{"id":1294,"date":"2009-06-22T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/22\/notes-from-the-shadows-of-cooperstown-fifth\/"},"modified":"2009-06-22T06:01:07","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T13:01:07","slug":"notes-from-the-shadows-of-cooperstown-fifth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/22\/notes-from-the-shadows-of-cooperstown-fifth\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes From the Shadows of Cooperstown: Fifth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go far to find the title for this, the fifth<\/em> and final in my series of Notes<\/em> on my research last month in Chicago. What started with #489<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not counting #425<\/a>–426<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ends here, but not really. <\/font>As I said last time, the documents at the Chicago History Museum have chicagoed<\/em> my understanding of more than a few facets of the B-Sox story. So I suspect that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll dip into my Chicago notes from time to time in future issues, just as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done with my Milwaukee notes from 2003 and 2006. <\/font>\u00c2\u00a0<\/font>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

In fact, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been reading closely, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found myself in those Milwaukee notes a lot<\/em>, in order to either put the Chicago information in better context, or to make better sense of it.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Up top in this issue, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m inserting an item that came to me by surprise, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely related, because the CHM now holds the papers of Eliot Asinof, too. So any time we can take a peek at them, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sneak preview of what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see if you visit the CHM, whenever the papers are made accessible.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Then we will take an excursion into two large clearings on the newest branch of the B-Sox trail. In the first, we will look at the highlights of the 1921 trial testimony by Cicotte, Jackson, Williams and Judge McDonald. Who cares?<\/em> you may say, the real highlights must have been in the newspapers<\/em>. But they were not, these transcripts record testimony and cross-questioning (and squabbling by lawyers, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve omitted) which took place away from the jury and courtroom, in a private session with Judge Hugo Friend. So there are many genuinely new bits of info, which is not the same as having the truth, even though this testimony was made under oath. Experts disagree<\/em>, unfortunately, and so do many witnesses at trials. And maybe both versions fail to tell us what really happened<\/em>, because neither the prosecution nor the defense is that interested in history; they are both trying to win<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

OK, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clearing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is definitely the wrong word for the last item in this issue. Thicket, maybe. A machete will come in handy on this part of the trail. Handwriting on the Wall<\/em> is really breaking new ground, because we get to look behind the scenes at the notes from Commy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lawyers, mostly as they plan for that 1924 trial, or watch it unfold. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a clear<\/em> or unobstructed view, and where you see question marks attached to words (like? this?), I am unsure of the word itself. Fortunately, some of that cloud will someday lift, when the transcripts and other documents from the Milwaukee trial become as accessible as the CHM docs.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Thanks to those grand jury statements from 1920, which pop up in 1921 and again in 1923 and 1924, there is a lot of confessing in these special issues of Notes<\/em>. And I confess that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been anxious to get all five issues posted, to clear the way to a few other projects before I leave the shadows of Cooperstown for the shadows of Denali, on June 24. There just might be<\/em> one more issue of Notes<\/em> before I go, but if there is, it will not be from my Chicago research. Without further intro \u00e2\u20ac\u201c
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MORE SNEAK PREVIEWS\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/u><\/strong> <\/font><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written here recently about Eliot Asinof and some of the writers who influenced Eight Men Out<\/em>, James T. Farrell and Nelson Algren. Another author, Jeff Kisseloff, has a connection with Asinof, and he recently joined SABR and the B-Sox Committee. And he mentioned to me, his web site eliotasinof.com<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d where he has posted some of the material that shaped 8MO<\/em>, a small portion of what we will all be able to see someday at the Chicago History Museum.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Interview with Happy Felsch<\/strong>. No audio tape, no transcript, just three 5 x 8 pages written in a stenographer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notebook. Here are some snippets:\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Felsch. mistrust of reporters. Hates them. Company men. Always on the take. Salaries [supported?] by owners, they play the owners game,
\n<\/font>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n<\/font>Made $4,000 tops \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 1919 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d until he wrote CAC [Comiskey] a letter in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc20 demanding more. He says he got $7,000.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Wants to think of himself as a victim.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

For the context of this interview, see Bleeding Between the Lines<\/em>, and we wonder if it was the Chivas Regal talking in that last line. We also have to wonder if Felsch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dislike of reporters was cemented into place by the Reutlinger interview he gave on September 29, 1920. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written a lot about that; here is a snippet from Notes #420<\/em>, and you can go to 420 and read the rest if you want:\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Reutlinger said Felsch kicked him down the stairs, twice, when he approached him for a story. Then he decided to deceive Happy, telling him that Jackson had told the grand jury that Felsch had received $25,000. Felsch called Jackson a dirty rat, and took Reutlinger into his parlor.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Felsch then opened up, and admitted being one of the Sox who profited from the Fix in October 1919, even if he never had a chance to earn the money. It was as good as a confession before the grand jury. More on this in Notes #490<\/a><\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

To me, there is something else striking in these notes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Happy Felsch says nothing<\/em> about getting a raise for 1920 that included \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hush money\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (see last issue<\/a>). To me, that makes it more likely that the statements he made for and at the 1924 trial were coached, and less likely an account of what Harry Grabiner actually said when he signed up Felsch. And the letter he wrote, demanding more, explains the references to such a letter in Austrian\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notes (if the team had the letter, it worked against Felsch).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Interview with Red Faber.<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 Again, just four pages, in what looks like the same notebook. Felsch at least was on the inside of the Fix, though not at the center; Faber said he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the series was fixed until he heard the rumors while on a hunting trip after the season. That suggests to me that Faber was either not present when Gleason confronted the team in the Sox clubhouse, no later<\/em> than before Game Two; or else he was still covering for Gleason, when Asinof spoke with him 40+ years later.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

