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SCOTUS, Hal Chase and A New Era of Gambling on Baseball



The United States Supreme Court on Monday voted 7-2 in favor of reversing the federal ban on sports betting. Based on the ruling, it will now fall under the authority of the individual state to mandate what forms of sports gambling, if any, will be legal in that state. The case, driven by New Jersey and their attempts to bolster Atlantic City against the defacto monopoly of the Las Vegas casinos’ sports books, has consequences for the massive underground economy of sports betting and the companies drooling to claim a piece of. There has been significant hyperbole on both sides of the debate, with some like Jeff Passan arguing that betting will be a huge boost to the game of baseball, while Charles Clotfelter protesting that for sports like the NCAA would be particularly vulnerable. Several owners and most leagues issued cautious statements, although Mark Cuban offered his usual restraint by opining that every top-four sports team owner just doubled the value of their franchise.

What does this mean for baseball? Well, if history tells us anything, it could mean a lot.

Gambling and baseball have a long history. While side bets and wagers were probably made in the crowd of the first games at the Elysian Fields, it wasn’t until baseball began to significantly professionalize in the 1870s that real time gamblers got involved in the game. After all, the game had wildly different rules between leagues, crowds were considerably smaller and the games were semi-amateur affairs. Lineups could be extremely inconsistent from game to game, making it impossible to make any kind of reasonable assessment of profitable odds and the loose, almost informal structure introduced the worst of all factors into a gambler’s considerations: inconsistency.

"It cannot be denied that hippodroming has prevailed." – Henry Chadwick

Following the establishment of the National League (and not long after, the American League), fans flocked to the ballpark as attendance grew. Following in their wake, lured by the smell of money, were the gamblers. In the early days, gambling was available in two places; the ballpark and at saloons and bars which put in Western Union telegraphs to receive the results of each play. Sport Sullivan was one of the most notorious of the on-site gamblers, having the sense not to call out for bets but to allow his punters to approach him. For over twenty years, he was a fixture at Red Sox and Braves games in Boston, operating in plain sight of the police and Pinkerton agents, consulted on by sports writers for his incredibly understanding of the game’s statistics, which dictated how he managed his odds through the game. In many ways, while Henry Chadwick might have invented the basis of baseball’s statistical recording, it was gamblers like Sullivan that were the first to apply them in an objective sense to evaluating the game.

The average punter and the game day gamblers were just the tip of the spear. After all, even though the bookies would roll tens of thousands of bets through the game, they operated on volume; small bets on ever advantageous odds to the bookmaker. They were the ones covering the bets, so their money was made on reading the ebb and flow of the game. The supplemental income was so important to many drinking establishments that when the local governments passed anti-gambling laws which cut access to Western Union telegraph wires, ordinances were quietly passed to allow pubs to retain their access if they posted train delays and weather updates, barely interrupting their bookmaking efforts. However, it was the high rollers that brought the next level of corruption to major league baseball.

The first major scandal to hit professional baseball was in 1877 with the Louisville Greys. While far from the first gambling/game fixing incident, it was notable because part of the reason behind the formation of the National League a year prior was to provide a higher level of baseball which could promise an ‘honest contest’, as opposed to small leagues, where tanking for the benefit of smaller punters was a common occurrence. Having raised themselves and their teams on a pedestal, the National League had much further to fall when the scandal broke.

Louisville had lead the league through most of the season, ahead by 3.5 games with just twelve left to play. However, despite being in first, the club was suffering severe financial difficulties. The team was undercapitalized and in debt, playing in a small ballpark, with ownership that refused to divest any control to attract investors. While they dominated the league, their finances collapsed to the point that by early August, they were unable to make payroll for the players and resorted to passing the hat after home games to earn any money. Midway through the season, when money troubles were starting to become apparent to the players, the Greys star slugger George Hall suggested that Al Nichols be picked up by the team to replace their injured third baseman Bill Hauge. Nichols was an all glove, no hit infielder who had been a teammate with the Greys shortstop Bill Carver the prior year on the New York Mutuals.

