The 1919 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1919 season. The 16th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series (along with , , and ). Major League Baseball decided to try the best-of-nine format partly to increase popularity of the sport and partly to generate more revenue. The events of the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers, allegedly led by Arnold Rothstein, to throw the World Series games. The 1919 World Series was the last World Series to take place without a Commissioner of Baseball in place. In 1920, the various franchise owners installed Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first "Commissioner of Baseball." In August 1921, despite being acquitted from criminal charges, eight players from the White Sox were banned from organized baseball for either fixing the series or having knowledge about the fix. Teams Chicago White Sox In 1917, the Sox won the World Series and, managed by William "Kid" Gleason, the 1919 Chicago White Sox had the best record in the American League. Team owner Charlie Comiskey had succeeded in building one of the most powerful teams in baseball. Most of the same players had defeated the New York Giants in the 1917 World Series, four games to two. They had fallen to sixth place in the American League in 1918, largely as a result of losing their best player, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and a few of his teammates as well, to World War I service. Comiskey fired manager Pants Rowland after the season, replacing him with Kid Gleason, who had played over 20 years in the majors but had never managed before. The 88–52 White Sox won the American League pennant again in 1919, by games over the Cleveland Indians (world champions the following year). Jackson was the unquestioned star of the team. The left fielder hit .351 that season, fourth in the league and in the AL's top five in slugging percentage, RBI, total bases and base hits. He was not the only star in a lineup with hardly a weak spot, as former A's superstar leadoff hitter Eddie Collins, one of the greatest second