LITTLE BOXES

by Sooze, Babes Love Baseball

A box will be up for grabs starting Monday at Mastro Auctions in Burr Ridge, IL. Inside this mysterious box are rare documents that supposedly detail events surrounding the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. So what exactly is inside and where the hell has it been for the past eight decades?

It reportedly contains documents from the 1921 criminal trial against eight Chicago White Sox players who were accused of tossing the World Series amidst a gambling scandal and acquitted; and documents from a 1924 lawsuit pitting the players against the franchise for back pay.

Two people, whose identities remain anonymous, sold the old box to the auction house, but gave no information on how they obtained it or where it has been since the 1920's.

Some nasty correspondence between then-club owner Charles Comiskey and then-AL president Byron Johnson were also found inside, along with a letter written in 1920, just after news of the scandal went public, from Comiskey to a fan. It reads as follows:

"Words utterly fail to express my appreciation of the kind things you and my other friends have taken every opportunity to express. They are indeed compensation for much that I have recently endured."

Whoa. Some dorky historian just peed himself a little.