All right, welcome to episode number 21 of the Shawn Mackey show so we’re doing things a little bit differently. You might hear some smooth jazz popping in and out whenever we take a little pause here and there. I tried this last episode. Maybe the volume wasn’t there. We don't know. It’s  kind of an experiment,  and we told you all season that this is an experiment for us. We always kind of tell you what’s going on behind the scenes you know and the reason we do that is because a podcast is kind of cool. It’s kind of fun and if you’ve got shit, you wanna say and you think the world out there should hear it. I don't care what the topic is. It is very easy for you to start a podcast. It’s overwhelming so we tell you what goes on behind the scenes because we wanna tell you to chill and relax if you’ve got something to say and you wanna podcast you go right ahead and do it and reach out if you have any questions.

So last episode of course we recap the Cubs. The Cubs are playing right now and I’m not really liking where this is going there. I see potential here before the All-Star break to not be in the greatest of positions that you had been in this season pitching question still for sure with the Cubs offense and I’m looking at today’s game and this is one of those throwaway games. I like to call them. I don’t know why managers do this. I know everybody will say it’s a long season. It’s a marathon and guys need rest here and there, but you know what listen to the past episodes that we’ve done and Back when all the working out and everything wasn’t such a big deal guys didn’t need as much rest, I mean, you’re playing a game Jesus Christ you grew up playing this game your whole life you were a kid you had to go to school all through high school. If you played college you went through classes whatever you always had to do baseball on the side now it’s full-time for you and half of y’all can’t even get your shit together and you need rest and managers have to go out and put lineups that are not essential to make sure you solidify a victory on any particular day when that happens.

So, enough said that.  we talked about on last episode we were doing the steroid scandal in Major League Baseball and we said you know that’s a good Segway. We started with the top 100 players of Major League Baseball while we thought it was Major League Baseball and it turned out to just be baseball players, which is awesome because a lot of guys are on this list that deserved to actually be in Major League Baseball and they weren’t but they’ve been recognized because had they been in Major League Baseball Things would’ve been a lot different and I think it was a fear factor you know we can get into that future

So that has led us to two players on the list that were involved in the steroid scandal and so we started talking about that and then we got to thinking well like what are some other scandals that were out there in Major League Baseball and that’s where we are today with today’s episode so that’s what we wanna talk about

So I don’t know how many of you Cub fans, well we all know as cubs in 2016 when the Cubs won the World Series it had been 108 years right since they had previously won. They last one in 1908 and then by 2008 we had hit the hundred year mark and then in 2016 well no 2008. We hit the hundred year mark. I’m sorry did I say oh shit I’m losing my mind. Maybe I’m gonna have to go back out and edit that. Maybe I’ll just leave it in there for you so let’s backtrack. 

Remember, I was an English teacher for a reason and I do apologize to those of you who listen who may be where English teachers are sticklers for the English language. I'm so sorry. I completely forgot the word depositions in the last episode and I said dispositions, I don’t know what to say.

Anyway, the Cubs won the World Series in 1908 x 2008. It had been 100 hundred years and then in 2016 when the Cubs win it was 108 years after that OK so but it could’ve been 109 years so again this whole math thing just really throws me for a loop, but the Cubs won back to back in 1907 and 1908 so that’s where the original math comes from OK so if they hadn’t won in 1908 there would’ve been one more year that the Cubs fans would’ve had to have suffered

And that was a lot of words to get to the fact that I don’t know if you know, but in 1908 there something happened to where there could’ve it could’ve changed the course of that history for the Chicago Cubs and Chicago Cubs fan so there was like a playoff game or a make up game or something in 1908 and the night before this game happens And this is gonna take place between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants right and it was gonna decide the national league championship so the night before apparently somebody within the Giants organization attempted to bribe an umpire

So my man blue he refuses the bribe attempt nothing happens. The Cubs go on to beat the Giants. They go onto win the World Series pretty straightforwardly. Well, the following spring spring training this kinda kind of comes out.

And they’re like right, so it’s reported that the dude who offered the bride was the New York Giants team physician and he gets banned for life right so then people are starting to say like what the hell a doctor trying to throw you know this make up playoff game that could decide the National League championship and then ultimately the World Series

So then their speculation that maybe the physician was like they threw his ass under the bus like who here would be willing to take the rap for this maybe we’ll offer you a bunch of money if you’re banned from baseball for life who cares you’re a doctor keep practicing whatever nobody I’ll know you’ll live a great life and you’ll have a little extra cash in your

OK, so then it comes out that maybe the Giants manager John McGraw is the guy that either bribe the umpire or told the team physician or ask the teen physician to bribe the

Nobody nobody really knows so you know I felt like this was great like let’s start out with a scandal that is connected to the Chicago Cubs and one more year. You know it would’ve just been at that point by 2016 we would’ve been like 109 years well with me we always suck cub suck and that’s that’s why I was pissed off last week and I didn’t even mention it on the podcast but all of a sudden I started seeing all the post coming out where everybody’s making fun of the Cubs again You know cub fans we’ve always had to deal with what is cub stand for completely useless by September and then we’ve had all the heartbreak 84 the 2003 right

And then the last couple years it’s been sucky and now we got a decent team, but they’re sitting here freaking like and so maybe by All-Star break. Things will be a little bit different. I don’t wanna say it, but I’ve seen this before and Hoyer is waiting. The pitching is an absolute problem from the bullpen now to starting pitching. Something needs to change. We gotta do something. The Cubs need to do something and they may be just waiting too long. I’ll end up being too little too late.

