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Maury
Allen ...going by the book |
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Chicago Baseball? |
 The immortal--or was that immoral?--Shoeless Joe Jackson |
Pain & Pleasure: Rooting
for Chicago baseball teams
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
SHOELESS JOE Jackson died
50 years ago on December 5, 1951. Ted Williams has wanted to
put him in the Hall of Fame for the last half dozen years because
he could hit a little. All right, .356 for 13 seasons is more
than a little.
Jackson isn’t up there in Cooperstown with Ty Cobb, Babe
Ruth, Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and the
rest of the game’s early 20th century stars because he helped
throw the 1919 World Series.
Casey Stengel, my all time baseball hero, used to say, “You
could look it up.”
Jerome Holtzman did. Holtzman and fellow Chicago sports columnist
George Vass looked everything up as they researched the whys
and wherefores, the up and downs, the agony and the ecstasy of
being a baseball fan in The Second City.
In their new book, “Baseball, Chicago Style” (Bonus
Books, Inc.), the two old pro writers explained the pain and
pleasure of rooting for the Cubs and White Sox going back to
the turn of the century, not this one, the last one.
From the American League founding in ought one, 1900 style, to
the disappointment of ought one, 2000 style, the Cubs and Sox
have tortured their fans longer than any two clubs in any one
town.
Jackson died half a century ago as a White Sox dumpier and the
Cubs died as a serious second half of the 20th century threat
thirty two years ago with the Big Flop, the 1969 folderoo under
legendary Leo Durocher.
Holtzman and Vass explore all of this Windy City baseball history
in one of the most learned, delightful, insightful examinations
of a town and its teams.
The 1919 Chicago White Sox, known in historic lore now as the
Black Sox and the 1969 Chicago Cubs were the teams I was most
curious about.
Jackson has a legion of fans ready to accept his frailties and
his failures for an alleged deserved place in Cooperstown. What
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (why is there no Rocky Mountains
Smith?) saw more than 80 years ago holds true today.
Without morality, without a chain of truth, without a sense of
loyalty and allegiance to team and winning, baseball becomes
meaningless.
Some friends from Greenville, S.C. have campaigned for years
for the exoneration of Jackson and true deliverance to the hallowed
Halls of Cooperstown.
They said his illiteracy was an excuse, his World Series average
of .375 denied any contribution to the thrown Series and his
civil suit for back pay earned him $16,711.04. Instead of getting
the back pay he was charged with perjury, imprisoned and later
released on bond before the charges were dropped.
In what is probably the most detailed investigation of the case,
Holtzman, baseball’s first official historian, discovered
the transcript of the original Chicago trial. He quotes Hartley
L. Reploge, the assistant state’s attorney, asking Jackson,
“Did anybody pay you any money to help that Series in the
favor of Cincinnati?” Jackson replies, “They did.”
Reploge then asks, “How much did they pay?” Jackson
replies, “They promised me $20,000 and paid me $5000.”
Holtzman’s research proved what the Black Sox scandal was
all about: There is no honor among thieves. Chick Gandil, the
White Sox first baseman and prime contact with the professional
gamblers led by financier Arnold Rothstein, took some of Jackson’s
promised money. That is what turned the fixers against each other.
There is just no room for Joe Jackson or Pete Rose, for that
matter, in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Too many kids and adults
take the game’s honesty seriously.
A different part of the Chicago story occurred in 1969 when the
Cubs couldn’t hold off a young New York Mets team in September.
Durocher managed the Cubs into the grave by playing the same
stars, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Randy Hundley, Glenn Beckert,
Don Kessinger, Ferguson Jenkins, Bill Hands, Ken Holtzman and
Phil Regan into oblivion.
While Gil Hodges rested his Mets with backup players, the Cubs
were wilting in Chicago summer heat in an era when the North
Siders were baseball’s only "all day games at home"
team. The Mets glided past the Cubs and went on to whip the Braves
of Hank Aaron in the playoffs and the Orioles of Earl Weaver
in the Series.
The Cubs have lost a lot of bitter pennant races and their fans
keep supporting them. That was the one that hurt the most because
Durocher clearly had the better team and had the experience of
his own pennant races with the Dodgers and the Miracle New York
Giants of 1951. Thank you, Bobby Thomson.
Owner Phil Wrigley, the chewing gum magnate, simply said after
the defeat, “Naturally I’m disappointed, but after
so many years of disappointment, I’m used to it.”
Even a Chicago psychiatrist had an explanation. Said Dr. Harvey
Mandel, “The Cubs had an unconscious desire to lose the
pennant.”
What emerges from this joyous book is that winning is not everything.
Rooting is.
© 2001 by Maury Allen.
You
can comment on this column or contact Maury Allen with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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