Pomrenke: Losing teeth, losing game: Eddie Cicotte, Swede Risberg, and the 1922 Black Sox tour
From SABR member Jacob Pomrenke at WordPress on December 13, 2017:
This article was originally published in the SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee’s December 2017 newsletter.
In the spring of 1922, just months after the Black Sox were banned from professional baseball for life, Eddie Cicotte and Swede Risberg partnered with a Chicago theatrical executive to form an independent traveling baseball team called the Ex-Major League Stars. They planned to tour throughout the Midwest, hoping to capitalize on their fame from the 1919 World Series scandal and giving small-town fans a chance to see big-league talent up close.
Following their banishment from Organized Baseball, the players involved in the Black Sox Scandal found an enthusiastic, if not always lucrative, market in which to continue earning a living playing ball during the 1920s and ’30s. In the era between the world wars, when baseball was truly the national pastime, every American town of any significant size fielded its own competitive baseball team. Most teams were strictly amateur, but some paid their players a stipend or salary. Revenue was generated by sponsorships from local merchants and municipal officials, gate receipts and, of course, America’s other favorite pastime — a wager or two placed on the games.
Read the full article here: https://jacobpomrenke.com/black-sox/1922-black-sox-exstars-tour-swede-risberg-eddie-cicotte-fight/
Originally published: December 14, 2017. Last Updated: December 14, 2017.