1919 White Sox team ("Black Sox Scandal") photo.

1919 1919. 8 ½ " x 10 ½ " Type 1 black and white photo. Original photo of 1919 Chicago White Sox team in uniforms, seated in front of the bleachers, with Joe Jackson at far left. Very good photo, with a small closed tear to top edge, some writing in black marker to bottom of photo, and some trimming to edges. Overall, a scarce original photo of a team that features prominently in baseball lore. In the Black Sox Scandal, eight Chicago White Sox players - Arnold "Chick" Gandil, Eddie Cicotte, Oscar "Happy" Felsch, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Charles "Swede" Risberg, George "Buck" Weaver, and Claude "Lefty" Williams - were accused of fixing (truncated) the 1919 World Series (the White Sox lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds five games to three in a best-of-nine series). In response to the scandal, the autocratic former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed as Commissioner of the league in 1920. Kenesaw banned the eight accused White Sox players from the league for life, and they were also banned from Hall of Fame consideration. There is a lot of controversy regarding Joe Jackson's Hall of Fame ban, stemming from unanswered questions about the extent of his participation in the fix (he accepted a bribe, yet performed extremely well in the series, with a .375 batting average and a then-record 12 base hits). Regardless, he was one of the all-time great professional baseball players, boasting a .356 lifetime batting average. Interestingly, Babe Ruth copied Jackson's batting technique, specifically his "feet-together batting stance and his power stride into the pitch" (Britannica). In 1982, W. P. Kinsella published the book Shoeless Joe, which was later adapted into the classic film, Field of Dreams (1989).. Photograph. (Inventory #: 1919BSTP001)