The Baby Black Bear Scandal

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Apr 22, 2008 3:52PM

As the Cubs enter their century of suckiness, there has been plenty of time for fans to find countless villains and curses to blame for the Cubs misery -- spurned goats, Leon Durham, Steve Bartman, etc. Now a bombshell suggests that the true curse could be something way more sinister. The Cubs could be doomed to eternal failure because they were actually the city's trend setters in throwing World Series.

The accusations that members of the 1919 White Sox squad took money in return for throwing the World Series are well documented. Eight players -- including Shoeless Joe Jackson -- were banned forever from baseball, while eventually acquitted of criminal charges. Many a Sox fan blamed this for their team's own difficulties in winning a World Series -- until 2005.

Within a collection of Black Sox documents purchased by the Chicago History Museum in December is an affidavit given by Eddie Cicotte to the 1920 Cook County grand jury that claims the Cubs influenced the White Sox's throwing of the 1919 World Series. According to the document, White Sox players believed that the Cubs had thrown the 1918 World Series and discussed how to undertake a similar plot.

So did the Cubs really throw the 1918 World Series? In addition to Chicotte's testimony, documents like the diary of Charles Comiskey's righthand man, Harry Grabiner, also indicate that the 1918 World Series was fixed. And baseball columnist Hugh Fullerton, who eventually made public baseball's rampant gambling problem, also suggested that something was afoul in his accounts of those 1918 games. After all, with an 84-45 record that season, failing to win the World Series seems like a pretty epic collapse. Even for the Cubs.