Battlefields

A fascinating examination of how World War I impacted the Chicago White Sox and led to the infamous Black Sox scandal.

All sixteen clubs in Major League Baseball faced challenges and obstacles during World War I, the Chicago White Sox more so than many. Though owner Charles Comiskey supported military preparedness throughout the American League in 1917, the team was soon losing players to the war effort and floundering, despite winning the first wartime World Series that fall.

In Battlefields, Jim Leeke provides the first detailed examination of how World War I affected the team and ultimately led to the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Leeke recounts how, during the 1918 season, stars suddenly abandoned their team for jobs and spots on company baseball teams in essential industries, while others enlisted and still more were lost to the military draft. During the war-shortened season, Comiskey and the White Sox struggled to keep a competitive team on the field, fans in the seats, and black ink in the account books amid soaring prices and wartime taxes.

The White Sox emerged from the war in good shape, ready again to capture the first postwar American League pennant. But, as Leeke deftly shows, the problems and divisions that simmered during 1918 ultimately led to the infamous “Black Sox” scandal and the club’s fall into disgrace. Battlefields charts the Chicago club’s dual rise and fall in captivating detail.