October 9, 1919. The Reds Win A Tainted Series, Air Racers Already in State, and a Tragedy

Lefty Williams, the White Sox starting pitcher for the final game of the 1919 World Series. His performance was so bad that he was taken out of the game after one inning and replaced by Big Bill James, who was not in on the plot, but who performed badly all on his own.

And so it came to an end, at least for now.

The headlines seemed to say it all.  But as a win goes, it will forever be remembered as a false victory.  One obtained because certain members of the Red Sox not to win, but rather to accept money in payment for losing.

The loss was pathetic.  Rumors started nearly immediately that the game had been thrown and one noted sports reporter write a column that no World Series should ever be played again.

In less than a year, the cover of the plot would be off.

As the series ended, news of the air race started to dominate the local papers.  The speed of the new mode of transportation was evident. The race had just started and planes were already over Wyoming.

Airco DH-4

Not reported in these editions, one of the planes had gone down in Wyoming, killing the pilot.  It was the first fatal air crash in Wyoming's history.  It occurred when Lt. Edwin Wales DH-4 would go down in a snowstorm near Coad Peak (near Elk Mountain).  Specifically it went down over Oberg Pass.  His observer, Lt. William C. Goldsborough, survived the crash and walked into an area ranch for help.

Hard to discern in this photograph of the old rail bed of the Union Pacific, you can see Kenneday Peak, Pennock Mountain and Coad Peak.  The pilots had been following the Union Pacific and were diverting to what looks like low ground to the right, Oberg Pass.

Oberg Pass is the low ground between Pennock Mountain and Coad Peak.  In decent weather they would have been fine, but flying in 1919, in a snowstorm, they likely iced up right away. They no doubt knew they were in big trouble pretty quickly and the plane went down in rugged ground.

Elk Mountain as viewed from Shirley Basin.  This was to the north of the where they went down and they were trying to go to the south of the substantial peak.

This crash is often inaccurately noted as having occurred "west of Cheyenne".  It was "west" of Cheyenne, but west a long ways west of Cheyenne.  It was northwest of Laramie and the closest substantial town was that of Medicine Bow, if you consider Medicine Bow a substantial town.  The destination was Wolcott Junction, which doesn't have an airfield today.  Of course, the DH-4 didn't take much of a run way of any kind to land on.  Going through the pass would have shaved miles off the trip and avoided a big curve around the substantial Elk Mountain.

The Air Derby had already proved to be a fatal adventure, and it would continue to be so.  Lt. Goldsborough would carry on after recovering however, by which we mean carrying on in the Air Corps.  He lived until age 73 and retired to Redondo Beach, California.  He went to Hawaii with the Air Corps in 1923 and therefore was a very early aviator there.  

Not surprisingly, given the infancy of aviation, Goldsborough would go on to endure other incidents. As a Captain he ground looped a Boeing P-12 C in 1937. In 1938 he'd be involved in another airborne tragedy, as a Major, when he was the pilot of a plane that left Langley Field for a flight to Jacksonville Florida and weather conditions so obscured the ground that he could not land.  Both he and a civilian government employee passenger were forced to bail out of the aircraft as it ran out of gas. The passenger's parachute failed to open and he was killed.  The then Major Goldsborough successfully landed.  The incident ended up in a lawsuit against an insurance company.  He must have still been in the Air Corps when World War Two started, but at that point, I've lost track of him.  At age 46, and a Major, he would have then been a fairly senior officer.

October 8, 1919 The Sox Take Another, Aviators Take Off. And Wool.

On this day, the Sox won again, and with Cicotte pitching.

This caused real concern among the gamblers.  Prior to the series commencing the common thought that the Sox could win two Series games back to back simply by willing to do so, and now it appeared that was true. The Sox were back in the game and it looked like they might take the series.

As a result, Lefty Williams was visited by an enforcer of the gambler's that night and his family was threatened.  The order was that the Sox were to lose the next game.

