Reds beat the Black Sox for the 1919 World Series

On October ninth, nineteen nineteen, the Cincinnati Reds defeated the Chicago White Sox to win their very first World Series, which later became overshadowed by the Black Sox scandal. But the series itself was actually relatively close, and we're going to dive into how the Reds actually won the nineteen nineteen World Series. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Rees, your guide as you daily learn about sports history to increase your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question is in what year did the eight Black Socks actually get charges brought up against them for throwing the World Series? Now, I mean, before we get to the series, let's see how these two teams actually ended up in the World Series. Because at this time, there was not really a playoff. It's just whoever won the National League and whoever won the American League would face off in the World Series. So let's first start with the Reds as they're often forgot about in this series. See in nineteen nineteen, they were kind of an upstart team, kind of the underdog for most of their time in the major leagues, as they had not finished higher than third since nineteen hundred and they had only won the National League pennant two times before winning handily in nineteen nineteen. Under new manager Pat Moran, they were able to put together a team with stars such as Eddie Rousch, Henny Gore, Jake de Barrett, and they featured three pitchers who had won nineteen games or more and Hode Eller, Dutch Rother and Slim Sally. And they finished winning ninety six games, which was nine games better than second place the New York Giants, and they set a record for attendance that year, drawing more than half a million fans to their home games, which is better than their record of four hundred and twenty four thousand. And they would face off against the Chicago White Sox, who had the best record in the American League, winning eighty eight games, beating out the Cleveland Indians by four games. Led by Trustrow Jackson, one of the best hitters at the time, and Eddie Collins. They had a great hitting staff as well as having two pitchers who pitched who won over twenty three games that year in Lefty Williams and Eddie Seacott, who won twenty nine games that year. So though we often remember it for the scandal of eight White Sox taking money to fix the games. Cincinnati could have been thought of as the front runner, as they had won more games, had more pitchers that were dominant, but were just thought of as lesser as they had been the lovable losers for such a long time. But Game one happened on October first in Cincinnati in front of thirty thousand fans, and tickets were going high at the time at Cincinnati hadn't won the World Series, and they were going for as high as fifty dollars a ticket, which is almost one thousand dollars today now. Famously, in this game, Seacott came to the mound who reportedly got ten thousand dollars the night before, to throw the series hit the Cincinnati's leadoff hitter, so that everyone knew the fix was on, but it wasn't. But the game was tied one to one going into the fourth inning when Cincinnati went on a little bit of a hit streak and scored five runs in the fourth and took the game nine to one. The Game two is played the next day on October second, in Cincinnati, when Lefty Williams took the mound for Chicago, and again the game was tied and zero to zero heading into the fourth inning when the White Sox took the lead, scored three runs when Lefty walked three who eventually would go on to score, and the game would end four to two with a win for Cincinnati. But Game three came the next day in Chicago, where Chicago's Dicky Kerr ended up taking the mound who was not a part of the fix, and the Chicago won three nothing and in Game four Cincinnati was another hard fought game, but since Cincinnati didn't score until the second until the fifth inning when they scored two runs, which was the only time anyone scored the entire game. The fifth game was actually postponed today due to rain and both both teams were shut out until the sixth inning win. Cincinnati again went on a run in one inning, sin scoring four runs, finishing the game five to zero, taking a four to one game lead heading into Game six. Now you may think four to one didn't Cincinnati already win. At this time, they were playing the series best of nine, so Cincinnati needed to win one more game, but it wouldn't happen. On October seventh, in Game six, as again Dicky Kerr pitched another dominant game like he did in Game three, and Chicago came out on a win and just and despite Cincinnati leading at the end of the fourth inning, Chicago came back and scored the next five runs to win the game in extra innings. And the following day, on October eighth, Kago would again go on to win and in dominant fashion, winning four to zero, taking the lead in the first inning and never looking back. So now the series was four to three in favor of the Reds, but Chicago was on a streak. And in Chicago, Cincinnati came out and had Hoyd Heller versus Lefty Williams, where Cincinnati scored four runs in the first inning which set the tone for the game where they dominated, scoring ten runs, winning ten to five and winning their very first World Series. And during this game, Joe Jackson hit the only home run of the series, so the Cincinnati Reds during the series scored thirty five runs to twenty runs by the Chicago White Sox. Joe Jackson led all players hitting three to seventy five for the series and Greasey Noel led the Cincinnati Reds hitting three to fifty seven for the series and hoyd Eller pitched two complete came including one shutout, and had an ERA of two with fifteen strikeouts, helping lead the Cincinnati Reds to a win, and at the time, Cincinnati celebrated, and though the White Sox seemed to play a lackluster series, everyone celebrated the Red Sox for their win. But it wasn't until September of nineteen twenty when the Grand Jury got together to indict eight of the White Sox players for conspiracy to fraud and take bribes to throw the nineteen nineteen World Series. So it was almost an entire year where the Reds were just enjoying being the champions of the major leagues, but it's often forgot about because of the whole White Sox scandals, and who knows the Reds were good enough that they could have actually won the series on their own. It wasn't a foreground conclusion. The White Sox weren't so good that they couldn't have just one outright, So it leads a tarnishment on their World Series win and now no one remembers the nineteen nineteen Reds. But gambling got in the way and White Sock's cheap owner made their players think that this was the only way for them to make money. It was a sad moment in MLB history, as those eight players were forever banned from the Major League Baseball all because of money. So sometimes when we think about sports today, we think about the pro athletes making tons of money, which helps this not be an issue in today's major league sports, as the players are making so much that they're less likely to be bought off. But it's a sad moment that money changes a great moment for the Reds. We'll always have a little bit of an asterisk next to their World Series when they really shouldn't have. They could have done it on their own. And I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating or review wherever you're listening. It really brings joy to my space. And if you want, you can tell us a topic us to cover in your name and we'll get that done just for you. And come back tomorrow for more daily sports history and the answer today's trivite question, in what year did the eight Black Socks actually get charges brought up against them for throwing the World Series? Wasn't until September nineteen twenty that they got indicted by the Grand jury, meaning it was almost one year after the World Series before everything came crumbling down.