• A game in September 1865 which resulted in a 23–11 victory for the
Eckford of Brooklyn over the
New York Mutuals was fixed according to confessions by those involved. Mutuals
catcher Bill Wansley was approached by gambler Kane McLoughlin to throw the game for $100. Wansley enlisted the help of the Mutuals
third baseman Ed Duffy who agreed to participate if they included
shortstop Thomas Devyr. Wansley took the two players by
wagon to the
Hoboken Ferry where the payment was divided. Duffy and Devyr both received $30 each and Wansley kept $40 for himself. The fielding of those in on the fix—particularly Wansley's performance—was so poor that rumors of a fix began almost instantly. Wansley had so many
passed balls during the game that he was moved to
right field in the seventh inning.
Henry Chadwick wrote about the game for the
New York Clipper and defended Wansley against the fixing allegations. Mutuals players who were not in on the fix became suspicious of Wansley and accused him of "wilful and designated inattention". After a formal investigation, Wansley admitted to the fix and the three players were banned from organized baseball. Devyr was allowed to return in 1867 for a short time before two complaints from opposing teams were filed against the Mutuals. In December 1867, baseball's National Commission voted to reinstate Devyr. Duffy returned to the Mutuals in 1868, but was not reinstated by the National Commission, which led to one of the Mutuals opponents to file a complaint to void the games Duffy appeared in. The complaint was successful and the Mutuals were briefly expelled from organized baseball. The final convention of the amateur baseball National Commission was held on November 30, 1870. At the convention, Mutuals president John Wildly motioned to reinstate Wansley to good standing which was approved. • On July 24, 1873
umpire Bob Ferguson declared a game between
Baltimore Canaries and the
New York Mutuals fixed by gamblers. Ferguson went into the stands to confront the gamblers following the game and then went back down to the field to confront players he believed were in on the fix. Two of the Mutuals players—
John Hatfield and
Nat Hicks—began accusing each other of being in on the fix. Hicks eventually grabbed a
baseball bat and struck Ferguson in the arm which caused it to break. Ferguson, who was also a player as well as an umpire, was unable to play for one year because of the injury. No actions were taken against Hicks or any other player. • In 1875, the St. Paul Red Caps and the Winona Clippers split a two-game championship series. Rumors gained steam after the series that two Clippers players—Frank Smith and W. W. Fisher—had worked with gamblers to fix the games. Fisher signed a confession that he accepted $250 from an unidentified gambler. • In 1877, four players for the
Louisville Grays were banned from organized baseball for
throwing games.
Louisville Courier-Journal sports writer
John Haldeman, whose father
Walter Haldeman owned the team, became suspicious of the play of the four members of the Grays and began writing in his columns that he believed the players were purposefully losing. His columns led to a formal investigation and four players—
Jim Devlin,
George Hall,
Al Nichols and
Bill Craver—were banned from organized professional baseball for life. Craver's involvement in the plot is debated by baseball historians including Bob Bailey for the
Society of American Baseball Research. • In 1882, due to his associations with gamblers,
National League umpire Dick Higham was
banned from organized baseball for life. The information was uncovered by
private investigators hired by owners of the
Detroit Wolverines, who suspected Higham of fixing games. • In 1908,
National League umpires Jim Johnstone and
Bill Klem reported to the league office that they were approached before a make-up game between the
Chicago Cubs and the
New York Giants and offered money to fix the game. The make-up game was on account of a baserunning mistake by
Fred Merkle known as "
Merkle's Boner". • An
American League game on September 25, 1919, between the
Detroit Tigers and
Cleveland Indians was fixed according to letters ascertained by league president
Ban Johnson in 1926. The letters were between Detroit
outfielder Ty Cobb and Cleveland outfielder
Smokey Joe Wood. They were sold to Johnson by
pitcher Dutch Leonard who was one of the four players in on the fix along with Cobb, Wood and Cleveland
player-manager Tris Speaker. According to Leonard, Cobb suggested the players place bets on the game which they had already agreed to fix. Cobb denied placing any bets, but did confess to being involved in the fix. According to a retrospective of events by the
Chicago Tribune in 1989, Leonard went to Johnson with the letters in 1926 after he became embittered at Cobb and Wood whom he felt had a hand in ending his career early. Johnson initially turned Leonard away and he went to Detroit owner
Frank Navin with the letters. Navin advised Johnson to make a payment to Leonard to keep the letters from going public. Johnson then agreed to pay Leonard $20,000 for the letters. Following the 1926 season, Johnson called a secret meeting with Cobb and Speaker, who were the managers of their respective teams. Johnson laid out the facts and advised the men to resign their positions as managers, which both did. Cobb and Speaker both retired from playing in 1928 and neither took another managerial job. The
Associated Press broke the story on December 21, 1926. • In 1919, gamblers bribed several members of the
Chicago White Sox to throw the
World Series. This became known as the
Black Sox Scandal and was recounted in the 1963 book,
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series – which was later
adapted for film. • Following the 1919
Pacific Coast League (PCL) season,
first baseman Babe Borton alleged that as a member of the pennant winning
Vernon Tigers, he was party to pay-offs to all other PCL teams to ensure they would lose to Vernon. Borton alleged that every member of the Tigers pooled their money to make the pay-offs. Nate Raymond of
Seattle, Washington was responsible for the payments according to Borton.
