You've probably heard of the Chicago Black Sox scandal, but don't know what it's about. In the 1919 World Series eight players took money from gamblers to fix the Series so that the Cincinnati Reds would win. That act would start the controversy of baseball's now shaky reputation, the end of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's should-be hall of fame career and the "most famous scandal in baseball history (History Files – Chicago Black Sox, p.1)."
             Baseball was struggling for survival in the pre-Babe Ruth era. Players were promised bonuses but mostly were left with empty wallets (Such is NOT the case today). Baseball needed some new type of flair that would attract America to it, despite it's bad reputation at the time. World War I was already making all the headlines, but the last thing baseball needed was something like this. Once the Black Sox scandal was brought up to the surface, it banished all players involved and hired Federal Judge Kenesaw M. Landis as commissioner of baseball. The owners gave him "unlimited power to control the game. He ruled strictly until his death in 1944 (Feller, Bob, World Book, p. 97)." It was more like a dictatorship, if baseball would have had a Player's Union like it does today, a strike most definitely would have occurred.
             "Jackson grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, a town where the men, women, and children worked in cotton mills (Shoeless Joe Jackson, p. 1)." When Joe was just 13 years old he started operation at the identical cotton mill his father and brother worked. While growing up in Greenville Joe soon became a local legend. People came from all over to see this talented kid play ball. He was soon drafted and in the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox. He started his career off a little shaky but was soon a star, leading the Sox to the World Series in 1919. Jackson was just over 30 years old when he was kicke
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