Hal Chase & Lee Magee
At about 8 p.m. on June 24, 1918, second baseman Lee Magee of the Cincinnati Reds walked into the pool room at the Oxford Hotel in Boston. He went to see James Costello, a well-known gambler in town who ran the pool room, with a proposition on the next day’s Reds-Braves game. He didn’t want to talk details at just that moment, so Costello told him to return the next day. Magee did, along with teammate Hal Chase. According to testimony from Costello, recorded in Lee Allen’s book, The National League Story, Magee, the conversation went like this:
He says, “The proposition is this,” he says. 
Reds manager Christy Mathewson tried to bring Hal Chase to justice before leaving for chance. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.) “How much money can you place on a ball game in Boston?”
I says, “I can bet an unlimited amount.”
“Well,” he says, “I think we can do business with you, Jim.”
I says, “I don’t do business on ball games myself, so I will get somebody else.”
He says, “What will we do?”
I says, “I want you to understand this in the first place: if you are going to throw a ball game, you have to bet some of your own money, because the gamblers won’t bet unless you do.” I says, “I have a gambler that can handle the thing for you.”
I asked them how much they wanted to bet themselves. “Well,” they says, “we haven’t got the money with us, will you take our check?”
“Yes,” I says, “I will take your check,” I says, “for any amount, with this agreement—if you lose that ball game according to the agreement, I will give you your checks back and the amount equivalent to your check and one-third of what the gamblers win.”
That satisfied them. So then I walked down to my safe, took out my own checkbook on the Old Colony Trust Company of Boston, and gave them each a check. They crossed out the “Old Colony Trust Company” and filled their own banks in for five hundred dollars apiece. I took them checks and put them in my safe and took out one thousand dollars.
This was how easy it was for players to gamble on ball games in 1918. Of course, pulling off a fix wasn’t always so easy. Allegedly, Magee and Chase also had pitcher Pete Schneider in on the fix with them, but Schneider either rebuffed them or got cold feet at the last moment, because just before game time, manager Christy Mathewson inserted Hod Eller instead. Eller pitched brilliantly, and would have won in nine innings had Magee not committed a crucial error that sent the game to extra innings. In the 13th, Magee (who was 0-for-5 to that point) hit a grounder to shortstop that took a wild hop, putting him on first. Edd Roush then hit a deep fly ball to left field, forcing Magee in to score. Thus, Magee scored the winning run and blew his own fix.
That year’s Reds were, apparently, battling crookedness all year. That’s little wonder—they had Chase, after all. Chase was known to be the best first baseman of his time, and a decent hitter, but he also had a history of trouble, especially when it came to fixing games. He was in his 14th season by 1918, and though accusations around him had been frequent, he had not yet been formally charged with any gambling misdeeds. But, then again, before the Black Sox, virtually no one in the early 20th century was formally charged with gambling misdeeds. There was a code of silence on the subject.
That changed in 1918. Mathewson, preparing to enlist in the Chemical Warfare division of the army, decided to give up his managerial post in August 1918. But before he left, he thought perhaps it was time to give up baseball’s tradition of not talking about gambling. In early August, Mathewson did something very unusual for a manager. He suspended Chase for, “indifferent playing,” a common euphemism for throwing games.
Chase denied the charges. Mathewson knew better. In 1917, pitcher Jimmy Ring approached Mathewson to complain that Chase had offered him money to throw a start. Ring turned him down, but wound up losing the game. Afterwards, Chase still paid him. Mathewson did nothing about it. But, now, a year later, he collected testimony from teammates Ring, Heinie Groh, Neale, Mike Regan and Sherry Magee (no relation to Lee). He also collected testimony from Giants pitcher Pol Perritt—who said Chase had approached him, asking him to throw a game—and Giants manager John McGraw, who confirmed that Perritt had told him about the conversation.
According to The Sporting News, “Prince Hal’s fielding lapses, more frequent this year than formerly, have exasperated the other players. … These mishaps have hurt the team’s chances and caused more or less friction between Chase and the pitchers.” TSN also pointed out that, “In the East recently things got so bad that opposing players would yell at him, ‘Well, Hal, what are the odds today?’”
Still, when the case finally was brought before National League president John Heydler in January 1919, Chase was not found guilty—mostly because Mathewson was still with the Army in France and could not give his own testimony.
Chase played one more year, with the Giants in 1919, and was later found to have knowledge of the Black Sox scandal. The incident with Costello in Boston would not have come to light had Magee actually paid off his debt. But Magee claimed he was double-crossed, and that he had wanted to bet on the Reds, not against them. The Cubs traded for Magee, but just before spring training in 1920, team president Bill Veeck was given evidence of Magee’s game-fixing. He approached Magee with it, and released him from the team.
In June 1920, though, Magee sued the Cubs for $9,500, and Costello’s testimony came to light. Magee lost the case and his career ended. Three months later, the details of the Black Sox scandals would become public in a Chicago courtroom.
