Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
The ones where Chicago hadn't been paid and decided they were going to win.
The differences were stark. He knew when he could turn it on and when he couldn't.
No XBH with runners on until Game 8. A .545 BA with 6 RBI in the games where the players had abandoned the fix. 0-6 w/ RISP in games known to be fixed. In those games he hit .250 w/ zero RBI (until game 5 when he got his first RBI when they were down 10-1).
And again, he admitted he took money and admitted he threw games 2 and 3 in his grand jury testimony.
Was he the driving force behind the decision to throw games? No, I don't think so (that was almost certainly Gandil, Cicotte and Risberg). But was he their best player and did he participate in the fix? Oh absolutely and by his own admission.
Jackson got what he deserved. Buck Weaver might've gotten screwed. And at least Gandil, to his credit, took his medicine. He expressed remorse and conceded that they deserved to be banned.
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I'm not disagreeing with the ban. I'm just saying that if the argument is purely performance based, thats a tough sell for me. Even batters that aren't throwing games fail 70-80% of the time.
It's been awhile since I went through his testimony because I really dont care, but the gist was that he knew of it and went along with it (which to me doesn't really admit guilt in throwing games, just that he didn't object to the plan). When he was specifically asked about his personal involvement he did not admit to doing anything other than playing to win games.
The most damning thing he said was that he took $5k, even though it was basically forced on him by Williams. Once you do that you kind of have to ban him because of reasonable doubt.