While the Sox appeared to be rallying, news of the giant air race, with varied accounts as to the number of aircraft in it, started taking pride of place in the headlines.  The race had already been marred, however, by early loss of life.

Cities on the Lincoln Highway that had only recently hosted the Army Transcontinental Convoy now were getting set to look up and watch the air race.

And there was news of a woolen mill coming to the state, something that would well suit a state that, at that time, had millions of sheep.

The Gasoline Alley gang went golfing.

October 7, 1919. The White Sox Rally?

The Sox suddenly were back in the game on this October 7, 1919 game of the World Series.

Dicky Kerr was pitching again, the Sox's did well in a ten inning game.

On this same day, news hit the state of the impending start of a bit air race scheduled for this very week.  The race was sponsored by the Army Air Corps and was scheduled to commence on October 8.

In other news, the Germans, whom had been kept at first in the Baltic states by the Allies, but who had become very involved in the conflicts there, were being invited to leave.  And a terrible flood hit a small town in Colorado.

Cardinal Mercier continued his tour of Belgium, raising funds for the restoration of the Library at Leuven.  On this day, he spoke at Columbia.

In Czechoslovakia, the parliament was in session.

October 6, 1919 Reds Win Again, Red Summer Continues On

Cincinnati's Hod Eller.

The World Series resumed in Chicago after a day's delay due to rain.  By this time, additional gambling money had been distributed to the Chicago players in the plot.

In spite of that, both teams played well and the Reds won by only one hit.  Cincinnati's Hod Eller pitched so well that he achieved a record for the most batters struck out in a row that was not tied until 1966, and has not been surpassed.  Of course, the record is marred by the history of this Series.

The headlines were also full of news of race riots that were raging throughout much of the country. The Red Summer was continuing on into the fall.

And Woodrow Wilson was reporting to be recovering.

Secretary of Labor Wilson, no relation to the President, spoke at the opening day of a labor conference that had been called by the President.

Cardinal Mercier of Belgium was touring the United States.

Daylight savings ended on this day in 1919.

Saint Catherine Hotel, Avalon California.  October 6, 1919.

If Labor Day seems like the official end of American summer, perhaps the end of Daylight Savings Time feels like the hard set of American fall.  Perhaps that's what caused the Gasoline Alley gang to seek out drinks, even if only soft drinks were now in the offering due to Prohibition.

October 5, 1919. No World Series Update?

Nope.

The game was called due to rain.

Readers of morning papers would still find themselves reading about the World Series which, just like today, would have been the news of the prior day.  This was the era, of course, if evening and morning newspapers, with the evening ones, now that wire services existed, reporting on the news of that day.  Many readers of this paper, therefore, would have already read about the fourth game in yesterday's evening paper.

The Casper Herald was unusual for a Wyoming paper at the time in that their was a Sunday edition.  Most Wyoming papers took Sunday completely off.

Grim news continued to come from the Mexican border and appear on the front page, but for some reason now war with Mexico seemed a lot less likely than it had previously seemed. 

A sort of war, however, seemed to be raging in a lot of American cities.

And the President was reported to be improving.  The conspiracy of silence around his real condition had very much set in.

October 4, 1919. Sox down again.

Cicotte was pitching again, so the results were somewhat predictable.  Having said that, he pitched a better game than his first as he was determined not to look so bad as he had in the first.  Accordingly, for much of the game he played well, and then made a couple of amateur errors, on purpose, that threw the game.

This was showing that, to a degree, it was hard for good players to throw a game and have it look like it hadn't been thrown.

The headlines were otherwise full of strife and concern.  Labor riots and race riots continued to sweep the nation and labor problems were also getting into the headlines from the United Kingdom.

President Wilson seemed to be improving, however.

October 3, 1919. News on Wilson's condition breaks. White Sox win game three.

If you read about it today, you'll be left with the impression that the public was kept completely in the dark about President Wilson's condition.