With 12 games to go, the play of the Greys collapsed. Jim Devlin, who had pitched every game that year for the Greys lost his normally stellar command, throwing wild pitches at key points. Both Nichols and Carver suffered defensive lapses, and even Hall started to strike out multiple times per game, whereas the year prior, he had struck out a career high of 4 times over 268 at-bats. John Haldeman, a reporter for his father’s Louisville Courier-Journal (who also owned a stake in the club) travelled with the team and was first to notice luxury items like new rings or diamond stickpins being worn by several players of the cash strapped club like Hall and Devlin. Nichols, a bench player and injury replacement, not only suddenly owned uncharacteristic finery, but was also receiving multiple telegrams in the clubhouse every game. John passed his suspicions to his father and filed a story about it, who passed both on to the owner Charles Chase. Chase demanded to see the telegrams and when Nichols refused, declared it to be an admission of guilt. Hall and Devlin faced grilling by Chase and William Haldeman, the news publisher, and after learning Western Union was releasing the contents of their telegrams to the owners, quickly confessed to Nichols being in touch with a gambler in New York who would instruct them on what games to throw and what misplays to try to work in. While Carver was never specifically implicated, he was a noted crooked player in his past, having been once expelled in 1870 for throwing games. William Hulbert banned all four for life, and due to the influence and success of the National League, none of them played more than a handful of games for other professional leagues. The Greys folded over the offseason after three seasons of play.

"Devlin, that is what I think of you personally, but damn you, you have sold a game, you are dishonest and this National League will not stand for it." – William Hulbert

The scandal was important for several reasons; first, that even though the new National League was committed to eliminating game fixing, they only had as much control in doing so as the owners would allow. Second, that the conduct of the owners would have as much impact on gamblers ability to influence the game as player greed. Despite a first place record, the Greys were a team living hand to mouth with no sign that things were going to improve. Devlin’s $100 payoff (about $2,450 in 2018 money) was a far safer bet in terms of getting paid after a loss than relying on fans passing the hat being generous after a win. These circumstances would factor heavily into many gambling scandals in the early days of baseball. However, the structure of the game itself would occasionally incur it. In the first World Series, it is widely assumed that the Boston and Pittsburgh teams had an agreement to split the first two games, in order to improve the chances of the series going close to the full 9 games and maximizing their paydays. However, for professional baseball, the image of a clean game had been preserved by Hulbert’s harsh reaction, and it wouldn’t be until 40 year later, after the turn of the century and the advent of the World Series that baseball would allow through inaction and indecision a series of events that would open the doors wide to gamblers and nearly destroy the game.

The harbinger came in the form of possibly the best first basemen to ever play the game at the time he began, Hal Chase. Chase, known as ‘Prince Hal’ to his fans and sportswriters at the time, was a highly innovative player, credited as the first man to regularly play off and behind the bag, and to coordinate the position with the pitcher in terms of coverage to allow him a wider fielding range. He was a solid offensive player; a gap hitter with good speed and flashes of power. He was a tall blond haired man with chiseled features whose looks were compared to a silent screen star, earning him a contingent of dedicated female fans and fawning profiles from baseball writers. He was also one of the great black marks on the game; a man so noted for throwing games and taking payoffs with such frequency that spectators would yell ‘what’s the odds, Hal?’ after a misplay. However, it wasn’t until 8 years into his baseball career that Chase would face a real investigation and it wasn’t until the winter before his final season that he’d face real charges.

Chase’s history was a straight line of troublesome actions. His first manager, Clark Griffiths was enamored of Chase and brushed off suggestions of tanking plays as a talented young player learning his craft. It wasn’t until George Stallings was named manager for the 1909 season that Chase faced any real scrutiny. Stallings and Chase feuded for two seasons, with the manager regularly complaining to reporters and ownership that Chase was taking bribes and helping gamblers target other players who would be willing to do the same, in order to fix games. Down the stretch in 1910, Stallings made public accusations about Chase to the entire press core present following a game that had been lost after Chase failed to come up with a throw. Chase protested to ownership, who promptly replaced Stallings as manager with none other than Chase himself. Other owners refused to bring an investigation in from the league, worried that if Chase was implicated, the whole of baseball would once again be suspect.

Chase would end up traded to the Chicago White Sox in 1913, playing alongside several players later involved in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. There are numerous anecdotes of him not only taking bribes but acting as a go-between and a facilitator for gamblers with other players and officials. Big money had come to baseball following the creation of the World Series and that meant they were able to up the ante significantly. Famed umpire Bill Clem was offered $2,500 in 1915 by a gambler during a regular mid-season game to give the close calls at the plate to the New York Giants. Despite the amount ($61,000 in today’s value), Clem refused and reported the incidents. It showed just how much money was tied up in the game in gambling, and how lax enforcement created fertile ground for men like Chase to further corrupt the outcome.

