How a Cubs scandal led to the Black Sox
On August 31, 1920, the Cubs were scheduled to play a home game against the Phillies. Chicago was having a middling season, in fifth place, more than seven games back and very unlikely to storm back and win the pennant. The Phillies were worse—dead last, 49-73. It was a play-out-the-string sort of game.
But then team president Bill Veeck began receiving strange, anonymous telegrams from out of town. In a span of 45 minutes, he got six telegrams and two phone calls, all telling him the same news: Lopsided bets were being placed on Philadelphia. That day’s game was to be fixed.
Veeck went to manager Fred Mitchell and pulled the scheduled pitcher, Claude Hendrix, inserting Grover Cleveland Alexander, who was offered a bonus of $500 to win the game. Mitchell also removed first baseman Fred Merkle for Turner Barber, though it was suggested that the 
Claude Hendrix was mysteriously pulled off the mound before the August 31, 1920 game. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.) maneuver was just to have another left-handed bat in the lineup. Still, the Cubs were shut out, 3-0, with Philadelphia’s scoring boosted by an error committed by second baseman Buck Herzog. Veeck hired the Burns Detective Agency to investigate.
By September 4, an anonymous letter reached the offices of the Chicago Herald and Examiner, describing the suspicious betting on the August 31 game. With the alleged fix now public, Veeck had no choice but to go to the papers and ask the local beat writers for help uncovering the truth. Word spread that there were, altogether, four Cubs players named by the gamblers to team officials. The club would not release the names, but when the team left to play a series in Pittsburgh, Hendrix did not accompany the team. Mitchell also sent home Merkle, Herzog and pitcher Nick Carter, claiming that they were not needed on the team’s trip. But it was expected that they would be called to testify.
By September 7, a grand jury was ordered to investigate gambling in baseball and by September 22, it convened in Chicago. “The world series of 1919 between the White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds and the Cub-Philadelphia game of August 31 will be carefully gone into by the board of inquiry,” the Tribune reported.
Alas, that’s not what happened. Almost immediately, the 1919 World Series dominated the grand jury’s investigation. None of the Cubs players testified. There was never any evidence entered against Merkle, Herzog and Carter. There was an accusation lodged against Hendrix—a sportswriter claimed that, on August 31, he had sent an order to bet against the Cubs to Kansas City gambler Frog Thompson—but Hendrix was not formally charged with a crime.
He was, though, released by the Cubs after 1920. So were Herzog, Carter and Merkle. They were of advancing age and limited usefulness, and they were never formally banned by baseball, but Hendrix, Herzog and Carter never played in the big leagues again. Merkle only returned briefly as a player-coach with the Yankees in 1925 and ’26.
