Baseball Way Back: 'Clean' Sox had an uphill battle in 1921

One hundred years ago, April was indeed the cruelest month for Sox fans.

Instead of relishing the defending American League or even world champions, they contemplated the wasteland of the 1921 season and beyond as they watched a team the press dubbed "Darned, but clean."

On Sept. 28, 1920, Sox owner Charles Comiskey suspended eight players, effectively pulling the plug on the season - and perhaps a budding dynasty - with the Sox one-half game out of first.The 1921 White Sox still had a few stars from the 1917 world championship team and the disgraced 1919 pennant winners.

Second baseman Eddie Collins and catcher Ray Schalk, both ticketed for Cooperstown, took the field for the April 21 home opener against Detroit at Comiskey Park.

So did pitcher Dickey Kerr, whose two World Series victories in 1919 preserved whatever hope fans had of salvaging the star-crossed Series against the Reds.

The Sox had another future Hall of Famer on the pitching staff, 1917 hero Urban "Red" Faber, and acquired another future Cooperstown denizen in outfielder Harry Hooper.

But if fans wanted to see such heroes as Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, and George "Buck" Weaver in action in 1921, they would have to travel to a Cook County courtroom, where the "eight men out" were on trial for conspiracy in connection with throwing the 1919 Series.

The Black Sox still hoped they would play again in some venue that year.

On April 8, 1921, the newspapers reported that five of the eight men out - Jackson, Oscar "Happy" Felsch, Charles "Swede" Risberg, Fred McMullin and Claude "Lefty" Williams - would be part of a barnstorming club backed by a Chicago investment broker.

Jackson was quoted saying, "I think we'll go big, whether we're panned or not."

But the "Major Stars" would have to get on the field first, and that proved difficult. On April 17, reports said they would be barred from playing by the three big local semipro circuits - the Chicago, Midwest, and Intercity.

Weaver, who, like Jackson, maintained his innocence, said he signed with the Woodlawn Lions, managed by former Cub Jimmy Archer.

The team would play at the White City amusement park on the South Side.

Weaver said he quit his job as "soda water clerk" at his brother-in-law's drugstore so he could "get in shape."

As for the tattered remnant of the White Sox, Manager Kid Gleason and his troops would have to learn how to win with Bibb Falk in left field instead of Shoeless Joe, and 26-year-old Eddie Mulligan at third base instead of Weaver. Mulligan's last major league action was with the 1916 Cubs when he hit .153 in 58 games.

The feeling among Sox fans in 1921 must have been similar to the mood of South Side rooters in 1995 who felt cheated out of their 1994 World Series dreams.

An idea of the mindset of 1921 fans can be found in the writings of die-hard Sox fan Nelson Algren, author of "The Man With the Golden Arm."

In "Chicago, City on the Make," he writes about the 1919 team, "Benedict Arnolds! Betrayers of American Boyhood, not to mention American Girlhood and American Womanhood and American Hoodhood."

He winds up trading off the bat of his boyhood hero, Risberg, as he learns, "Everybody's out for The Buck. Even big-leaguers."

But there was still a team to cheer on, and 25,000 fans at Comiskey Park enjoyed an 8-3 rain-shortened home-opening victory over the Tigers.

The Eleventh Regiment band was on hand to supply jazz, while the Stockyards Fans Club provided an estimated 4,000 fans.

The Chicago Tribune reported, "The fans gave Hooper a great welcome when he stepped to the plate in the first inning. There were glad hands for the Clean Sox, with special emphasis when Collins, Schalk and Kerr appeared."

Hooper responded with three hits and a walk.

Mulligan made two sensational grabs off the bats of both future Sox manager Donie Bush and first-year Tiger manager Ty Cobb.

And Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the man who ultimately called all eight men out, was on hand buying most of the stock of a popcorn peddler for "his box party and friends in the vicinity."

Sox fans would wait until 1959 to celebrate another pennant. With manager Al Lopez watching, Faber threw the ceremonial first pitch to Schalk before the opener of the World Series at Comiskey Park.

Algren attended the 1959 series, writing about it in his book "The Last Carousel."

During the final game, a 9-3 Dodgers win, he wrote, "I saw a tall man, his hands on his knees, in a muddied uniform, waiting in left field. As I watched, he began walking toward the dugout; his head slightly bent.

"I noticed that he'd left his glove on the field: as though he knew he wouldn't be needing it anymore.

"The vendor outside the park was still shouting "Go! Go! Go! Forty years ago!"