In October 1919, the Champions of the National League, the Cincinnati Reds, faced the champions of the American League the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.

While Cincinnati won the championship on the field, five games to three, the series will forever be remembered because of the events surrounding it.

Even a hundred years later, it remains one of the most significant events in American

professional sports history.

Learn more about the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal and how it almost

destroyed the game of baseball on this episode of everything

everywhere daily. The In case you're not a sports fan or know nothing about the sport of baseball,

this story really doesn't have anything to do with sports per se.

It does involve athletes in a sporting event, but that isn't the

real story. The story is one of economics, greed, and crime. To understand what

happened you need to know the state of baseball in the early 20th century.

Baseball began as a professional sport in 1869 with the establishment of the Cincinnati Reds.

This step from amateur to professional was a big step, but it didn't mean that the men playing

baseball for money were making very much at it. Over the years baseball grew and

more professional teams were created. Different leagues appeared and died.

Eventually there were two major baseball leagues, the American League and the National League.

And in 1903, they eventually agreed that the winner of each league would meet in an annual

championship dubbed the World Series.

Despite bigger stadiums and crowds, baseball still wasn't a huge moneymaker for most players.

If you were a Major League Baseball player, you still probably needed to get a job during the off season.

Now the owner of the Chicago White Sox was Charles Comiskey.

Comiskey was a former player and actually one of the leaders in a player revolt that took place in 1890. In 1894 he purchased a team

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