basemen of all time, was still going strong in his early thirties, hitting .319 with a .400 on-base percentage. Right fielder Nemo Leibold hit .302 with 81 runs scored. First baseman Chick Gandil hit .290, third baseman Buck Weaver .296, and center fielder Oscar "Hap" Felsch hit .275 and tied Jackson for the team lead in home runs with only 7 (as the dead-ball era was coming to a close). Even typical "good field, no hit" catcher Ray Schalk hit .282 that year, and shortstop Swede Risberg was not an automatic out with the .256 average and 38 RBI. Manager Gleason's bench contained two impressive hitters, outfielder Shano Collins and infielder Fred McMullin, both veterans of the 1917 world championship. The 1919 pennant-winning pitching staff was led by a pair of aces and a very promising rookie. Knuckleballer Eddie Cicotte had become one of the AL's best pitchers after turning 30 and discovering the "shine ball;" he had won 28 games for the 1917 champions, and after an off-year in 1918 had come back with a hefty 29–7, leading the league in wins and second in earned run average to Washington's veteran "Big Train" Walter Johnson. Next came Claude "Lefty" Williams, at 23–11 and 2.64. Twenty-six-year-old rookie Dickie Kerr started only 17 games, but turned in a solid 13–7 and 2.88. Fourth in the rotation was Urban "Red" Faber, who had beaten the Giants three times in the 1917 World Series but had an off-year in 1919 at 11–9 and 3.83 in 20 starts. He was ill and unable to pitch in the Series, limiting Gleason to three top-of-the-line starters for what could be nine games. However, all was not well in the White Sox camp. Tension between many of the players and owner Comiskey was quite high, given his penny-pinching ways memorialized in two urban legends: (1) that he told Gleason to shut down Cicotte in the last days of the regular season to prevent him from winning 30 games, a milestone which would have earned him a sizeable $10,000 bonus; (2) that many derided the White Sox as the Black Sox because Comiskey wouldn't pay to have their uniforms laundered regularly, and they became blacker and blacker due to accumulated sweat, grime, and dirt. Cincinnati Reds In contrast to the White Sox, the 1919 Cincinnati Reds were upstarts. They had finished no higher than third since 1900, and