Buck Weaver Amnesty

[RoastDuck]

For those unaquainted with the 'Black Sox' Series, Buck Weaver was the third baseman who played the entire series in the knowledge that some of his colleagues were on the fix. For this, he was banned from MLB for life and remains consequently banned from the HOF.

This, despite the fact that he was error-free in the entire series and hit .324.

The witness accounts of the other seven implicated defendants record the fact that Buck never asked for or received a dime from the fix.

The criminal trial judge himself recognised the injustice against Weaver and told the jury that he would overturn a guilty verdict.





The Clear Buck campaign:

hxxp://www.clearbuck.com/

[SackAttack]

Isn't much the same said about Shoeless Joe? That he knew about it, refused the money, and played his ass off, but because he didn't tell anybody, he was as complicit as the fixers and banned as a result?

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Isn't much the same said about Shoeless Joe? That he knew about it, refused the money, and played his ass off, but because he didn't tell anybody, he was as complicit as the fixers and banned as a result?

Shoeless Joe took the money. I forgot the exact number, but there was a suspicious number of triples hit to left field (his position) in the series.

Buck Weaver has a much better case, but a zero-tolerance policy needed to be established. I think the punishment was appropriate. I'm not sure what clearing his name now would do, except make his family feel better.

[saldana]

there was never anything suspicious about any of the plays that joe jackson made during the series, and he did hit the only homerun and batted .425 (off the top of my head), but he did take the money. 10 thousand dollars was the amount, which is the exact sum that his wife donated to a local south carolina hospital after jackson died.

both jackson and weaver were banned by landis under the "or sits in a room where the throwing of a game is discussed" portion of his edict. the thing about jackson was, he tried to tell comiskey about it, and comiskey refused to listen.

as far as a suspicious number of triples, i dont know where St. Cronin is getting that from...i reccommed reading "The Great Baseball Mystery" if you can find it (i had to get mine from the chicago historical society). It is a game by game analysis of what the suspicious plays were, and a statistical breakdown of each player. the intersting thing it showed was that other than the glaringly obvious bad plays, alot of the "Black Sox" put up better numbers than the remaining "Clean Sox".

[spleen1015]

I think Jackson hit .375 not .425.

[st.cronin]

Cincinatti hit 7 triples in the world series. White Sox hit 3. Somewhere in a book I read that most of the Reds triples were fielded by Jackson.

Whatever the facts imply to you, though, Jackson took the money, thereby agreeing to fix the world series. Weaver may be innocent in your eyes, or even the eyes of God, but I think baseball was entitled to be overzealous in it's desire to get cheaters and gamblers out of the game; it's survival depended on it.

[saldana]

i am not arguing the facts at all...i actually am going to look up the triples thing when i sober up tommorrow (the aforementioned book has all the box scores in it). there is no doubt that jackson took the money, and i dont think landis was overzealous at the time either, i just think that seeing how much crap goes on in baseball now, that upholding the bans for those guys is beating a dead horse..its been almost 100 years...give them a break already

[clintl]

I think Weaver got screwed - he should have been punished, but a one or two year ban would have sufficed. Lifting the ban on Weaver now would have no real effect, though. Even if he were eligible for the HOF, he wasn't anywhere near good enough.

Shoeless Joe, obviously, would be a different story. But he did take the money, even if it's debatable whether he actually did anything to throw the Series.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by clintl

I think Weaver got screwed - he should have been punished, but a one or two year ban would have sufficed. Lifting the ban on Weaver now would have no real effect, though.

Yes it absolutely would have a real effect - it would strengthen Pete Rose's case, which we definitely don't need.

[clintl]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Yes it absolutely would have a real effect - it would strengthen Pete Rose's case, which we definitely don't need.

Well, maybe... But Rose is his own worst enemy, and even if reinstating Weaver did strengthen Rose's case, I have every confidence that Rose would sabotage his case again in some other way.