But as you can see from headlines of the time, this simply wasn't the case.

The Cheyenne State Leader lead with Wilson's condition, although the World Series had pride of place as well.  Shocking news came out of Mexico as well in this morning edition newspaper.

By the end of the day on October 3, the papers were reporting Wilson's condition as "grave".  Grave meant, and everyone knew it, near death.

The Wyoming State Tribune reported on Wilson's troubling condition and baseball, but also noted that it had snowed 3" in Casper.

Indeed, his family had been summoned, which was usually done in anticipation of death.

Baseball and Wilson's condition were the big headlines, but a terrible train accident at Orin Junction had occurred as well.

And of course, a request for a visit by a major foreign dignitary had to be refused.

Even the morning papers hadn't been optimistic.

And all this was occurring in a week where the news was already tense.  The Versailles Treaty was in trouble in the Senate, and race riots were occurring in the South and Midwest.

Pennsylvania Avenue, October 3, 1919.

Baseball was also occurring, of course, and while we now know what was happening, people following the game, except for a few savvy reporters who were suspicious, did not.  Adding to the delusion that all was well, the White Sox beat the Reds on their home ground of Chicago in game three of the 1919 World Series.

Honest player, Dick Kerr.

Game 3 may be emblematic of how messed up the White Sox were as a team.  The game was pitched by rookie Dickie Kerr, who was not in the plot.  This contributed to the plot.  Adding to that, however, most of the plotters hadn't been paid and when you don't pay people in a plot, they loose their allegiance to it.  Kerr played a great game and even those in the plot played good ones.

A former baseball player, Bill Burns, who had some still unclear role in the plot, suffered due to the honest play and change of hearts, temporary though they may have been, in this game, as he bet all he had figuring the fix was in.  It left him broke, a fate he deserved.

October 2, 1919. Woodrow Wilson suffers a severe stroke. Red Summer in the News. The White Sox throw, barely, a second game.

On this day, Woodrow Wilson, who had collapsed during a speech given in Pueblo Colorado as part of his grueling transcontinental speaking tour in support of the Versailles Treaty suffered a debilitating severe stroke.  This may have in fact simply been a followup stroke to one that had occurred in Pueblo, as his symptoms on the train ride back to Washington D. C. strongly suggest that in fact is what had occurred.

Somewhat ironically, Wilson was a  hypochondriac, but one whose health fears turned out to be somewhat correct. The stroke wasn't Wilson's first.  He'd first suffered a stroke in 1896.  That stroke was "mild" and his doctor didn't regard the matter as a serious one even though he did not regain the use of his right hand for four months.  In 1906 he suffered a second serious stroke that nearly left him blind in his left eye.  Prescribed rest by his physicians, he returned to work after a trip to Europe.  He was afflicted again in 1913.  In 1915 he was finally diagnosed with high blood pressure and was at that time likely warned that his condition was serious.

In 1914 Woodrow Wilson's first wife, Ellen, died of Bright's Disease in the White House.  Woodrow Wilson remarried the following year to Edith Galt, with that wedding occurring in December (they'd met in May).  She was fifteen years younger than he was.

Woodrow Wilson with Edith Wilson in the President's first official photograph following his stroke on this day.  This photograph was taken in June, 1920, and what it portrays is quite accurate.  Edith is overlooking his shoulder and guiding his actions.

Following the stroke Edith Wilson and Woodrow Wilson's doctors at first kept his condition secret from his cabinet and himself, although Wilson had experience with strokes and was likely aware of his situation soon enough.  Quite soon the President's inner cabinet conspired to keep it a secret from anyone but themselves and Edith took over routine details of the Presidency making her the nation's first, if unofficial, female chief executive.  Edith also acted to control access and communications with the President.  She would later assert that she never made any decisions on her own, although she certainly influenced decision making, and termed her role of that of "steward".

