The Chicago White Sox were created in 1900 when team owner Charles Comiskey took a previously owned Western League Club from St. Paul, Minnesota and moved them to the South Side of Chicago where he renamed them the White Sox. Charles Comiskey was never very popular amongst the players as he was known to outrageously underpay them, in 1917 he had promised pitcher Eddie Cicotte a $10,000 bonus if he won thirty games in the season and then proceeded to bench him after his 28th win saying that he needed rest. A policy of his was to make the players pay for their own jerseys to be laundered. After a protest to the policy, the players jerseys became filthy and they were nicknamed the Black Sox, he eventually cleaned the players jerseys but took money out of each players salary to pay for the service.
Charles Comiskey
In 1910, Charles Comiskey was able to build Comiskey Park on Chicago's South Side and in 1915, he traded for superstars Shoeless Joe Jackson and Happy Felsch in hopes to put his team back on top. It wasn't until 1917 that the Chicago White Sox were already able to win their second World Series championship as a franchise, and in 1919, the team was poised to win it's third championship in less than twenty years.
Chick Gandil
After winning the American League championship in 1919 which insured them a trip to the World Series, it was White Sox first basemen Chick Gandil that began to devise a scheme for the ages. He was believed to be the mastermind behind the plan that involved he and his teammates intentionally losing games in the World Series to make money. He had connections with various mobsters and bookies and overall Chick Gandil was a very shady character. He also hated his owner Charles Comiskey much like all of the others on the team and he also hated his other team members such as Red Faber that were considered to be more "straight-laced players"; these two factors made him feel even less guilt when he tried to intentionally lose games and the money payout he was promised to receive was much too high for him to pass up. He began to recruit others players on the White Sox to join him promising each one of them a $5,000 reward, this reward happened to be about double the average players salary in the 1919 season. Gandil was able to gather eight players together and the plan was they would try to lose games intentionally without causing a stir in the media.
Just days before the series was about to begin White Sox starting pitcher Red Faber was diagnosed with the flu and was forced to miss the series, the players involved in the scandal (with Red Faber not being one of them) had said that despite all the planning, the plan would probably not have worked if he would have played because starts that would have been given to him throughout the series were given to Black Sox such as Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams. The best of nine series, that was won by the opposing Cincinnati Reds 5-3, was handled differently by each of the eight Black Sox members. Some of them, such as Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver, played well through out the eight games and their stats would deny any allegations that said they were ever involved; while other players such as Happy Felsch and Lefty Williams made their involvement to the fix quite obvious with their play.
White Sox players waiting outside
the court room
Rumors about the fix plagued the 1920 season for the Sox and later the government was able to investigate the scandal and the eight alleged members of the fix were brought into their trial, where they were later found guilty by a grand jury. All eight alleged members were banned from organized baseball by newly hired commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who's goal was to bring a cleaner image to the game of baseball.