Harshing Matt's Buzz

Since lord knows Matt is too busy ironing his White Sox jersey and blocking his caps, I'll go ahead and do the public service of posting a bit about the next-to-last time the White Sox were in the World Series. In 1919, several gamblers paid a group of White Sox players - including the best player of the era, Shoeless Joe Jackson - to throw their series with the Cincinnati Reds. The "Black Sox" scandal is probably the worst moment in baseball history, and it's also a fascinating, crushing disproof of the idea that baseball was ever a game untainted by villainy and greed. Baseball is America's game especially because it's always been so shot through with the worst elements of capitalism, racism, and all the rest of the great American evils. Here is a good history of the scandal and here is a good multimedia look at it.