To start out with the Cubs scandal so John McGraw the reason why this doesn’t come out as like John McGraw is a big deal in baseball you know I mean this dude he was the New York Giants manager for like 30 years and he was a player before that he was damn good player you know he appeared. He started playing baseball in 1891 for the Baltimore Orioles and goes on to play until 1906 for the Giants but from 02 to 32 he was the Giants manager so he’s back in those days. He’s one of those player managers Wright and and the guy he’s got like a 586 percentage so the fact that they threw the physician under the bus because they didn’t wanna out Jon McGraw is is funny as hell but you know we’re talking. There’s been a shit ton of scandals in Major League Baseball but yet it’s still America’s pastime. It’s getting more talked about every day and it’s where we’re seeing it from. It’s the longest season in any professional sport I believe and I feel right 162 game season you start spring training at some point in February and you play until Almost November and that’s and that’s pretty growing and then you’re talking to travel and being on the road fuck I hate I mean I love vacation but I really hate going away for too long cause I don’t even sleep well in my own bed but then they have to sleep in a strange bed that’s rough on me and I’m just a regular Joe Schmoe who’s got a job and and lives a normal life. I’m not out there playing baseball all day long in the heat and extreme weather and the Growing this of it so you know it is what it is but

Our next scandal we’re gonna talk a little bit about well. You gotta talk about the 1919 black Sox right our own beloved Chicago White Sox I save love like I told you before and last episode. I like the Sox. I don't bash people for being Sox fans. I hate it when they bash me, but that’s the Chicago Way.

So I root for the Sox.I honestly grew up going to more Sox games than I did Cubs games, and I believe I talked about this on one of the other podcast because I used to win tickets for a perfect attendance at school to Sox games so my dad always took us to Sox games and ironically enough he grew up five blocks from Comiskey Park back in the day, but he was a cub fan used to take the train and go watch the Cubs play all the time nickel train ride or something he

But like eight dudes from this team, are banned for life from baseball in the thing is like nobody really knows all the details surrounding it. Yeah they’re calling it a conspiracy so they were able to ban eight guys for Major League Baseball. Shoeless Joe Jackson being the most famous and probably one of the best players to ever be banned from the game for life and they don’t even know how involved he was if he was involved in all a lot of this comes down to like maybe in the locker room two dudes who were really gung ho about throwing the damn series to make their money we’re talking about it, and the other dude’s kind of heard it and then maybe said something to each other, and what are we gonna do and then everybody’s like just keep your mouth shut and go out and play the best damn baseball you can play and let’s win this fucking series and then nobody can say a goddamn thing about it

Well, that didn’t happen so they’re all acquitted of criminal charges although at the time throwing baseball games wasn’t even criminal. It wasn’t even a crime but then eight guys get banned from baseball and then with shoeless Joe shoeless Joe is like baseballs Elvis Presley I mean, everybody thought they saw Elvis Presley anywhere from freaking Michigan out to fucking Idaho in gas station saying that he faked his death and lived a great life and he was dead and she was Joe wasn’t but there was stories about people would see him playing in in other leagues under different names just so he can keep playing the game and that whoever it was was the best ball player they’ve ever seen and a lot of people were like that shoeless Joe shoeless Joe I mean hell back in my semi pro football days we used to go to the damn bar called shoeless Joe’s Out there in the Chicagoland area. I can’t remember exactly where it was. Don’t even

So these eight dudes who get banned for life are Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams, Buck Weaver, Chick Gandil, , Fred McMullen, and Swede Risberg and outfielder Happy Felsch right and Jackson is the best. Nobody else knows who these other guys are no freaking big deal so they’re they’re accused of throwing the series, but I think some of those guys without even going into the details some of those guys during that series had the best games of their lives and they were like how can you convict them Just on what you heard and they were acquitted so they weren’t convicted of anything but in the realm of things when you get banned from the sport, you love and shoeless Joe is not in the Hall of Fame right it’s it’s kinda like being convicted

If they’re not guilty of anything and nobody really knows what happened why well there’s a big aftermath to that whole scandal. There’s some more in 1920 they find more game fixing incidents, but they were kinda resolved. You know they actually band like Leo Derocher he was a manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time and he was suspended for the entire 1947 season come for gambling and game fixing incidents all right so Mickey Mantle and freaking Willie Mays when they’re retired from baseball they start they get jobs as greeters at casinos in Atlantic City and in Atlantic City casinos, these are perfectly legal so these guys they’re retired and remember, they play in major-league baseball when they’re not making a shit ton of money he had two of the greatest players in the game but they’re not making a lot of money so they’re retired and someone says hey why not stand out in the lobby of our casinos and just say hi to people greet and point them in the direction

