Quote (Odell @ Feb 12 2016 11:04pm)
Banned forever, is that the first?
People banned under and possibly before Landis[edit]
These players were unofficially banned from baseball, a ban later made official by Landis.
Hal Chase of the New York Giants was banned in 1921 for consorting with gamblers and betting on his own teams, among other corrupt practices. (Chase had previously been accused of fixing games as early as 1910, and was reportedly passed over for managerial opportunities due to the allegations. In 1918 Christy Mathewson had suspended Chase mid-season for fixing games, and John McGraw persuaded Mathewson to trade him to the Giants. At the end of the 1919 season, National League president John Heydler found evidence that Chase had indeed taken money from gamblers in 1918. Heydler ordered his immediate release, and no other National League team would sign him. Since no American League team would sign him either, Chase was effectively blackballed from the major leagues. Landis' declaration after the Black Sox trial that no one who bet on baseball would ever be allowed to play is recognized as formalizing the ban.)
Joe Harris of the Cleveland Indians was banned for life in 1920 after he chose to play for an independent team rather than the Indians. (Harris was reinstated by Landis in 1922 due, in part, to his service during World War I.)
Heinie Zimmerman
Heinie Zimmerman of the New York Giants was banned in 1921 for encouraging his teammates to fix games. (He had been benched by McGraw and later sent home during the 1919 season, and had been informally banned from the majors. During the 1917 World Series, he chased the winning run across the plate and found himself having to deny having helped throw the Series. Despite some of these allegations, McGraw would not turn him in, not wanting to be the one responsible for having one of his players banned for life, and suspended him indefinitely. Later, McGraw testified in court that Zimmerman conspired to fix games. As with Chase, Landis' declaration after the Black Sox trial is seen as formalizing Zimmerman's ban as well.)
People banned under Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis[edit]
Shoeless Joe Jackson, 1919
Lefty Williams
Chick Gandil
Eight players from the Chicago White Sox were banned in 1920 for conspiring with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series in the Black Sox scandal:
"Shoeless" Joe Jackson. (The precise extent of Jackson's involvement is controversial.)
Eddie Cicotte. (One story says that Cicotte had been promised a $10,000 bonus – equal to $136,000 today – if he won 30 games; he was denied five starts towards the end of the season by team owner Charles Comiskey, who had manager Kid Gleason bench him to "save his arm for the World Series". However, the story remains unsubstantiated. Cicotte went 29-7 for the season.)
Lefty Williams lost all three of his starts in the World Series, setting a record that has never been matched. (The only other pitcher to have lost three games in a single World Series, George Frazier in 1981, lost all three of his appearances in relief.)
Chick Gandil was the mastermind and ringleader of the scandal.
Fred McMullin was only a backup infielder. However, he overheard teammates discussing the fix and threatened to report them unless he was included.
Swede Risberg was one of the ringleaders of the scandal.
Happy Felsch hit and fielded poorly in the series.
Buck Weaver was banned because he knew of the conspiracy, but did not report it to MLB authorities and team ownership; Weaver successfully sued owner Charles Comiskey for his 1921 salary.
Joe Gedeon of the St. Louis Browns was banned in 1920 for allegedly conspiring with the gamblers behind the Black Sox scandal.
Eugene Paulette of the Philadelphia Phillies was banned in 1921 for associating with known gamblers.
Benny Kauff of the New York Giants was banned in 1920 for selling stolen cars. (Commissioner Landis considered him "no longer a fit companion for other ball players", despite Kauff being acquitted of the charges against him in court.)
Lee Magee of the Chicago Cubs was released just before the season began. Magee sued the Cubs for his 1920 salary and lost; after court testimony proved he had been involved in throwing games and collecting on bets, Landis banned him for life.
Heinie Groh of the Cincinnati Reds was banned for two days in 1921 while he held out for a higher salary, and Landis gave Groh an ultimatum: play for the Reds in 1921, or face lifetime banishment. (Groh chose the former option and played out the 1921 season; he retired in 1927.)
Ray Fisher of the Cincinnati Reds was banned in 1921 after he refused to play for the Reds; he had asked for his outright release when the Reds cut his salary by $1,000 (equal to $13,300 today), but the Reds refused to release him. (Fisher was hired by the University of Michigan to coach baseball later that year, and was reinstated by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn in 1980; he died in 1982.)
Dickie Kerr of the Chicago White Sox was suspended from organized baseball in 1922 for violating the reserve clause in his contract.[4] Kerr was reinstated in 1925.
Phil Douglas of the New York Giants was banned in 1922 after notifying an acquaintance on the St. Louis Cardinals that he planned to jump the Giants for the pennant stretch run to spite McGraw, with whom Douglas had had a severe falling out during the regular season.
