The Chicago Cubs’ victory in the 112th World Series was refreshing to watch. Historic underdogs, even if they weren’t this year, finally had their time to make baseball history.
Baseball is an old sport, one that Americans have followed for over a century now. As with any piece of history, a lot can be learned from it.
There is no clock in baseball. That is just one small part of what makes the sport beautiful. A team can be down by nine in the ninth and can still rally — granted that they haven’t given up.
Some players, mostly from the New York Yankees, are timeless household names whose fame will never run out: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron. It’s a lot more fun to focus on the bright side of baseball history.
But over its century-long story, baseball has had its darker moments.
The 1919 World Series ultimately ended not in celebration, but in a large number of people losing faith in the sport. The series that year was tainted when a group of Chicago White Sox players teamed up with gamblers to purposefully lose.
The White Sox were coming off a World Series win the year before and seemed to be an elite contender to win again when they took the field against the historically mediocre Cincinnati Reds. The White Sox lost the series 3-5.
When news broke of gamblers and players controlling the outcome in this “Black Sox Scandal”, baseball became corrupt in the eyes of the public. Most baseball fans alive today can remember a similar situation after the fallout of the steroid years in baseball.
The sport took a hit, and it would go on to take many more, but people kept playing and fans kept watching despite all the negative sentiments at the time.
