The "Black Sox Scandal" was a game-fixing scandal surrounding the 1919 baseball World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. The scandal involved professional gamblers, some connected with the criminal underworld, and players on the Chicago White Sox baseball team, who were accused of throwing (intentionally losing) individual games and the series.

The scheme between White Sox players and gamblers to throw games in the series was an open secret even before the first game—which the White Sox lost, along with games 2, 4, and 5, and the deciding game 8 (out of the nine-game series).

However, the scandal wasn't revealed publicly until September, 1920. That's when suspected players were named, including first baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil, center fielder Oscar "Happy" Felsch, outfielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, infielder Fred McMullin, shortstop Charles "Swede" Risberg, third baseman George "Buck" Weaver, and pitchers Eddie Cicotte, and Claude "Lefty" Williams.

Players were indicted in the scandal by a grand jury, and a trial was held in Chicago from mid-June until late-July of 1920. What's often forgotten about the scandal and the trial is that all of the players charged in the scandal were acquitted (found not guilty) of all charges, even though some players, including Eddie Cicotte, "Lefty" Williams, and, surprisingly, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, who actually confessed their involvement.

The next day, however, the Commissioner of Baseball, a stern federal judge, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned the eight players named above from playing organized baseball for life.

Another fact that's not well-known is that the offending players were actually suspended twice. When the scandal was exposed in 1920, the owner and manager of the White Sox, Charles Comiskey, suspended all of the suspected players from the team, except for "Chick" Gandil, the ringleader of the scheme, who was no longer on the team.

"Buck" Weaver protested his innocence to Judge Landis and to successive commissioners, and requested reinstatement to baseball, but to no avail.