Seattle Indians first baseman Rod Murphy alleged that Raymond offered him a $2,000 bribe during the 1920 season and confided that during the 1919 season he won $50,000 from gambling on fixed PCL games. Ultimately no player was faced criminal charges. The PCL banned several players for life, but some like
Bill Rumler was reinstated after several years. • On September 27, 1924, before a game between the
New York Giants and the
Philadelphia Phillies, Giants backup
outfielder Jimmy O'Connell approached Phillies
shortstop Heinie Sand with a $500 bribe for to throw the game. If the Giants beat the Phillies it would have clinched them the
National League pennant and a trip to the
World Series. Sand rejected the offer and reported the incident which made its way up to the
Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis. O'Connell confessed that he did attempt to bribe Sand, but contended Giants coach
Cozy Dolan had put him up to it. Landis suspended O'Connell and Dolan from
organized baseball for life. • On June 5, 1947,
National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues president
George Trautman banned
Western Association outfielder Marion McElreath for attempting to bribe an opposing player to fix a game on May 4. 1947. • In 1947, a report by
National Commission president
William G. Bramham found that five players in the
Evangeline League, a
minor league based in
Louisiana, fixed several playoff games in 1946 for gambling purposes. For their role in the alleged plot, the five players—Bill Thomas, Lanny Pecou, Alvin W. Kaiser, Paul Fugit and Don Vettorel—were banned from
professional baseball for life. An investigation of the alleged actions of the five players by
Society for American Baseball Research writer George W. Hilton found little proof that there was any match-fixing. One of the accused players, Bill Thomas,
pitched a perfect 5–0 record in the playoffs. Hilton conducted an interview with an unnamed player in the Evangeline League who claimed he was approached to be a part of the fixing scheme, but declined. The unnamed player contended that the plot failed, which was highlighted by one instance where a player who was in on the fix tried to strike out but made contact with the ball for a
double. • Between 1969 and 1971, a series of events known as
The Black Mist Scandal rocked
Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan. It was revealed that several NPB players had been paid off to fix games for gamblers. Ten players were banned from the NPB for life with several other players receiving penalties ranging from salary cuts to suspensions. • In 1978,
outfielder Bárbaro Garbey was banned from
Cuban baseball for his part in match-fixing. He defected from
Cuba to the United States in 1980 and later that year signed a contract with the
Detroit Tigers to join their
minor league organization. The match-fixing incidents were revealed for the first time in the American press on May 22, 1983, by the
Miami Herald. In an interview with Garbey,
Herald writer Peter Richmond brought up match-fixing allegations and Garbey admitted to playing a part in the scheme. Garbey was allowed to continue his minor league career, but the Tigers were prevented from calling him up by the ruling of the
National Commission president
John H. Johnson. The ruling was lifted in 1984 and the Tigers called Garbey up from the minors. Garbey later returned to Cuba and became a
manager. • In 1982, the ten members of the
Cuba national baseball team who participated in
that year's Central American and Caribbean Games were arrested and sentenced to between two and four years in prison for fixing games. • In 1997, 22 players in the
Chinese Professional Baseball League were sentenced to between seven and 30 months in prison for match-fixing. So many of the members of
China Times Eagles were involved in the plot that the team fielded mostly
rookies in that season's championship series. • In 2005,
Yunlin County,
Taiwan prosecutor Wei-yu Hsu announced indictments of 16 baseball players, book makers and others involved in fixing
professional baseball games. Five of the 16 people were players in the
Chinese Professional Baseball League and one of them was a coach. Hsu named
Macoto Cobras coach Sheng-fong Tsai and
La New Bears catcher Chao-ying Chen as being the orchestrators of the fixings. One of the instances included in the indictment was evidence that La New Bears
pitcher Long-shui Tai was paid by Chen to throw a game on July 14, 2005. Chen confessed to investigators that he accepted a payment of
NT$600,000 to throw the game. • In 2008, three players were suspended indefinitely from the
Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) for match-fixing. Prosecutors said evidence of the fixing came to light after police detained six members of
dmedia T-REX and four people identified as
bookmakers. T-Rex executive director Shih Chien-hsin confessed to police that hatched the plan with people identified as "gangsters" by the
Taipei Times. The three players banned from the CBPL were
catcher Chen Ker-fan,
center fielder Chen Yuan-chia and pitcher
Cory Bailey. Chen Ker-fan and Chen Yuan-chia, who were both from
Taiwan, were arrested and released on
NT$50,000 in bail each. Bailey, who is an American national and previously played in
Major League Baseball, was arrested and released on a NT$100,000 bond. In 2008, Taiwan's
Criminal Investigation Bureau looked into a total of 102 illegal betting allegations in the CPBL, which involved a total of 222 suspects. • In 2009, another match-fixing scandal hit the
Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). Following the season, allegations arose that the
Brother Elephants—one of Taiwan's most popular baseball clubs—had accepted money to lose during that year's
Taiwan Series against the
Uni-President 7-11 Lions. By the end of a prosecutor's investigation, 23 Elephants players had been named as being in on the fix, including pitcher
Chin-hui Tsao, who was the first Taiwanese pitcher to play in
Major League Baseball. • In 2016,
South Korean police released information about an alleged match-fixing scheme in the
Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) dating back to 2014 that involved 21 people—three of whom played in the KBO. Pitchers Chang-sik Yoo and Sung-min Lee were named by police in the probe and one player was identified only by his surname 'Kim'. ==Basketball==