merica’s Game.” That is what baseball—known also as “the national pastime”—has traditionally been called. Its champions have proudly trumpeted those titles and touted the fact that it is an American rather than British or European invention.
Given the nine-figure multiyear contracts paid to average players, the open cynicism aboutstrikes and settlements, and the steroid scandals of recent decades, “America’s Game” may indeed represent a fitting phrase for baseball. And perhaps no event tore the cover off baseball’s shiny white image of itself more brutally than the scandal whose centennial anniversary occurs this week: the so-called Black Sox scandal of 1919, when eight players of the Chicago White Sox arranged to accept bribes to throw the World Series to the opposing National League champion, the weaker Cincinnati Reds (who nevertheless posted more wins during the regular season against lesser National League competition).
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