Chicago Black Sox's Joe Jackson's Trial

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Recommended: Agrumentative essay on the history of baseball

“Say it ain’t so Joe.” (Pellowski 5). These famous words were uttered by a heart broken fan outside of the courtroom of the Black Sox player’s trial. To understand the deeper meaning behind these words lets go back to the 1919 World Series of baseball. A historic Chicago White Sox team is getting ready to face the Cincinnati Reds in what is expected to be a lob sided match leaning towards the White Sox. They had the best player in “Shoeless” Joe Jackson playing in the outfield and already had a World Championship under their belt from 1917. With all these things to consider in the World Series matchup the fans knew that the White Sox should easily pull out a victory and win the championship. However, little did they know that there was a bigger picture being painted by the players of the White Sox that would lead to an enormous drop in popularity of the sport from players and fans. The Black Sox Scandal shocked denizens of the baseball world, changing the lives of the players, as well as tarnishing the sport’s reputation.
At this time in baseball history, the Chicago White Sox had the best player in the game on their team. Joe Jackson was simply known as a future Hall of Famer and the best to ever play at this time (Chadwick 35). He proved this by hitting .351 all season which led the Majors as well as hitting .356 his whole lifetime as a player which is still one of the highest averages today (Chadwick 36). However, the White Sox were no one man show they also had the top two pitchers in the league in Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams (Chadwick 35). By 1919, the White Sox had already made the World Series two times in a row. They had won the 1917 World Series, but lost in a heartbreaker in the 1918 World Series (Chadwick 35). It...

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...r circumstantial evidence to prove a fix had been put into place (Chadwick 40). There only option was to rule the eight players not guilty of the scandal and let them free back into the public (Chadwick 40). The reaction from the crowd in the courtroom was filled with happiness and joy as the jury read that the eight White Sox players had been found not guilty due to insufficient evidence to make a verdict (Chadwick 40).
The commissioner of baseball, however, did not seem to care too much about what the jury had to say about the case against the players (Chadwick 40). Even though the players were found innocent the commissioner still handed out life time bans to all players that were involved with the Black Sox Scandal including Joe Jackson (Chadwick 40). Still to this day players are being held out of the hall of fame because of the suspensions and the scandal.

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