1919 World Series

The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series (along with , , and ). Baseball decided to try the best-of-nine format partly to increase popularity of the sport and partly to generate more revenue.

The events of the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers to throw World Series games. The 1919 World Series was the last World Series to take place without a Commissioner of Baseball in place. In , the various franchise owners installed Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first "Commissioner of Baseball."

In 1921, eight players from the White Sox—including superstar Shoeless Joe Jackson—were banned from organized baseball for fixing the series (or having knowledge about the fix).

The teams

The Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox of 1919 were one of baseball's glamour teams. Using most of the same players, they had won the 1917 World Series over the New York Giants in a convincing manner, by four games to two. They had fallen to sixth place in the American League in 1918, largely as a result to losing their best player Shoeless Joe Jackson, along with a few others, to World War I service. Team owner Charlie Comiskey fired manager Pants Rowland after the season,...
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