The Cubs, The Black Sox, and The Original Curse

By Benjy Lipsman in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 22, 2009 4:00PM

Over a year ago, we posted about an article in the "Sporting News" which theorized that the infamous "Black Sox" scandal -- the 1919 White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series -- was inspired by the Cubs having done so themselves the year before. A fascinating new wrinkle to the already extensive Chicago baseball lore. The author of that article, Sean Deveney, continued his research and has now written The Original Curse, which digs deeper into what may be the true reason for the Cubs' century of futility.

Deveney recently spoke to Playboy about the book [link technically SFW], which will be released on October 2, answering their questions and sharing some excepts from the upcoming book. The questions explain how Deveney stumbled upon this evidence, covered the how and why the Cubs may have sold out against the Red Sox in 1918, how that may have given the White Sox the idea a year later and, most intriguingly, why the Cubs hadn't been scandalized by such accusations until now:

PLAYBOY: So why did the alleged Cubs fix get swept under the rug?

DEVENEY: I think it was mostly political. Ban Johnson was the president of the American League and had been very powerful. He was losing his grip on power, and there was a surge from other owners to try to get rid of him. The way to do it was to keep the focus on this gambling that was going on in the American League. So the stuff happening in the National League kind of got swept under the rug.

Sure, it may have been swept under the rug, but perhaps that's just the baseball karma that's really kept the Cubbies from winning a World Series in over a century.