Northeastern University professor Charles Fountain’s The
Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball retells the
story of the 1919 World Series “fix” and explains its ramifications for the game’s
development. He relates the known facts,
helpfully clarifying between which is known, which is speculated and even that
which is “known” but not really true largely thanks to previous accounts that
are as much fiction as fact. The result
is a more accurate account and deeper understanding of how and why the scandal
unfolded as it did.
To do this, Fountain takes us back to the 19th
century so we can appreciate baseball’s complicated relationship with gambling
(and to some extent game fixing). For
“behind the Black Sox story,” he writes, “stretches a long history of organized
dysfunction and incorporated hypocrisy.”
Only after a period of toleration did baseball’s powers that be come to
recognize that fixed games alienated spectators and threatened owners’
financial interests. Efforts to clean
the game of dirty players were largely successful by the 1880s.
 |
| Hal Chase: one of the early game's most gifted players was also one of the most dishonest to ever play major league baseball; his antics fixing games and the Commission's failure to deal with him helped create an environment that made the fix possible |
But the events of 1903 would undo this progress, recreating
an environment conducive to gambling and fixing. For it was in this year, Fountain explains,
peace was achieved between the warring National League and the upstart American
League. With peace came an end to competition
for players and the higher salaries that went with it. Instead, the reserve clause and their
depressed salaries would rule. In
addition, a new owner dominated governing structure would be created and it
promptly failed its first test in dealing with allegations of game fixing,
choosing to look the other way instead.
In the early 20th century, players’ gambling on
the outcome of games was not seen as problematic. It was even encouraged to show confidence,
perhaps like a CEO who takes a large share of their pay as stock options rather
than cash. But so long as there was
gambling, there would always be losers seeking to shift the blame. Allegations of a “fix” would follow each
World Series, and when similar allegations surfaced in 1919 even before play
began they were not illogically dismissed out of hand.
Fountain spends considerable time on the politics of
baseball management, focusing on the rivalry between White Sox owner Charles
Comiskey and AL President and de facto baseball CEO Ban Johnson. By 1919 the two were locked in blood feud,
and each would try to use the fixed series as a tool to gain the upper
hand. The result would be a new
Commissioner with dictatorial powers. And Commissioner Mountain Kennesaw Landis
would react much differently when the 1919 fix became common knowledge than the
National Commission had in 1903.
Colorful profiles help keep the readers’ interest. Besides Comiskey and Johnson, Arnold
Rothstein (the gambler who would remain at an elusive center of the fix),
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Judge Landis and Hal Chase are profiled at length. Although
one of the “Black Sox,” as guilty players were tagged, Jackson’s actual role
was also very small (he admitted taking money on the understanding he was
supposed to be throwing games, but there is no evidence that he did so) but
Fountain goes on at considerable length about his life and legacy.
 |
| The most famous of the "Black Sox"; one of baseball's all time greats. He took the money, but may not have kept up his end. |
There are some flaws with Fountain’s account. Many threads, such as the profile of Chase
and the relationship between Comiskey and Johnson just to cite two examples,
are much longer than necessary to explicate the book’s central story. As a result the reader frequently finds
herself in an alleyway of baseball history, often very interesting but also
largely beside the point. Fountain also makes several rather egregious errors when
it comes to discussing Jackson and the Hall of Fame. For instance he writes that it was Commissioner
Bart Giamatti who proclaimed that no one on baseball’s eligible list was
eligible for election to the Hall of Fame.
In fact, it was an ex post facto
rule change in 1991 by the Hall’s governing board in reaction to the Pete Rose
case. Fountain also asserts that writers
never had the chance to elect Jackson to the Hall. In fact, Jackson was on the 1936 and 1946
ballots, but received only two votes each time.
1919: The Great Betrayal contains a great deal of very
interesting history about different aspects of the baseball’s early period and
brings many of its characters to life even if it is not all strictly related to
the 1919 World Series fix. The story is not really complete, however. Nothing about Babe Ruth, the livelier
baseball or the phenomenon of the home run” that began to appear in 1920 and
would change the game dramatically appears in Fountain’s account, all of which
are necessary to understand the “modern” (or post dead ball) game. But fans of baseball history will find much
to enjoy, ponder and argue with in Fountain’s retelling.
 |
| The only winner was Baseball's new Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis: a publicity hungry judge whose love of the game led owners to give him carte blanche, which he would exercise like a czar for over two decades. |