So Faber\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s knowledge seems as useful as that of a player on a different team. Unable to pitch in the 1919 Series, Red Faber was still on the eligible, active roster (but not used); did he suit up daily that October?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe The Sporting News<\/em> or some other paper of the day can tell us.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Faber judged Gandil to be capable of organizing the fix and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153walking off with the dough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; Risberg \u00e2\u20ac\u0153threatened to kill anyone who talked, and he was the wild type who might!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Was Faber recalling that he<\/em> (and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clean Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) all felt threatened, too? Was Risberg just punctuating something the manager said, when he suggested that they all let what he said in the locker room, stay there?\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Faber recalled Eddie Cicotte as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pleasant, funny man,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153must have been temporarily nuts to go in on a thing like this,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and perhaps he was; it is fun to imagine Judge Landis listening to a plea of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153temporary insanity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d!\u00c2\u00a0 Red was suspicious of some games lost in the 1920 season, too, but gives no examples. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[The] ballplayers never spoke of the fix. Saddened, embarrassed, depressed by it. Shameful. Hard to think of it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00c2\u00a0 Faber holds out the chance that the banished Sox may have played to win: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What seems likely is that the players agreed to toss, then did as well as they could w\/in [within] the limits of defeat.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Faber had a curious recollection about the end of the cover-up. That is, the days Cicotte and Jackson and Williams went to the grand jury. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jackson, Williams were told by detectives to talk & then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get off! Detectives pressured them \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00c2\u00a0 No accounts I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read suggest that anyone pressured them (or Cicotte) to talk, although all three expected something in return for their grand jury testimony, as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see later.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

What I was most hoping to see in Asinof\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notes from either Felsch or Faber, was the source of Jackson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153begging to be benched\u00e2\u20ac\u009d before the series. Since neither appear to be the source, my best guess is that Asinof read The Sporting News<\/em> article that appeared after the 1961 TV show Witness<\/em> was aired on CBS; Asinof must have read Scoop Carter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s piece in TSN<\/em>, he had been listed as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the program. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m told that a script by Asinof is among the items in the CHM collection.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Letter to\/fm Edd Roush.<\/strong> On December 31, 1962, Eliot Asinof wrote to the Reds CF in 1919, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mr. Ed [it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Edd] Roush,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d saying that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153completing a book about the 1919 World Series.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 8MO<\/em> was released in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc63, so Asinof was likely putting on the finishing touches. He asks Roush if he recalls his salary. <\/font><\/p>\n

Roush replies, using the same letter that Asinof sent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Eliot did that to me a few times, too, a paper-saving habit \u00e2\u20ac\u201d giving his salary (he said $10,000 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now in 8MO<\/em>). But Roush adds this: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anything you want to know about [the] 1919 Series and I can help you I will be glad to do so.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d How do we know Asinof never followed up on Edd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s offer?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, if he had, Jimmy Widmeyer, Roush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deep throat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d source for early (if not guilty) knowledge about the Fix, would be a household name today. That is, if Roush used his name \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he mentioned Widmeyer, who had connections with both newspapers and gamblers, in several interviews he gave over the years, sometimes mentioning Jimmy, sometimes not.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

I met Susan Dellinger, Edd Roush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s granddaughter, after the SABR convention panel on the 1919 Series in Cincinnati, in 2004. Susan broke the news about Jimmy W. in her article, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Shadow in the Night \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The Graying of the White,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Baseball in the Buckeye State<\/em>, a publication for that convention. I was able to cite that in Burying the Black Sox<\/em>, but (alas), her 2006 book Red Legs and Black Sox<\/em> was released just a bit too late to make my bibliography. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve recommended it countless times since, and do so again, for more on Edd Roush and the Cincy side of the Fix.<\/font><\/p>\n

Letter from Hank Greenberg.<\/strong> Eliot Asinof had been a ballplayer himself, so when he ran into Hank Greenberg in the army in WW II, they connected \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Jewish players were a minority and that was natural. Among EA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s papers is a letter from Hank, dated January 31, 1979 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d well after 8MO<\/em> was released, but still well before the film. But Greenberg has just finished reading the book that I sometimes call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the making of 8MO<\/em>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bleeding Between the Lines<\/em>. Greenberg liked them both, calling 8MO <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153the finest book on baseball ever published.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 He applauded Asinof for not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153surrendering to the Establishment, who for the sake of crass Commercialism would portray a distorted, dishonest version of your book in a cheap one-shot television show.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Actually, CBS had done that, in 1961\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Hall of Fame slugger called the players involved \u00e2\u20ac\u0153partially victims of their times,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153suffered enough without having the memory of their accomplishments further tarnished.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Greenberg looks at Asinof\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience (chronicled in Bleeding<\/em>) and says that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one reason he left baseball. The final line suggests that Asinof was looking for letters of support, which might help him in the lawsuit in progress. Again, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m told there is lots more related to that lawsuit (CBS wanted the rights to 8MO<\/em>) in the CHM collection; see Notes #484<\/a><\/em> for more \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sneak previews\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the Asinof papers.<\/font><\/p>\n

The above is an excerpt from Issue #493 of Gene’s Notes From the Shadows of Cooperstown. To read the rest of the issue (or past issues), click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go far to find the title for this, the fifth and final in my series of Notes on my research last month in Chicago. What started with #489 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not counting #425–426 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ends here, but not really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-from-the-shadows-of-cooperstown"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}