- Hello, I am Katie Nolan,
and this is the story of the Blackhawks.
Blackhawks?
- You wanna do "Black Hawk Down"?
- Maybe. - I feel, like, we should do--
- Should we do the baseball thing instead,
and then maybe next time we'll do "Black Hawk Down."
- Yeah, [bleep], yeah. God bless Josh Hartnett though.
- Hello, I'm Katie Nolan,
and this is the Black Sox scandal.
[old timey music]
Our story begins in 1919,
exactly 100 years ago.
The Chicago White Sox
are in the middle of a winning season.
They're owner, Charles Comiskey,
is a piece of shit.
He's making a bunch of money.
He hasn't even paid for their laundering of their uniforms.
The players are like, this is bullshit.
We're playing good baseball,
and we should be paid more money
because we're people and we have families.
So the--the players are being [bleep]ed by ownership,
and they were pissed.
So Chick Gandil, first baseman,
he's like, look, I'm towards the end of my career.
I want to make a bunch of money,
and I can't make a bunch of money
because I'm not getting paid it.
So Arnold Rothstein, who was a mob dude...
Arnold Rothstein approaches him and he says,
Hey, kid,
I want to make money. You want to make money.
You play games for a living.
I will pay you moneys
and you will throw the World Series.
And he's like, that's it?
That's so easy. I can lose.
And so Rothstein said,
look, I'm glad you're on the team,
but one person is not enough to throw a baseball game.
We're gonna need a lot of other people.
Maybe, like, eight people?
So he called a meeting
with a bunch of players on the team.
Now, that included Eddie Cicotte,
Lefty Williams, and then Shoeless Joe Jackson.
And so Chick Gandil, he's like,
look, everybody, I met this dude.
He will give us $100,000
if we lose the World Series.
And a lot of them were like,
uh, what? I love baseball.
All I've ever done is devoted my life to baseball.
And Chick's like, yeah, no, I get it,
but we can make more money losing
than we will earn notoriety winning.
So... the guys like,
I will compromise everything for some cash.
So the players leave that meeting,
and they recruited a bunch of dudes within the team.
So they have eight people.
I wanna bring the mic down to my face.
- [laughs]
- We get to the point where they get to the World Series.
Chicago White Sox versus Cincinnati Reds.
Game one, best of nine.
The White Sox, heavily favored,
and Eddie Cicotte takes the mound.
So the signal between
the players and the gambling guy
was that Eddie would hit the very first batter.
He winds up, he throws his first pitch,
and it's a perfect strike.
He throws it right down the middle,
and everyone's like, wait, what the [bleep]?
I thought we were gonna throw the game.
Second pitch, winds up, throws it.
Thunk. Hits the batter,
and so everybody knows, oh, it's on.
So the game goes on and on and on.
Eddie throws terrible pitches.
They lose 9-1.
- Holy shit.
- Papers come out the next day, Derek.
[giggles] And they're like,
what?
But we got to go on to game two.
Throughout the series, they keep losing.
Whoopsies, I should have probably caught that.
And then they were like,
oh, I wish I could throw that to the plate,
but I can only throw it to the pitcher.
Oh, a line drive. [wimpy scream]
Whoopsies.
And Chick Gandil was like,
I'm gonna get this. I got it. I got it. I got it.
And he waved everybody off,
and then instead he just didn't got it.
- [laughs]
- I'm getting too drunk to be able to maintain--
- You're okay.
We're just gonna finish that story.
- So the series is 4-1.
Lefty Williams says,
hey, we have not received any payments.
We're not gonna keep throwing our legacy for nothing.
Let's go up it-- on the baseball field.
Let's come from behind
and win this World Series!
Yeah!
So for the next few games they're, like, trying.
They're winning, then the night before
the eighth game of the series
Arnold Rothstein and his associates
visited Lefty Williams in his hotel room.
Rothstein says,
if by the first inning
it isn't obvious we're gonna lose,
I'll murder your wife.
And Lefty Williams was like, I'm shook.
So game eight, Lefty goes out,
he's the starting pitcher, and he sucks.
Real bad. Like, on purpose bad,
and they end up losing 10 to 5,
and that's it. The World Series is over
and Cincinnati has won.
People were shocked,
and then there started to be these rumors.
People are like, uh...
it felt fixed.
And the press labels the White Sox the Black Sox.
- Why?
- It's black mark.
It's bad.
Forever. - [laughs]
- So there's a grand jury investigation,
and Eddie Cicotte and Shoeless Joe
both break down in front of the grand jury.
And he said,
yup, [slap resounds] I did it.
I have no family. [slap resounds]
I didn't make enough money. [slap resounds]
- Is your hand okay when you did that?
[slap resounds]
- Ow, don't do that.
[slap resounds] - Hey, hey, hey.
[slap resounds]
Shoeless Joe was like,
I am Shoeless Joe Jackson
and I'm not wearing any shoes!
- [laughs]
- This is what led to the very first commissioner of baseball.
He had the most first name ever.
Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
He comes out and he's like,
we won't stand for no cheaters,
and so all those eight men
involved in the Black Sox scandal,
banned from baseball for life.
And so now there's no more cheaters left
in major league baseball,
except all the cheaters that existed after that.
I have no shoes on.
Boop. [mic thuds]
Do you get it?
It's black socks.