The Black Sox Are Banned for Life

On August 3, 1921, newly installed Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned eight members of the Chicago White Sox from professional baseball for life, one day after a Chicago jury had acquitted all of them of criminal conspiracy charges. Landis declared that no player who threw a game, discussed throwing one, or knew about a fix and failed to report it would ever play professional baseball again, regardless of any jury's verdict.

The players, later known as the Black Sox, had been accused of conspiring with gamblers to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for payoffs. The scandal had prompted team owners to create the commissioner's office and hire Landis, a sitting federal judge, to restore public confidence in the sport's integrity.

Among the banned players was Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose .375 batting average in the 1919 series has made his lifetime ban baseball's most debated punishment. None of the eight has ever been reinstated or elected to the Hall of Fame.