“Say it ain't so Joe. » (Pellowski 5). Those famous words were spoken by a heartbroken fan outside the courtroom of the Black Sox player's trial. To understand the deeper meaning of these words, let's go back to the 1919 Baseball World Series. A historic Chicago White Sox team prepares to face the Cincinnati Reds in what should be a White Sox-oriented lob game. They had the best player in "Shoeless", Joe Jackson, playing in the outfield and already had a world championship under their belt dating back to 1917. With all of these elements to consider during the World Series game, fans knew that the White Sox should easily win a game. victory and win the championship. Little did they know, however, that the White Sox players were painting a larger picture that would lead to a huge decline in the sport's popularity among players and fans. The Black Sox scandal shocked the people of the baseball world, changing the lives of players and tarnishing the reputation of the sport. During this era in baseball history, the Chicago White Sox had the best player in the game on their team. Joe Jackson was known simply as a future Hall of Famer and the best to ever play during that era (Chadwick 35). He proved this by hitting .351 all season, which led the Majors, as well as hitting .356 his entire life as a player, which is still one of the highest averages today (Chadwick 36). However, the White Sox were not a one man show, they also had the two best pitchers in the league, Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams (Chadwick 35). By 1919, the White Sox had already appeared in the World Series twice in a row. They had won the 1917 World Series, but lost in heartbreaking fashion in the 1918 World Series (Chadwick 35). There...... middle of paper ...... circumstantial evidence to prove that a fix had been put in place (Chadwick 40). The only option was to find the eight players not guilty of the scandal and let them return freely to the public (Chadwick 40). The reaction of the crowd in the courtroom was filled with happiness and joy when the jury read that all eight White Sox players were found not guilty due to insufficient evidence to render a verdict (Chadwick 40). The commissioner of baseball, however, did. didn't seem to care too much about what the jury had to say about the case against the players (Chadwick 40). Even though the players were found innocent, the commissioner still issued lifetime bans to all players involved in the Black Sox scandal, including Joe Jackson (Chadwick 40). Even today, players are excluded from the Hall of Fame because of suspensions and scandal..