The Louisville Grays and the Myth of Baseball’s First Great Scandal

The National League was in its second season of existence in 1877. In mid-season, the Louisville Grays suddenly took the league by storm and by mid-August were considered a lock to win the pennant. Then, disaster struck. The Grays fell out of first place, and the pennant was lost. Suspicions were high that the club had sold out to gamblers. Three players were tricked into confessing to the selling of exhibition games and were blacklisted from the sport along with a fourth player who refused to cooperate with the investigation.
Since then, historians have presented a simple narrative about how the Grays sold the pennant to gamblers, how that treachery was discovered, and the steps that followed. However, none of this is true. For nearly 150 years the story of the Louisville Grays has been told, and the story has been wrong. For the first time, the objective evidence that was there all along is examined in comparison to the narrative that has been told about the Grays. The evidence shows the Grays did not sell the pennant; they simply lost it. This is the story of how Major League Baseball’s first great scandal never truly happened.

Wendell Lloyd Jones is a graduate of the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville and has been a practicing attorney since 1994. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Wendell Lloyd Jones
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 194
Bibliographic Info: 15 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9438-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5184-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Prologue: Dilemma 5
Chapter One. Beginnings 11
Chapter Two. The First Season—1876 35
Chapter Three. The Louisville Four Come Together 58
Chapter Four. A Myth Is Born 78
Chapter Five. Losing the Pennant 93
Chapter Six. Investigation and Confession 120
Chapter Seven. Aftermath 139
Chapter Notes 159
Bibliography 179
Index 181