Published in the Summer of 1960, this bestselling recounting of one of the most famous scandals in baseball history is part memoir, part collection of interviews and essays, and part attempt to exorcise the past while rewriting many of its most basic assumptions.
FOREWARD
It’s a peculiar feeling, although perhaps not an uncommon one, to be chasing the ghosts of your childhood. One tends to remember major events from their youth—maybe not so much the details with crystal clarity, but the feelings that they evoked and the moral lessons to be taken from them. The actors—flawed men, in this instance, to be sure—get dissolved away into caricature and the murky shadow of right and wrong gets calcified.
The “Sinister Seven,” as they were so immortalized in the popular consciousness during “Madigan’s Trial:” Blennerhassett, Harris, Richardson, Rosco, Rutledge, Taylor and, most heartbreaking of all to my younger self, Samuelson. A young, dull man from Texas who was blessed with one of the sweetest swings the game of baseball had known and afflicted with an obsession with outlaws. A former Grande Snagger centerfielder who felt his career threatened by challengers to his mantle in the outfield. A corrupted team captain, feeling his arm fading and time calling his career towards the end with its siren call. Three outsiders–one an amazing lefthanded pitcher, another the first MVP winner in the Eastern League not named McKenzie, and the last a sharp fielding third basemen in the midst of a career year—arrived from the Frontier Division of the Western League by trade and, not used to winning, sought to cash in on their success. And, lastly, the finest fielding rightfielder the game of baseball had known, plagued by greed and a flawed character, sold both the adoration of every Brooklyn youth and baseball immortality in a package deal for a little bit of lucre. All—pariahs–banned from baseball for life.
As the story goes, The Seven sold the soul of baseball and nearly fixed the 1902 Legacy Cup, dragging the series to Game 9 at the direction of their General Manager, Landon Kerr, who was desperate to save the collapsing finances of the team’s owner, William Barclay. They were supposed to lose the Cup. What they lost instead were their careers, their reputations, and, nearly, the entirety of major league baseball.
Infamously, the Whales, torn at the seams by the pressure of the scandal, collapsed and succumbed to the Providence Angels—losing the Ivy League for the first time in 4 years in the most famous collapse in Legacy Baseball history—and emerged from it all a tarnished franchise whose very legitimacy remained in question for years thereafter.
The damage done to the Legacy Baseball League was swift. Fan interest and team revenue plummeted in the seasons that followed 1903, after the scandal came to light. The “trial” put on by Commissioner Alexander Madigan, a craven attempt to save his own legacy, was, to put it charitably, a circus—one that captivated and consumed popular attention to the exclusion of the game of baseball. The Congressional hearings that followed were no better organized. The doubts sewn on the findings in the following decades still linger.
As a boy from Brooklyn and, more importantly, as a baseball fan, this story is one that is personal to me. In light of recent events, I felt that now, more than ever, it was important to explore the quagmire surrounding the Brooklyn baseball dynasty of the ‘00s, and the attendant fallout for the game of baseball, from every reasonable angle of which I could conceive. Further, I thought it important as a fan of the game of baseball to record the thoughts and recollections of those who lived this story firsthand before their voices were lost forever.
What I learned during the course of this exploration is that the story—explosive and destructive at the time—is a familiar one at its basic core.
It’s the story of Icarus–of Seven men stretching for a prize just beyond their grasp and their attendant fall. It’s the story of Tiberius–of a great man diminished by age, the opportunism of others, and the cruelties of the ledger book. It’s also the story of Prometheus and Pandora—a man, blinded by arrogance, and the unforeseen consequences that resulted. It’s the story of several men, spared by trade and good fortune, who escaped the tempest that followed despite their likely involvement. Finally, but not least importantly, it is the story of many youths—mine included—corrupted and perverted by the encroaching influences of the folly of alleged adults.
I needed to write this story now because I fear that, though the facts are different this time, the impact may very well be the same for the affected youths. It is meant, primarily, to be a love letter to the fallen heroes of my childhood, but also to the enduring spirit of America’s Great Game, and a reflection on misplaced idolatry and the corrupting influence of greed within baseball.
I want to dedicate this work to my loving wife, Lauren, for her unconditional support of my own Ahab-like journey to rid myself of the Whales and for her endless understanding when I emerged unsuccessful. And, thank you to my publisher, who gave me the freedom to explore a familiar story with neither hesitation nor restriction.
Charles Fletcher
Brooklyn, New York 1960