In spite of the secrecy, some news of the President's general condition was leaking out and it was generally not good. Therefore, while the public never knew how grave the President's condition was, it had reason to suspect he wasn't doing well, even as early as this very day.

The Casper Herald, a morning newspaper, which reported that the President had not rested well the night prior on its front page.

Woodrow Wilson never did recover from his stroke fully and in the current age he likely would have been removed from office under that special constitutional provision allow for that to occur in certain emergencies. That provision did not exist at the time.  The nation proved to be lucky that Edith Wilson was a capable steward, whatever that may have meant, as a less capable one would have caused a disaster and a Constitutional Crisis.  Nonetheless there's good reason to believe that a better result would have been for Wilson to have resigned and Vice President Thomas Marshall to have taken over.  Marshall already had experience running the government due to Wilson's absence from the country during the Paris Peace Treaty sessions and he would have been more likely at that point to have brought the country into the Versailles Treaty, which Wilson's stroke doomed.

Edith Wilson lived until December 1961, long outliving her husband who would die three years following his stroke.  Marshall died in 1925 at age 71.

The news on October 2 was dominated by the results of the second game of the fixed World Series and race riots, both the ones in Arkansas that had started yesterday and the ones in Omaha which were now over.  

In terms of race riots, the papers were tending to take a position to blacks in a way that's not only biased, but shocking.  Blacks had to feel that they were under siege everywhere in the U.S. in 1919, and indeed they were.

In the second game of the World Series the fix brought about the insider anticipated results.

A problem was setting in, however, in that Cicotte was the only conspirator who had been paid to date.  In the second game, the players in the conspiracy carried on with the plot, but the White Sox pitcher Lefty Williams actually pitched a fairly good game.  The game was not a runaway.  Partial payment came after the game, but full payment was yet to come.

Of course, as always, other things were going on elsewhere.

Great Falls, Va., site of historic mill built by George Washington.  October 2, 1919

Rheims France, October 2, 1919.

Coal and Oil, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  October 2, 1919.

Life Magazine, in its issue that came out on this day, ran a cartoon that's hardly intelligible to us a century later:

"Sensations of the young man who thought "quite informal" meant a dinner coat"

October 1, 1919. Game One of the 1919 World Series, Luncheons for Diplomats, and an 18th Birthday.

The 1919 White Sox, who would be remembered as the "Black Sox" due to the scandal that would make this World Series famous.

A series, we'd note, that wold prove to be infamous.

Infamous, of course, because the series was thrown by the White Sox, which had a core of key players that had accepted bribes from gamblers.

Not all of the players were part of the conspiracy, and a few who suspected its existence worked against it, in spite of the team being one of the most dysfunctional baseball teams every to play the game.

Readers of these papers, which were evening editions after the game had been played, didn't expect anything, of course.

It says something about how important baseball was that the results of the game were covered on the front page for those carrying papers home in the evening to become informed about as soon as they'd picked them up.

Other options, for viewing the game live, sort of, did exist, as the Casper Herald noted on its front page.

Eddie Cicotte, who was in on the fix and had been paid the night prior to Game 1 was instrumental in seeing that the game went to the Reds.  But even then, in game one, his performance was suspect and sports writers already began to ponder what was wrong with the White Sox.

Eddie Cicotte. Cicotte would be among the players banned from baseball after the plot was discovered.  He lived a fairly long life, the rest of which was not marked by dishonest or tragedy, and saw one of his nephews go on to also be a pitcher in professional baseball.

Elsewhere, in Washington D. C. a luncheon was held in honor of Japanese diplomat, Baron Goto, who had figured in the negotiation of the Paris Peace Treaty.

Goto had been instrumental in bringing the Boy Scouts to Japan, and was a central figure in a variety of things.  He'd pass away in 1929 and therefore lived through what might be regarded as the high water mark of Western relations with pre war Japan.

Elsewhere, but I'm not quite sure where (either in San Francisco or Denver Colorado, probably the latter), my grandfather Louis turned 18 years old.