...Robert Fiorelli Mrs. Neilson FYS 101-143 8 November 2013 The Black Sox Scandal and its Impact on Society Today Baseball as our american pastime has not only served as a viable source of entertainment, but has impacted our society into what it is today. Through the games clean, wholesome attitude, as well as its ability to draw a large community of people together, it has gotten us through historical tragedies and has also shed light on what is reality. One of the most prime examples of baseball being used as a template for the development of society and the game itself is the 1919 world series. In the beginning of the twentieth century, this particular world series turned into the darkest event in baseball history. Gamblers set up deals with the White Sox players to lose the world series on purpose, after being largely targeted as the clear favorites to win. Although this scandal was horrible for the game at the time, it set a standard for baseball and society that is still in effect today, which is why it is important to learn about what happened. It is nearing the end of the 1919 season, and the fans are in a frenzy about how good their White Sox have been playing. The owner of the White Sox, Charles Comiskey, stands tall over everyone, as his team is playing at such an untouchable level. Comiskey is an idol around the Chicago area, since he is running such a successful team. The only person he is not an idol to is his players. Comiskey had a notorious reputation...
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...in decline and rumors of fixing had caused injury before. The Black Sox Scandal seemed destined to ruin baseball as a professional sport entirely. The Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds made it to the 1919 World Series. This World Series is said to be the most well-known outrage in baseball history. The best players in the league were not making much more than the average baseball player and a bribe of money could sway the outcome of any game. What player would pass up additional money? Approximately eighty thousand dollars was paid off by gamblers to players of the White Sox team to affect the outcome of the games. During these games, the White Sox manager,...
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...Paul D Staudohar, (1997) in the article, “Compensation and Working Conditions: Baseball’s Changing Salary Structure” mentions about how professional baseball player’s salary changed from past to present days. There are two systems why player’s salary increases. One is the Major League Baseball League Association formed in 1952. Then players tried to improve their playing conditions. Another accepted free agency systems in 1976. MLB teams tried to recruit the best player at that time to use the money. This article is very important to understand the Black Sox Scandal because article shows players’ salary at that time. According to Haupet, Ty Cobb earned the highest salary, which was only $20,000 in 1919. In addition, Charles Comiskey, who was...
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...Internal and External Factors Leo Chrisman MGT/230 September 16, 2015 Thurman-Bowen, T. Internal and External Factors Internal and external factors greatly affect any business, and Major League Baseball (MLB) is no exception. MLB has grown as a sport and business both digitally and globally. They have done a good job adapting to the world as it evolves, ensuring presence technologically, which makes the game of baseball available to anyone, anywhere, with a capable device. This factor, along with the economy, fans, and the other competing major sports in our country has an effect on how the league has to be managed. MLB uses the four functions of management very frequently. There is always planning for the next season, postseason, or all-star game. There are the annual Winter Meetings, at which motions for possible changes are brought up. MLB is unique in the way that each team is organized in its own way, as well as the league office itself. Within MLB, there are thirty teams in total, with one team calling Canada its home. Leadership within the league has many facets. There are Owners and General Managers who make major decisions such as who will manage the players on the field and which available players will make their team a championship contender. The Managers of each team are responsible, along with their coaching staff, for player performance, the organization of lineups and pitching rotation, and ultimately, wins and losses. There are also veteran...
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...The 1920’s: Baseball Uniform The decade of the 1920’s is often characterized as a period of American prosperity and optimism. This was the Jazz Age, the decade of the flappers. The 1920’s opened with an explosion of color and the wailing sounds and fast rhythms of jazz and energetic dancing. It was a time of tremendous change in America. America was one of the victors in the First World War and it enjoyed a period of great prosperity in the twenties. The Americans were opposed to anything that might drag them into another European war. Many Americans simply wanted to enjoy the prosperity that had developed in the previous decade and felt that foreign entanglements would threaten it. For the next decade America kept to herself for the most part. Most Americans enjoyed a high standard of living. Food was plentiful and cheap thanks to the vast quantity produced on American farms. More and more people bought their own houses through mortgages. Thanks to Henry Ford and mass production, one could buy a ford for $290. It was the “Roaring Twenties,” the decade of bath tub gin, the model T, the $5 work day, the first transatlantic flight, and the movie. It was the great age of popular entertainment. Among the world of entertainment, there were sports. Baseball’s growing popularity in the 1920’s can be measured by structural and cultural changes that helped transform the game. Ballparks were being constructed left and right. In 1920 the Cubs Field was opened and in 1926 re-named to...
