“What are you going to do?” he asked the judge. In the Aurora play, the “Old Roman” rightly pointed out that he had suspended seven of the eight players–––Gandel had left the team to play semi-pro ball––in the midst of another pennant race in late September 1920, nearly a year before the court verdict was rendered.īut under the glaring lights of the makeshift courtroom, “Comiskey” melted under questioning from “Weaver’s attorney” and then went off on Judge Hartigan. The scene stealer in this community theater was Naperville attorney Keven McQuillan as White Sox club owner Charles Comiskey, whose purported miserly salaries inspired eight of his players to allegedly accept payoffs from a gambling syndicate reportedly run by New Yorker Arnold Rothstein. “In order to restore the confidence to the public, we needed to get rid of those eight rotten apples,” stated Nye, with no trace of prejudice that he was a Cub throwing shade on the crosstown rival Sox. On the next day, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner, issued his historic “Eight Men Out” lifetime ban to Jackson, Weaver, first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandel, utility infielder Fred McMullin, shortstop Charles “Swede” Risberg, center fielder Oscar “Happy” Felsch, and pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude “Lefty” Williams.Īt the Aurora trial, Commissioner Landis was portrayed by former Cubs pitcher Rich Nye, a member of the fabled 1969 team that featured Hall of Famers Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and Ferguson Jenkins. Shoeless” Joe Jackson and George “Buck” Weaver That was a not-so-disguised reference to the whimsical 1989 movie “Field of Dreams,” in which an Iowa farmer builds a baseball diamond for the apparitions of the eight White Sox players who were banned from the game, even though they were found not guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud on Aug. “Me and seven of the fellas meet up with some of our old pals and play here in this field out yonder, just someplace in the middle of a cornfield.” “I guess I still play baseball,” he told the judge, jury, and amused audience. Taking the witness stand as slugging outfielder Jackson was DuPage County Judge Jim McCluskey, who wore a current Sox cap and, fittingly, no shoes. “We want a clean and fair fight, no rabbit punches, and keep the shenanigans down to a dull roar!” “Remember the rules,” the judge declared sternly. “So this is a great way to honor him.”Īnd then the Honorable Judge Russ Hartigan, cousin of former Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan, threw out the first pitched admonition. “Dave loved history and baseball,” said master of ceremonies Janice Anderson, one-time chairperson of the DuPage County Board. Those famous words from a disappointed young fan more than a hundred years ago echoed hauntingly across a ballroom––a baseball room, really––at the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora last night.Ī retired Cook County judge was presiding over a mock retrial of two Chicago White Sox great ghosts, outfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and third baseman George “Buck” Weaver, both of whom were accused with six other players of throwing the 1919 World Series, in the so-called Black Sox Scandal that nearly struck out our national pastime.Ĭommunity leaders from DuPage, Kane, and Kendall counties all participated in the benefit event, held in memory of former Naperville City Councilman David Wentz, who died last January at the age of 57.
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