Baseball: Finally, a chance for White Sox to lay ghosts of 1919 to rest

Chicago's poor relations have a shot at redemption in World Series but are still haunted by scandal of 'Shoeless Joe'. By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

A host of ghostly figures may also be running with them out of the home team dugout - just as they emerged from the tall green stalks surrounding the baseball diamond that Kevin Costner carved out of his corn field in the movie. For the second baseball team in America's Second City is haunted by shades from its past - more precisely of 1919, of the biggest scandal in the history of US sport, and of a legendary ballplayer named Joseph Jefferson Jackson, or more familiarly "Shoeless Joe". For decades, the White Sox have been baseball's poor relations in the Windy City. They play in a drab concrete stadium on Chicago's rough, unglamorous South Side - best known for drunks, bums and Big Bad Leroy Brown. They have had some decent seasons in recent years but, in baseball terms, the Sox have always been an afterthought compared to crosstown rivals the Cubs, America's loveable losers, whose home is ivy-covered Wrigley Field on the city's yuppie North Side.

But it was not always thus. For a spell early last century, the White Sox were the best team in baseball. They won the World Series in 1917, and were heavy favourites to repeat two years later against the Cincinnati Reds. Unfortunately, Arnold Rothstein's gambling syndicate had other ideas, and persuaded some Sox players to take the tainted shilling. Just before the first game, the odds against the Reds shortened dramatically. Rumours swept the country of a fix - seemingly confirmed when a curiously listless and error-prone Chicago went on to lose by five games to three (in those days the Series was best-of-nine).

Beyond doubt, money changed hands, but 86 years on, precisely what happened is still in dispute. The eight players said to be involved - among them Jackson and the team's two star pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams - were acquitted of criminal charges at a trial in 1921. But the commissioner of baseball banned them for life anyway, arguing that such exemplary punishment was the only way to break the links with gambling that had almost destroyed the sport.

If the "Black Sox" affair is American sport's worst scandal, "Shoeless Joe" is its most tragic and romantic figure. His nickname originates from a game where the young Jackson so badly blistered his feet that he played without shoes - and still hit a triple. "You shoeless son of a bitch," an opposing fan yelled as he reached third base, and the name stuck. A poor boy from rural South Carolina, Jackson could not read or write but, when it came to baseball, he was peerless: "The greatest natural hitter I ever saw," Babe Ruth, no less, described him. His lifetime batting average of .356 remains the third best of all time, and in 1919 he was at the peak of his powers.

Incontrovertibly, Jackson was in on the fix, and was promised $20,000 (more than three times his salary of $6,000) if he helped the Sox lose. But there is a strong case that he changed his mind. Certainly, if he was bribed, it did not show on the field. His Series average of .375 was the best on either team. "Say it ain't so, Joe", a small boy is said to have plaintively appealed to Jackson as he entered the courthouse, in a quote that echoes down the ages.

Jackson died in obscurity in 1951, but half a century later the campaign for his reinstatement and posthumous admission to baseball's Hall of Fame is more vigorous than ever. Thousands have signed petitions, and four state legislatures have passed resolutions urging baseball to rescind the ban. To no avail. Now, however, his White Sox have a chance to render some redemption.

Outwardly, everything has changed. Back then, the White Sox were ruled by the team's imperious and miserly owner, Charles Comiskey, whose refusal to pay his players the going rate made them such easy prey for the gamblers. Think of today's Sox, and the face of the team is the outspoken, free-wheeling Ozzie Guillen, who stands to become the first Hispanic manager to lift baseball's biggest prize. But the 1919 scandal still haunts the club.

First, the Sox must dispose of either Houston Astros or the St Louis Cardinals (the Astros have a 3-2 lead in the National League pennant series, with two games left). But if they can pull it off, they will rewrite history. Henceforth for Sox fans, 2005, not 1919, will be the year to remember.

For Shoeless Joe however, there will be no official forgiveness. No petition, no small boy's plea can melt the heart of Bud Selig, the current baseball commissioner - even in this age when steroid abuse, not betting, is the real menace to the sport. For baseball's establishment, 1919 was so, and ever will remain so.