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...complex and unusual also comes with activity of this nature, and this is the ability to forget the destitution and difficulty of everyday life and the capability to be on a level playing field with many people that believe the same way, no matter what socio-economic class they represent. One sport in particular has transcended all other games, has continually been a psychological shelter from pain and hardships of life, and also a cultural rocket breaking through the social barriers in the American society. That sport is simply the most beloved American game of all, baseball. The purpose of this essay is to critically explore a myriad of aspects of life that have been changed due to sports, all the while concentrating on baseball as the main focal point. Further, this work will continually pose the question of how it is conceivable that a single and simple sport could greatly impact a country the way baseball has the United States. At the time of the first foreign inhabitants of North America, life was more difficult than someone of the twenty-first century could have imagined. The hardships were endured by every colonist nearly twenty-four hours a day, with little to relieve their minds of the complexities of early American life. Nonetheless, there was at least one aspect of life that offered them the ability to escape the perennial cruelties of life, and that was sports. Throughout the colonies, no matter north or south,...
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...How We Chose Our Topic We chose turning points in baseball history because we thought it would be interesting to learn about. We all play and love baseball so we wanted to know how it really changed history. We all know a few players were famous because of their color. Also, we all wanted to know what baseball meant when the color barrier was not broken. Moreover, our group wanted to know how baseball was a major point in history. Lastly, we wanted to know many different ways the color barrier was broken and who broke it. In conclusion, since baseball is famous today we wanted to know how it really became so famous. How We Constructed Our Research We constructed our research in several ways. One way we researched out topic was we went to the library and asked the librarian for books about Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth. She helped us find many books and we took notes on these people. Since there are four people in our group, we needed to split the work evenly. Two people researched about people, and two people researched about events in baseball history. Splitting the work between four people made it so much easier to construct our website. In addition, each member of the group gathered pictures off Google that related to our topic. How We Created and Developed Our Website After we finished researching about the major turning points in Major League Baseball history we asked our teacher about setting up an account for our website. After setting up our account we saw...
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...Cheaters and the Hall of Fame Geoffrey Barndt COM/170 April 7, 2014 Dr. Hancock Cheaters and the Hall of Fame Should there be a difference in punishment between the use of performance enhancing drugs and gambling in the sport of baseball. In baseballs long and great history there has been two scandals that have given baseball a black eye. One being the story of Pete Rose, and the other being the story of Barry Bonds.” After a Hall of Fame worthy career, rumors began to circulate that Pete Rose manger of the Cincinnati Reds was gambling on baseball”. (Allen 2012) After an investigation Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life. Even though he never admitted to betting on baseball games. In the late 1990s two men Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa captured the nation’s attention when they both surpassed Rodger Maris record for the most home runs in a single season. Not even three years later Barry Bonds surpassed both men when he hit 73 home runs in a season. “The high-octane offense that Major League clubs were delivering, beginning in the late 1990s, made for great sports theater. But as allegations and revelations of performance-enhancing drug use began to surface, the public began to realize it was just that -- theater, fiction, cheating. The record books had been rewritten, but also tainted”. (Allen 2012) The league began a crackdown on drug use. In 2004 the story broke that during the investigation of a nutritional supplement company called BALCO one player admitted...
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...Ty Cobb’s long-standing hit record to reach 4,192 hits in his career. A several minute long celebration followed Rose’s historic accomplishment. Once Rose hung up his cleats for the final time, he was the holder of several Major League Baseball records, many of which still stand today. Rose, also known as Charlie Hustle, was adored by the American population. He personified what the American dream was, starting “from a humble beginning he raised his stature in life by virtue of hard work and brute determination to succeed.” There was not a doubt in anyone’s mind that he had earned himself a place in Cooperstown,...
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...be broken had formed. These players and games are now part of American History. The 1920s was definitely the Golden Age of sports, but it did have a huge downfall. During the 1920s College Football was on the raise even rising above Professional Football. This sudden burst in popularity was due many young men and women entering universities after war. The universities profited about 21 Million Dollars each year because of College Football. Red Grange, a halfback from the University of Illinois, was another reason for the popularity of the sport. “He known as the Galloping Ghost because of his uncanny ability not to be tackled.” (1920s-fashion-and-music.com) 80 years after he graduated from school he won the “Greatest College Player of All Time.” This was only the start to an amazing sports era....
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...other wars and as the Great War finally came to an end in 1918 changing life in many countries, it had devastating effects on Europe. The Great War demolished the Austria-Hungary Empire and the Russian Empire. New states were established out of these former empires. However, the effects of the war were also felt across the Atlantic Ocean in America. Due to the war industry in the USA grew, the women’s movement progressed, and the government adopted new diplomatic policies. The Great War affected all areas of life in America, and continued to have its effect for many years to come. The decade that came right after was called “The roaring 1920s”. It was a time where Americans were living the American dream. Was the first time in American history that people could afford to buy in abundance and buy anything they pleased. The roaring 1920’s was effected by many inventions and a new life that Americans were adapting to. The introduction of cars, planes, Sports and Prohibition effected the 1920s. Americans were learning how to live their lives. One of the biggest changes probably also the one the influenced the most all the Americans were the new forms of transportation. After the World War I all the industries in America started to grow back slowly, some of those were starting to build the things that would revolutionize the life of all the Americans this invention was the car. “Americans took motoring like proverbial ducks to water” (AH, p. 56) by 1923 the car had become a necessity...