"I feel that it is unfortunate indeed that the Cincinnati club could not, in any manner, furnish me with evidence that Chase had placed a bet against his team." – John Heydler

In 1918, Chase was playing for the Reds under manager Christy Mathewson. Mathewson and Chase had both played in the New York media market, and he had no illusions about Chase’s willingness to tank a game for money. Mathewson also was more popular than Chase with the media; a pitcher beloved as the model Christian, citizen and ballplayer. When Mathewson benched Chase in August, the media sided with the manager and due to his complaint, the league finally took Chase’s conduct seriously. A pitcher, Pol Perritt, stated that Chase offered him $800 to throw a game against the Reds. A second one, Jimmy Ring, confirmed a similar story to the National Commission, the body that was charged with overseeing enforcement of the rules on baseball (and which had been quietly ignoring Chase’s indiscretions for years) felt the winds change and strongly endorsed National League President John Heydler to investigate. In January 1919, Heydler held an inquiry, which quickly fell apart. Perritt would not leave his Louisiana farm to testify because the league refused to cover the expense of his travel. Ring had stated there was a check cashed at a local bank for the bribe amount from Chase, but the league failed to get the bank to release it. Finally, the famed manager John McGraw, who openly wanted Chase for the Giants, was allowed as a character witness, where he defended Chase, claiming he was a prankster and any talk of bribes was just joking around. The league exonerated Chase. The decision would rapidly spell the end for the National Commission and Chase himself.

Despite being cleared of the charges by the league, the court of public opinion had finally turned on Chase. The chorus calling him corrupt exploded after the 1919 World Series Scandal went public, with many suggesting the roots of the scheme started back years before with Chase’ time on the White Sox. He was quickly pushed out of professional baseball, and within a number of years, smaller groups like the California league. The outrage destroyed the last gasp of credibility of the National Commission, with many writers suggesting that in their reluctance to crack down on Chase and others like him, they created an environment where crooked players felt like they could get away with anything. Coming on the heels of a deeply suspicious 1918 World Series, the open corruption of the 1919 World Series sent baseball into a tailspin the likes of which they hadn’t experienced since the 1870s. Fans simply couldn’t trust the outcome of the game wasn’t already fixed and attendance at ballparks suffered. Similar to the situation with the Greys, baseball was only able to right the ship by creating the office of the Commissioner and naming a popular judge, Kennesaw Mountain Landis in charge of it. Landis’ hard verdict expelling 8 Chicago White Sox players as well as the introduction of an absolute ban on any conduct around gambling and gamblers provided just enough credibility that baseball could move forward, bourne by the sudden massive impact of a pitcher turned slugger named Babe Ruth.

Both in 1877 and 1919, the same two factors helped drive the game into the hands of gamblers. The White Sox, owned by Charles Comiskey were popular and profitable, but their owner was notoriously penny pinching. He was happy to cut salary and impose fines for mistakes, and in 1917, shortchanged his winning team of their World Series shares. When the same was done to both teams in the 1918 World Series, it became clear that the owners were willing to rescind the incentives they offered at whim. Meanwhile, players near the end of the careers, with no pension and little in savings, saw game fixing bribes as a final way to cash out and leave the game with a nest egg that they couldn’t count on from ownership. The massive infrastructure of gambling around the game made that option not only feasible, but not particularly difficult to arrange. After all, gambling was part of the high society that their celebrity as baseball players opened up for them, and favourite managers and owners being treated as VIPs at horse tracks was common. It wasn’t until the mid 20s and Landis’ ruling that any kind of separation seriously began to take place. The end of the Deadball Era isn’t marked with just the change in the game and the ball, but also in the formal break in the structural relationship between organized gambling and baseball.

While gambling certainly has not disappeared from the game, as mentioned, the most significant and permissive ties did. Pete Rose’s ban from the game has remained in place despite public campaigns to overturn it through four straight commissioners. While drugs and steroids have long replaced gambling as the worst offense and scandal for many fans and writers, the injunction against gambling not only remains in place, but is still widely considered the third rail inside baseball for a player or coach. Fail a test, do your suspension and keep your head down, the Commissioner’s office will leave you be. Suspicion of gambling, on the other hand, will bring the full weight of the office into the investigation.

