Free Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof, Stephen Jay Gould

Williams were scheduled to handle the pitching chores. But they added that they would not win for Dickie Kerr, who would pitch the third game. They'd prefer to win for Cicotte in the fourth, not for the "busher," their term for Kerr. This was fine with Cicotte, who would want the victory as a bargaining point in his 1920 contract. It was also agreed that Burns was to pick up the money for the players and bring it to the Sinton.
    The meeting broke up in the same muddy indecisiveness with which it began. The ballplayers had spoken the words of their complicity, but they did not actually believe in them. There were mumblings of doubt and mistrust. Their leadership, such as it was, shared their misgivings and could not conceal it.
    Gandil, practiced in a cocky look and confident manner, tried hard to pretend that everything was under control. But he failed to hold the pose for long. There were too many pressures working on him, too many needles being stuck into him. He walked to a cigar store, asked for a pack of cigarettes. The man was a total stranger, could not possibly have recognized him. But when he handed Gandil the cigarettes, he felt free to offer the latest scuttlebutt: "Well, this is gonna be one lousy Series…."
    Gandil perked up. "Whattaya mean by that?"
    "I hear Chicago is gonna throw it!"
    Gandil scowled and left. He smoked more cigarettes in the next few hours than he usually did in a week.
    It followed that sleep was not easy to come by. When anxiety did not keep him awake, the telephone did. It started around 11:30 P.M.
    "Hello?"
    "Gandil?"
    "Yeah. Who is this?"
    "Never mind…." The tone was threatening. "Just make sure everything goes according to plan, that's all!"
    Click.
    file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html There were other calls, from the opposite side of the fence, also anonymous: "What's this I hear about the Series being fixed? Don't do it…don't do it!"
    It was as if everyone was working to insure the defeat—if not by the fix, then by sheer mental torture.
    Cicotte wasn't having it any better. He, too, could not sleep. He, too, received menacing calls. By 2 A.
    M., he gave up, got dressed, and went downstairs to take a walk.
    But he didn't get very far: a block from the hotel, he heard a familiar voice: "Cicotte!"
    He turned. It was Kid Gleason, the manager. "What in hell are you doing out at this hour!"
    Cicotte's reply was classicly simple: "I couldn't sleep, Kid."
    Gleason took him back to the hotel and put him in his room.
    In another room of the Sinton, one of America's leading sportswriters, Hugh Fullerton of Chicago's Herald and Examiner , was growing annoyed at the rumors. Honest and diligent, Fullerton resented any implications of evil-doing that would sully the reputation of the game he loved. He had written a series of syndicated articles analyzing the rival ball clubs, position by position. He had come to the conclusion that the White Sox were a much superior team and would easily defeat the Reds. He was ready to stake his reputation as a sportswriter on a White Sox victory.
    In his years of experience, he had heard similar rumors at times like these. He despised the punks who circulated them, vigorously mistrusted their intentions. He preferred to think that the opposite of a frame-up was behind them, recalling the Series of 1912 to substantiate this prejudice: during that Series between the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox, the word was out that a certain Tammany politician had fixed it for the Giants to win. The result was a foolish rush of New York sucker money, tipping the odds in favor of the Giants. An investigation showed that the gamblers who spread the stories were the very ones who were taking all the New York money and backing Boston. There never was any evidence that any Tammany politician had manipulated a fix.
    At first, Fullerton believed that the same thing was happening now, but he was quickly