Charles Comiskey

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Charles Comiskey
First baseman/Manager/Owner
Born: (1859-08-15)August 15, 1859
Chicago, Illinois
Died: October 26, 1931(1931-10-26) (aged 72)
Eagle River, Wisconsin
Batted: Right Threw: Right
MLB debut
May 2, 1882 for the St. Louis Brown Stockings
Last MLB appearance
September 12, 1894 for the Cincinnati Reds
Career statistics
Batting average .264
Hits 1,530
Runs 994
Teams

As Player

As Manager

As Owner

Career highlights and awards

Induction 1939
Election Method Veteran's Committee

Charles Albert "The Old Roman" Comiskey (August 15, 1859 – October 26, 1931) was an American Major League Baseball player, manager and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League, and was also founding owner of the Chicago White Sox.[1] Comiskey Park, the White Sox' storied baseball stadium, was built under his guidance and named for him.[1]

Comiskey's reputation was permanently tarnished by his team's involvement in the Black Sox Scandal, a conspiracy to "throw" the 1919 World Series.[1] Despite popular allegations that his poor treatment of White Sox players fueled the conspiracy, Comiskey was inducted as an executive into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.[1]

Baseball career

An 1887 baseball card showing Comiskey as a St. Louis Brown.

Comiskey was the son of Illinois politician John Comiskey. He started his playing career as a pitcher, and moved to first base after developing arm trouble. He entered the American Association in 1882 with the St. Louis Brown Stockings.[2] He managed the team during parts of its first seasons and took over full-time in 1885,[2] leading the Browns to four consecutive American Association championships and a close second in 1889.[citation needed] He also played and managed for the Chicago Pirates in the Players' League (1890), the Browns again (1891), and the Cincinnati Reds in the National League (1892–94).[citation needed]

As an owner

Comiskey left Cincinnati and the majors in fall 1894 to purchase the Western League club in Sioux City, Iowa and move it to Saint Paul, Minnesota.[2] He had compiled a .264 batting average with 29 home runs, 883 RBI and 419 stolen bases. As a manager, he posted an 839-542 record.

After five seasons of sharing the Twin Cities with another Western League club in Minneapolis, Comiskey and his colleagues arranged to share Chicago with the National League, whose club (the Chicago Cubs today) played on the West Side. The St. Paul Saints moved to the South Side as the White Stockings of the renamed American League for the 1900 season. The American League then declared itself a major league starting in 1901.[2]

Charles Comiskey, circa 1910

As owner of the White Sox from 1900 until his death in 1931, Comiskey oversaw building Comiskey Park in 1910 and winning five American League pennants (1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919) and two World Series (1906, 1917).[2] He lost popularity with his players, whose views of him became hateful, and that is seen as a factor in the Black Sox scandal, when eight players on the AL champions conspired to "throw" the 1919 World Series to the NL champion Cincinnati Reds.[2] Comiskey was notoriously stingy (his defenders called him "frugal"), even forcing his players to pay to launder their own uniforms.[2] Traci Peterson notes that, in an era when professional athletes lacked free agency, the White Sox's formidable players had little choice but to accept Comiskey's substandard wages. She writes: "Charles Risberg and Claude Williams made less than $3,000 a year. Joe Jackson and George Weaver made only $6,000 a year. Eddie Cicotte had been promised a $10,000 bonus if he could win 30 games in a season. When Cicotte closed in on the 30-game goal, Comiskey had him benched to keep him from reaching the mark".[2] In one incident, he promised his players a bonus for winning the 1919 pennant — the "bonus" turned out to be a case of flat champagne.

When the scandal broke late in the 1920 season, Comiskey suspended the suspected players, while admitting in the telegram he sent to them that he knew this action cost the White Sox a second straight pennant. However, he initially defended the accused players and, in an unusual display of largesse, provided them with expensive legal representation. He ultimately supported baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis' decision to ban the implicated White Sox players from further participation in professional baseball, knowing full well that Landis' action would permanently sideline the core of his team.[2] Indeed, the White Sox promptly tumbled into seventh place and would not be a factor in a pennant race again until 1936, five years after Comiskey's death.

Legacy

Comiskey is sometimes credited with the innovation of playing the first base position behind first base or inside the foul line, a practice which has since become common.[2] He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.[1]

Comiskey died in Eagle River, Wisconsin at age of 72. The White Sox would remain in his family until 1958.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Charlie Comiskey". Baseball Library. Retrieved 2007-12-27. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 "Charles "The Old Roman" Comiskey". University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Retrieved 2007-12-27. 

Further reading

External links

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