The Black Sox Scandal Research Committee aims to do, encourage, organize and make accessible, research that will increase our understanding of what historian Harold Seymour termed “baseball’s darkest hour” – the events surrounding the fixing of the 1919 World Series.

By focusing on this best-known incident of gambling’s influence on baseball, we hope to shed light on its presence during the Deadball Era, as well as its continuing effects in the decades that followed.

By focusing on the principal people in the 1919 event, we hope to better understand how ballplayers, management, reporters, and baseball authorities (including the first Commissioner) responded to events, possibly setting precedents affecting MLB today.

The 1919 WS Fix increasingly appears to be a “cold case” in which new evidence continues to be discovered. In 2007, for example, hundreds of documents, most related to the Black Sox, surfaced in Chicago and are being prepared for research, by the Chicago History Museum.

To join the committee, please sign up by using the My SABR utility at members.sabr.org.

For discussion of committee projects and to participate in our ongoing listserv, visit our Yahoo E-group here. (Note: All new members of the committee must sign up with the Yahoo group.)