The Chicago White Sox won baseball’s world series for the first time in a century a few years ago. It was a thrilling series, completed in a sweep of four games over Houston. Few people are alive who remember the year, now 86 years ago, when the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Although this baseball scandal is still remembered by baseball fans, few will recall that a Canadian helped expose one of the great game’s darkest days.
And even fewer realize that that Canadian came from the Grey County town of Durham. His name was Bert Collyer and today, he is nearly totally forgotten in his own hometown. Born in 1877, Collyer grew up in Grey County schools before going off to the city where he became a sports writer and journalist. In 1915, he founded Collyer’s Eye, a weekly publication distributed throughout the United States and Canada. Collyer’s Eye was what was know as a tout sheet, a magazine for those who gambled on the horses, boxing, racing and even the stock market.
With its focus on the gambling world, it wasn’t long before the rumours of a baseball fix began to sift in across Bert Collyer’s desk. And the rumours said that the favoured White Sox were about to throw the World Series to the Reds in return for large payoffs. After Cincinnati won the World Series, Collyer assigned a report to investigate the scuttlebutt about bribes and dropped fly balls.
Collyer’s probe earned him the name ‘muckraker” but he persisted. The growing scandal uncovered by his magazine led to a fully realized investigation by major league baseball. When the smoke clear, seven Chicago White Sox players including Shoeless Joe Jackson had been banned for life from ever playing professional baseball again. Grey County’s Bert Collyer died at the age of 61 in 1938 and is buried in Guelph.
Originally aired October 2nd 2016
Comments