Jimmy O'Connell of the New York Giants and Giants coach Cozy Dolan were banned in 1924 for offering Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Heinie Sand $500 (equal to $6,900 today) to throw a game between the two teams for the financial gain of O'Connell own and his gambler backers.
William B. Cox, Philadelphia Phillies owner, was banned in 1943 for betting on his team's games. (Cox and one of his predecessors, Horace Fogel, were both owners of the Phillies at different times and were both banned, making them thus far the only owners to be banned for life.)
People banned under Commissioner Bowie Kuhn[edit]
After Landis died in 1944, there was a long lull before the next banishment, and no players were banned under Commissioners Happy Chandler (1945–1951), Ford Frick (1951–1965) and Spike Eckert (1965–1968). During Bowie Kuhn's tenure (1969–1984), only three players (or former players) were banned for life.
Ferguson Jenkins of the Texas Rangers was banned in 1980 after a customs search in Toronto, Ontario, found 3 grams (0.11 oz) of cocaine, 2.2 grams (0.078 oz) of hashish, and 1.75 grams (0.062 oz) of marijuana on his person. (Jenkins missed the rest of the 1980 season, but was reinstated by an independent arbiter, and retired following the 1983 season. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991.)
Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, both retired and both in no way involved in baseball anymore, were banned in 1983 after they were hired by casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as greeters and autograph signers.[5] (Kuhn opined that a casino was "no place for a baseball hero and Hall of Famer"; Mantle and Mays were reinstated by Peter Ueberroth in 1985, and Mantle died in 1995.)
People banned under Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti[edit]A. Bartlett Giamatti spent less than six months as Commissioner of Baseball before he died of a heart attack at his Martha's Vineyard home.
Pete Rose, manager of the Cincinnati Reds, was banned for life; Rose was investigated in 1989 for his alleged ties to gamblers; when new information on Rose's gambling habits came to light, Giamatti banned Rose. (While president of the National League in 1988, Giamatti had suspended Rose for thirty games for shoving an umpire during a heated argument.)
However, Giamatti granted Rose one concession: Rose could apply for reinstatement once a year for as long as he lived after ten years. Rose has subsequently applied for reinstatement four times; all four reinstatement requests have been rejected. After years of denial, Rose admitted that "everything" the Dowd Report contained was the complete, unadulterated truth.[6]
People banned under Commissioner Fay Vincent[edit]Fay Vincent became commissioner upon the death of Giamatti.
George Steinbrenner, New York Yankees owner, was banned in 1990 for paying a private investigator $40,000 (equivalent to $72,000 in 2016) to "dig up dirt" on Yankees player Dave Winfield in order to discredit him; much of the information Steinbrenner received was from small-time gambler and rackets-runner Howard Spira, who had once worked for Winfield's charitable foundation. (In Steinbrenner's absence, Robert Nederlander, a limited partner, took control of the Yankees, and Joe Molloy, Steinbrenner's son-in-law, took control after Nederlander resigned.[7] Molloy relinquished the team back to Steinbrenner when Bud Selig reinstated him in 1993; Steinbrenner retired as owner in 2006, passing control to his sons permanently, and died in 2010.)
Steve Howe of the New York Yankees was banned in 1992 after receiving seven suspensions related to drug use, particularly cocaine and alcohol. (An independent arbiter reinstated Howe shortly after; Howe retired in 1996 and died in 2006.)
People banned under Commissioner Bud Selig[edit]Bud Selig became Commissioner after Fay Vincent's resignation; he was Acting Commissioner between 1992–1998, and was elected to the Office of Commissioner in 1998.[/B]
Marge Schott, Cincinnati Reds owner, was banned in 1996 for bringing Major League Baseball into disrepute by repeatedly making slurs against blacks, Jews, Asians and homosexuals, and showing a sympathetic attitude to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.[8] (Schott had previously been fined $250,000 – equivalent to $410,000 in 2016 – and banned from day-to-day operations of the Reds for the 1993 season for similar offending; she was the first, and to date only, woman to be banned; she was reinstated in 1998, resigned as owner in 1999 and died in 2004.)
People banned under Commissioner Rob Manfred[edit]Rob Manfred succeeded Bud Selig as the Commissioner of Baseball due to Selig's retirement on January 25, 2015.
Jenrry Mejía, New York Mets pitcher, was banned on February 12, 2016 for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs three times--all in less than a year. He may seek reinstatement in 2017, but will not be eligible to pitch again until 2018 at the earliest.[9]
This post was edited by DiabloDarkness on Feb 12 2016 09:32pm