I found this story a little disturbing on the Sporting News (View Full Story)

Alas, in the gambling scandal that never was, the ’18 Cubs just might have laid down for that year’s A.L. champ, the Red Sox. In their defense, those Cubs could not have known that, 90 years later, North Side fans would still be pulling hair out over this team.

Now, it cannot be said for certain that gamblers got to the ’18 Cubs. But Eddie Cicotte, pitcher and one of the eight White Sox outcasts from the ’19 World Series, did say in a newly found affidavit he gave to the 1920 Cook County grand jury that the Cubs influenced the Black Sox. Cicotte said the notion of throwing a World Series first came up when the White Sox were on a train to New York. The team was discussing the previous year’s World Series, which had been fixed, according to players. Some members of the Sox tried to figure how many players it would take to throw a Series. From that conversation, Cicotte said, a scandal was born.