They were a team that would be remembered forever. Not in the way they may have preferred, but baseball fans and historians still talk about the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Tarnished after associating with gamblers in a plan to sell their desire to win for cold, hard cash, several members of the American League champs would soon lose their big league paychecks and hit the barnstorming circuit. The “Black Sox” became the stuff of books and movies.
A previously unknown team photo, likely taken as the plan was hatching, is coming to the auction block for the first time. Recently pulled from a newspaper archive where it had been for the last 100 years, RMY Auctions is offering the 7 ¼” x 9 ¾” photo in its new online auction.
The original paper caption is still attached to the photo and not only identifies each of the players, including the infamous “eight men out” who were banished from the game, but indicates that it was a newly captured image of the American League pennant winners taken in Boston. The White Sox had been in Boston to play three games September 19 and 20. While they had yet to clinch the pennant at the time, it was essentially a foregone conclusion and they would officially do so on September 24.
Joe Jackson stands at the far left, in the top row, next to Chick Gandil, who helped convince some of his teammates to throw the upcoming World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Ever-smiling Buck Weaver is seated at the right, just above Eddie Cicotte.
Issued by the Graphic News Bureau of New York, the photo remains in good condition despite its age. It’s one of over 600 historic images in the auction, which runs through November 28.
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