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...The league commissioner in professional sports arose in the 1920’s in Major League Baseball. The position was created to help prevent scandals following the 1919 World Series in which the Chicago “Black-Sox” purposefully threw games for money. Ever since the creation of the position, the power to act in the “best interests” of the sport regarding conduct detrimental to the league has been entrusted to the commissioner. Currently all four major professional sports leagues in the United States–the MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA–have commissioners with broad power. The league commissioner generally has power to take any action necessary to protect the “best interests” of the sport. Under this power the commissioner has, among other powers, the power to discipline those in the league. The case book notes even though the commissioner is hired and can be fired by the owners at any time, while in office, a commissioner’s ruling cannot be easily challenged. In this course up to this point courts have generally held the commissioner’s power to act in the “best interests” of the sport to be nearly absolute (See Finley, Oakland, Milwaukee); however, in...
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...20th Century Baseball In 1865 towards the end of the American civil war, U.S. military officer, Abner Doubleday, had decided to draw up a sketch of a diamond shaped field and wrote up some simple rules and a few days later put his ideas to live use. He had just invented the greatest game of all time. Baseball (baseballalmanac.com). Six years later, what was once a game for military men had now started to become the national pastime. On May 4, 1871, the very first professional game was played. At this time, there was only one league, the National Association of Baseball Players. On this day, the Cleveland Forest Citys would take on the Fort Wayne Kekiongas where Fort Wayne would go on to win 2-0 over Cleveland. With only about 500 people in attendance, the game lasted for a little more than two hours as Kekiongas pitcher, Bobby Mathews, would make history as the very first pitcher to have a win on his record throw the first shutout game as Mathews went on later in the year to be tied as one of the league leaders in shutouts. In 1876, the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was organized, but today we simplified the name just to the National League (Mckissack 12). Throughout the rest of the late 1800’s, baseball massively grew in popularity as all-stars were being born. Baseball has a long and incredible history, especially in the twentieth- century, with events such as the first night game in 1935, the first World Series in 1903, and Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot?” home...
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...Daniel Ochefu Baseball, Justice and the American Dream Final Paper Due: 5/1/2015 I ‘Like’ Baseball Before taking this course baseball was one of my least favorite things to do in any way simply because I did not know about the sport and the impact it has on many people’s lives to respect the time that the players spend preparing to perform. I was always critical of the amount of work that was put in physically for baseball compared to other sports like basketball, football, hockey and others. I always thought it was not that much because there are almost no physical collisions in games and that was all I really needed to know after I was told that on average games are three plus hours. From everything I have learnt about baseball in this course, there is a respect that I now have for it that I definitely did not have for it before. Being America’s pastime, baseball has been the one constant in America because of its deep history that it promotes and the pride that the fans exhibit. Even during unfortunate events that shake the whole country, baseball finds a way to bring the country together. The most recent one that stood out to me being how the Boston Red Sox brought together a whole city after the terrible Boston Marathon Bombings of 2013 by winning the World Series and using that to help strengthen a city that had been hurt badly by a terrible event. The World Series celebration is normally extravagant and well televised but this one brought all Americans together...
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...that has always remained a part of my history that I’ll pass down to my children someday, is my first professional baseball game. I’m a bleeding heart New York Yankee fan, but didn’t really know how tight my loyalties would become at the age of 8. I was at a New York Mets game with my father, and they took on the Pittsburgh Pirates at the late Shea Stadium in Queens, NY. I even caught my first foul ball there, ate my first ballpark hotdog, and caught my first glimpse of the purity of a game that I played around my block, and on the field with my little league team and friends. It was a game that seemed immortal, a game that every young kid looks for a role model, and wishes he could have such an opportunity to become a star athlete. It’s a dream that we could be handsomely compensated for a game that has an essence of goodness and passion, innocence and integrity. I wasn’t much at this time, just a kid, and a kid that would eventually be proven wrong beyond his wildest dreams. Fast forwarding to present day, being a baseball fan today has a different feeling of ambiguity surrounded with unpredictable circumstances. For every player that seems to exemplify the portrait of a role model to children who worship them, there’s always another who doesn’t receive a glance when they come up to the plate, or make a magnificent play in the field. That player isn’t making as much money, isn’t driving as fancy of a car, and isn’t signing as many baseballs before the game as fans shout towards...
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