Virtual Book Tour & Giveaway - Shocktober: The Biggest Upsets in World Series History by Jonathan Weeks

Shocktober

The Biggest Upsets in World Series History

by

Jonathan Weeks

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by

Goddess Fish Promotions.

Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Sports History
Publisher: Lyons Press
Publication Date: January 7, 2025
Page count: 258 pages

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SYNOPSIS:

Mays’s spectacular catch in 1954, Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer in 1960, and Kirk Gibson’s pinch-hit blast in 1988 are just a few of the memorable moments that have dominated highlight reels. The outcome of the Series has not always been terribly surprising—especially during the late 1940s and early 1950s when the Yankees captured five consecutive championships, breaking their previous record of four straight titles from 1936 to 1939. But despite its predictability at times, the Fall Classic has taken many unexpected turns. The 1906 Cubs lost to the weak-hitting White Sox after establishing a new regular season record for wins. The 1955 Dodgers avenged seven prior October failures with an improbable victory over the seemingly invincible Yankees. And in 1969, the Mets finally shed their image as “loveable losers,” dethroning the powerful Orioles. In more than a century of World Series plays, a number of similar scenarios have emerged; twenty-two of those stories are told in Shocktober.

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ENJOY AN EXCERPT:

To understand why members of the White Sox conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series, one must take into account the financial climate of baseball in the early-20th century. Players weren’t paid exceptionally well (at least in comparison to today). Before the advent of free agency, owners held most of the advantages when it came to negotiating contracts. Players were more or less stuck with the clubs they had signed with until team executives decided it was time to get rid of them. Typical deadball stars were minimally educated and rough around the edges. In their free time, many gravitated to bars and pool halls, where men of questionable integrity could be found. Some players developed relationships with members of the underworld—especially bookmakers who were willing to tamper with the outcome of games in order to turn a profit.

 

Ty Cobb, one of the biggest names of the era, was paid $20,000 in 1919—equivalent to about $348,000 today. No one else was making that much at the time—not even Babe Ruth. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte, at a little over $9,000, was the highest paid member of the Chicago conspirators. The others were earning significantly less.

 

A common misconception among contemporary fans is the idea that Chicago team owner Charles Comiskey was a nefarious miser who drove his men to commit the crime of the century. Multiple myths have persisted regarding Comiskey’s penny-pinching ways—the most salacious being the story about how he delivered a case of flat champagne to his players as a World Series bonus in 1917. Other fallacies have been handed down over the years.

 

In reality, Comiskey was prone to acts of generosity. He allowed a number of Chicago organizations to use his ballpark for free and gave out complimentary grandstand tickets to school children. During World War I, he donated a significant portion of his annual income to the Red Cross. While it’s true that he could also be frugal, charging players for laundry fees, he actually paid his men pretty well. The White Sox Opening Day payroll in 1919 was among the highest in baseball.

 

While the specific motivations of each conspirator have been endlessly debated, it’s safe to assume that the primary incentive was financial gain. By his own account, it was first baseman Chick Gandil who approached gamblers with the idea of a fix. At the time, the club was divided into two social cliques with tension existing between the two. The educated players fell under the influence of Ivy League graduate Eddie Collins. The rest of the joiners cast their lot with Gandil—a former boxer with an attitude toward authority. Shortstop Swede Risberg played a major role in the fix as well, helping Gandil lure other players (ones who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut) into the fold. Boston-based bookmaker Joseph “Sport” Sullivan convinced New York underworld kingpin Arnold Rothstein to bankroll the plot. Others involved included “Sleepy Bill” Burns (a former pitcher) and Abe Attell (a former featherweight boxing champion). Both were associates of Rothstein’s.

GUEST POST:

Please welcome Jonathan Weeks, the author of today's featured book to the blog!

Why baseball books? 

Well, I could have made this a very short essay and answered simply ‘Why Not?’ But there is a specific story associated with the question.

Around the time of my 40th birthday, I decided to make a bucket list. I actually wrote down some of the things I wanted to accomplish over the next few decades of my life. I have no idea what happened to the list and have forgotten most of the things that were on it. But there is one item that stands out clearly in my mind: “Become an expert at something.” 

Seriously? Yep. For real—I honestly wrote that down. And I knew even then that it was a pretty tall order for someone who had already expended roughly half a lifespan.   

With no time to waste, I started eliminating the things I felt I could never be good at. Math? Boring and incomprehensible. Car repair? Too messy and labor intensive. Medicine? I pass out at the sight of my own blood. Nuclear Technology? Bad for the environment.

And so it went—until I stumbled upon the topic of writing. I was fairly accomplished during my high school years (several teachers told me that I showed promise) and I had gone on to write a few articles for my college newspaper. But every time I submitted my work elsewhere, it was always: “thanks, but no thanks.” I experimented with different forms of writing—short stories, novels, poetry. I even dabbled at children’s books. You could have papered the walls of a sizeable home with all the rejection letters I received. The negativity wore me down over time and I eventually developed a serious case of writer’s block. 

Unable to produce a single paragraph of coherent fiction, I composed songs on my guitar (bad ones mostly) and also learned how to write screenplays. A friend and I collaborated on a science fiction script and entered it in an Amazon Studios contest. We made it to the semi-finals but that’s as far as we got.   

It was around this time that I came up with my bucket list. Without any ties to Hollywood, I knew I would never make it as a screenwriter. So I decided it was time to execute Plan F (since Plans A through E had failed to yield any tangible results). There was one form of writing I had never explored in any depth: Non-fiction. And there were at least two topics I had always been passionately interested in: baseball and history.

I had written a lot of term papers in college so the process came fairly naturally to me. The learning curve was steep and my first project was a failure. But my second book (Cellar Dwellers: The Worst Teams in Baseball History) ended up being published. I have kept on writing ever since. Though I still struggle with fiction, I have managed to produce two novels, both of which were released through indie presses. I have learned a lot about baseball over the past 15 years or so—maybe not enough to be considered an “expert” on the topic. But if I may be so bold, I can actually say that I’m getting closer with every book.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jonathan Weeks has written several sports biographies and two novels, one of which was a posthumous collaboration with his late father. He grew up in the Capital District region of New York State and currently works in the mental health field.

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