"The ban on sports betting does exactly what Prohibition did. It makes criminals rich." - James Surowiecki

So in understanding the history of gambling in regards to the game, what can we possibly expect from the outcome of this ruling? Now, first and foremost, the ruling allows states to make their own laws regarding sport gambling. A wide range of options are possible, from state controlled systems (perhaps modeled on Ontario’s Pro-Line system), access under existing gambling licenses, laisse-faire open laws and outright bans at the state level. Underground sports betting has been estimated to be anywhere from a $50B to $400B industry, and even if it is just a fraction of that, it will draw tremendous financial interest and with it, the lobbyists and political influencers to open it up as far as possible. One existing on-line fantasy sports provider stated in an interview that in the hour following the ruling, he received calls from 20 venture capitalists wanting to talk about investment and rapid expansion.

Now, obviously, the factors that once allowed gambling to nearly take baseball of a cliff with it don’t exist. Even teams that are undercapitalized are still dealing with tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. Players now have strong union protections, high minimum pay and a host of perks to enjoy at the major league level. In order to effectively bribe them to even throw one game, it would require sums of cash too large to be passed over in an envelope and quietly tucked away. The level of scrutiny and penalties are also significantly higher. Tanking one play isn’t impossible, but engineering deliberate mistakes that hold up under hundreds of views from multiple angles at any speed is a challenge, especially in a game that has statistical minded fans looking for patterns and deviations from the norm for analyses. It is unlikely that an isolated modern MLB level game could be bought off to be thrown without being quickly put under investigation, much less multiple ones.

However, as Passan’s article notes, baseball’s wealth of statistics combined with modern betting interfaces could open up wagers into far more elements of the game than just wins and losses. There’s process elements like pitch sequencing, converting RBI opportunities, successful holds and saves. There’s elements like spin rate on pitches or barreling balls on hits. There’s even roster elements like going to a specific bullpen arm or pinch hitter. Due to Baseball’s unique positioning and pace of play, each game could be split into dozens or hundreds of micro-transactions, not dissimilar to how bets were broken down back in Sport Sullivan’s day, just making use of superiour technology to place and record them. It isn’t hard to imagine an interface available in a casino for a game in progress, where after a pitch, you have the option of selecting the type of pitch thrown next, the outcome of it, an over or under on spin rate or velocity; a dozen possible options that might only be a dollar riding on each, but add up as computers determine the odds through complex calculations and the house takes a 1% cut on each transaction.

Once you’ve established a broader scope in terms of baseball betting, that’s where things could get interesting. Again, I believe that the sheer financial heft of a major league deal is enough to dissuade the kind of corruption that low salaries and owner greed made possible back in the Deadball Era. Unlike steroids, where the risk is balanced against a financial reward like a contract worth 9 figures, risking immediate expulsion if caught for a first offense for tens or hundreds of thousands that you have to find a way to then launder to hide is likely not worth that risk.

But… and you knew this was coming, once you have broader scope in baseball betting as an accepted and familiar model, what happens when eyes turn to the minor leagues? As particular outcomes like home runs or strike outs are easily factored into the equation, considering the attention that top prospects attract in the modern age of baseball, you could see deals happening with those outcomes in mind. Considering the ridiculously low compensation of minor league players and the low level of bonuses that players from the back end of the draft receive, suddenly a bribe in the thousands to groove a ball to a top hitting prospect or agree to rack up a couple of strike outs against a top pitching prospect doesn’t require the same level of deception that trying to influence a more complicated result like a loss does. After all, who would be surprised if a 22nd round pick who has been kicking around for six years in the minors misses his spot and leaves a slider up for a player like Acuna or Guerrero Jr. to murder? For an envelope that he can stash and spend a little at a time so no one is the wiser? As we’ve seen in baseball history, gamblers gain traction when player salaries are low and owners are unwilling to provide any reason to hope for better. While top prospects and major leaguers don’t fall into this categories, minor leaguers who only have a vague glimmer of hope of making the Bigs do.

Do I expect a huge rise in corruption and gamblers attaining the same level of power over the game as they once did? No. It is a fundamentally different world in the MLB and there is simply too much money involved to replicate the level of negligence that once flourished. But sports that rely on being able to maximize their return on the athletic abilities of poorly paid athletes, like the baseball minor leagues or college sports like the NCAA, players may find themselves in a position where if their future in sports in unlikely, a lucrative nest egg might be the most attractive strategy to maximize their last days in the sport. It happened before; it can happen again.

Editor's Note: This is a FanPost written by a reader and member of Bluebird Banter. It was not commissioned by the editors and is not necessarily reflective of the opinions of Bluebird Banter or SB Nation.