --> 01:52:20,174 Landis replied, "Well, do the best you can." 1889 01:52:20,258 --> 01:52:21,900 He was best known 1890 01:52:21,984 --> 01:52:24,903 for having hauled John D. Rockefeller himself 1891 01:52:24,987 --> 01:52:26,471 into his courtroom, 1892 01:52:26,610 --> 01:52:30,426 then levying a stiff fine against Standard Oil, 1893 01:52:30,510 --> 01:52:33,878 a decision which a higher court later overturned. 1894 01:52:33,962 --> 01:52:38,276 Ban Johnson had opposed his appointment. 1895 01:52:38,414 --> 01:52:42,265 "Keep non-baseball people out of baseball," he warned, 1896 01:52:42,349 --> 01:52:44,751 but this time, Johnson was outvoted 1897 01:52:44,835 --> 01:52:47,926 by his frightened fellow owners. 1898 01:52:48,010 --> 01:52:51,496 The survival of their business was at stake. 1899 01:52:53,982 --> 01:52:56,935 SAYLES: Well, Judge Landis is considered 1900 01:52:57,019 --> 01:53:00,456 the savior of baseball by many people. 1901 01:53:00,540 --> 01:53:03,942 I think he was what political people considered him, 1902 01:53:04,026 --> 01:53:06,117 which was a showboat judge. 1903 01:53:06,201 --> 01:53:10,431 He's the kind of guy who gets a lot of headlines, 1904 01:53:10,515 --> 01:53:12,433 then his decisions are overturned. 1905 01:53:12,517 --> 01:53:14,953 He found the perfect place... baseball... 1906 01:53:15,037 --> 01:53:17,868 Where they said, "There's no overturning your decision." 1907 01:53:17,971 --> 01:53:20,387 "You're the absolute commissioner for life. 1908 01:53:20,491 --> 01:53:23,410 We can't fire you. You're the final word." 1909 01:53:23,494 --> 01:53:25,876 He got every showboat judge's dream, 1910 01:53:25,979 --> 01:53:28,395 which is to be a showboat 1911 01:53:28,499 --> 01:53:31,847 and have nobody say, "But you violated the law." 1912 01:53:31,985 --> 01:53:33,469 He was the law. 1913 01:53:34,988 --> 01:53:37,370 "Regardless of the verdict of juries, 1914 01:53:37,473 --> 01:53:40,407 "no player who throws a ball game, 1915 01:53:40,511 --> 01:53:43,376 "no player that undertakes or promises 1916 01:53:43,479 --> 01:53:45,378 "to throw a ball game, 1917 01:53:45,481 --> 01:53:47,898 "no player that sits in conference 1918 01:53:48,001 --> 01:53:50,901 "with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers 1919 01:53:51,004 --> 01:53:54,387 "where the ways and means of throwing a game 1920 01:53:54,490 --> 01:53:55,906 "are discussed 1921 01:53:56,009 --> 01:53:59,426 "and does not promptly tell his club about it 1922 01:53:59,530 --> 01:54:01,670 will ever play professional baseball." 1923 01:54:04,017 --> 01:54:07,434 NARRATOR: The day after the Black Sox were acquitted, 1924 01:54:07,538 --> 01:54:10,921 Judge Landis barred all eight players for life. 1925 01:54:11,024 --> 01:54:15,339 None of them ever played Major League Baseball again. 1926 01:54:19,688 --> 01:54:22,518 OKRENT: Had he any sense of the consequences, 1927 01:54:22,656 --> 01:54:26,108 there was no way he would have taken part, 1928 01:54:26,212 --> 01:54:29,077 but a man as basically simple as Jackson 1929 01:54:29,215 --> 01:54:32,080 couldn't have known really what it meant. 1930 01:54:32,218 --> 01:54:35,566 His livelihood was taken away after the 1920 season 1931 01:54:35,704 --> 01:54:38,086 and with it, really, his life. 1932 01:54:38,224 --> 01:54:41,848 He lived another 30 years, but not very happily. 1933 01:54:43,022 --> 01:54:44,886 Joe Jackson played outlaw baseball 1934 01:54:45,024 --> 01:54:47,405 in South Georgia for a time, 1935 01:54:47,543 --> 01:54:50,892 then ran a liquor store in Greenville, South Carolina. 1936 01:54:51,030 --> 01:54:54,896 Ty Cobb once came in for a fifth of bourbon. 1937 01:54:55,034 --> 01:54:59,417 Jackson did not seem to recognize his old rival. 1938 01:54:59,555 --> 01:55:03,456 Cobb finally asked, "Don't you know me, Joe?" 1939 01:55:03,594 --> 01:55:06,908 "Sure, I know you, Ty," Jackson answered. 1940 01:55:07,046 --> 01:55:11,395 "I just didn't think anyone I used to know up there 1941 01:55:11,533 --> 01:55:13,535 wanted to recognize me again." 1942 01:55:20,473 --> 01:55:22,874 Judge Landis and the club owners 1943 01:55:22,958 --> 01:55:25,877 had done their best to reassure the public 1944 01:55:25,961 --> 01:55:28,880 that the game's honesty had been restored, 1945 01:55:28,964 --> 01:55:31,449 but fans remained skeptical. 1946 01:55:32,796 --> 01:55:34,714 Something, or someone else, 1947 01:55:34,798 --> 01:55:38,111 was needed to revive their shattered faith. 1948 01:55:41,494 --> 01:55:44,585 BUCK O'NEIL: But, I tell you what, 1949 01:55:44,669 --> 01:55:46,587 here comes a guy 1950 01:55:46,671 --> 01:55:49,625 with big broad shoulders and skinny legs, 1951 01:55:49,709 --> 01:55:53,111 and he could hit that ball out of the park. 1952 01:55:53,195 --> 01:55:56,597 A lot of people had stopped going to baseball 1953 01:55:56,681 --> 01:55:59,117 for the reason of the scandal, 1954 01:55:59,201 --> 01:56:01,119 and here comes Babe Ruth. 1955 01:56:01,203 --> 01:56:05,123 Babe Ruth started hitting that ball out of the ball park 1956 01:56:05,207 --> 01:56:07,091 and then brought them back. 1957 01:56:07,175 --> 01:56:08,314 Yeah.