I bet they got paid a shit ton of money for doing that and they didn’t even have to bust the sweat you know dress nice and you, Mickey you’re Willy Mays right but then they’re so freaked out in Major League Baseball at this point that Bowie coon the manager of baseball he fucking bands these two guys from baseball

Well, because gambling illegal in Atlantic City, the New Jersey regulators are like you, you suck Bowie. This is bullshit right and they criticize the hell out of Bowie coon and the newspaper say exactly what I said 20 seconds ago they didn’t get paid a lot of money so they gotta make money. What are you doing here? Bowie Kuhn he’s out as commissioner of baseball. Peter Ueberroth comes in and he lifts the bans on Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. I mean that that’s fucking ridiculous to me. These two dudes are retired from baseball. They’re living their own private lives and you’re gonna then ban them from baseball after they already served a purpose for you. That’s fucking ridiculous!

And that actually you know when I was in high school I’m gonna tell you I’m gonna throw the story out here if you’re a normal listener of mine from high school maybe you heard about this maybe you didn’t, and I’m not gonna name names but at some point in high school my senior year I was done playing football so I didn’t play any other sports. I was no use to any of the coaches in that school. Our head football coach was the disciplinarian for the school. One of the teachers I had for PE at the time was a former head coach of the school and kind of well loved whatever I think he won a state championship I don’t know. 

But we were in swim class and I had to go take a dump, and I couldn’t get in the freaking bathroom so I’m panicking. I’m trying to get in the bathroom. The door is not opening. It feels to me like maybe someone is on the other side pushing it shut and I’m just not strong enough to push my way into the bathroom. So class is getting ready to start and I gotta really take a dump so I run down into the football locker room. 

And I get into their toilets and I take my dump and I come back to PE class and I have to get to the pool through the locker room because the other doors are kind of locked. They only want the kids taking the class at that point to come into the pool room.

I get into the locker room and at that point fucking five dudes are in there just ravaging the lockers and stealing whatever they can, and I’m just like what the fuck I walk in on a robbery at the high school and oh my God I just look I know one of the dude so I’m like hey man just fucking leave this locker alone. I got five bucks left to my name. I don't. I don’t want anything taken for me. You know this, that, and the other and so they’re like you’re cool bro just go to class.

Well, then everybody comes back to class and they find out they’ve been robbed. I’m a fucking kid in high school. Yeah I’m a senior. I know the dude he’s a senior with me by all, but I know this dude kick my fucking ass. I know this dude got people kick my ass six fucking times a day every day of the week if I open up my fucking mouth so I keep my mouth fucking shut, but guess who’s the number one suspect?  It's me because I had to take crapper and I was late to class so the teacher at the time didn't wanna hear shit send me to the disciplinarian again. The disciplinarian is our former head coach. I’m done playing. I’m no used to anybody and next thing I know the fucking police are being called and I’m lead out of the building in handcuffs.

Motherfucker, I’m being led out of the high school building in handcuffs. Not many people know this but this this fucking happened to me and as I’m walking out of the school with this female police officer I’m in handcuffs. I’m being taken across the street because there was a police station right across the street from our high school and I’m being taken there for theft for robbery

I don’t know what transpired. I spent a lot of my life going to church. I was a Sunday school teacher. I converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism for my family. I spent a lot of time helping the church out. I’m not a big believer in having to go to church every week I do God out and I do pray to God when I need help but for some reason as I walked out, and that police officer walked me out the front door to school the kid I knew that I saw doing this was walking into the school at the same time, and he looked me in the eye, and I looked him in the eye, he said what’s going on And I said you know what’s going on.

And I’ll tell you what by the grace is good Lord up above that man admitted to that police officer that it was him and his buddies, and I’m gonna tell you what she couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it, and he said he wouldn’t let them take me away he said, uncuff him. Let’s go back in there. I’ll tell him everything that happened and what I did and she let me go.

And at the age of 16 I hadn’t no I had just turned 17 I take that back cause I did graduate high school when I was 17 I thought I was gonna have a heart attack and I got let go and she let me go and I had my dad‘s car that day and I did not go back to class and I got in that car. I didn’t even get my shit out of the swimming locker room. 

Nothing I just fucking went home so I know I digress a little bit there with our scandals but kind of had to do it right it’s kind of like I just was like this whole Mickey man or Willie Mays thing that they banned him for something that he shouldn’t have been to me. It goes back to what happened to me in high school like you were no good to baseball anymore so we don’t really need you so we’re just gonna ban you from this sport if you want to continue doing this and these guys had to make a living right? I don’t know, it's just kinda not fair out there in this world.

I had one more scandal for us today in this episode, but I don’t think I’m gonna use it. I’m gonna hang onto it cause I think I’m gonna hit two or three more episodes with some of these Major League Baseball scandal cause I know last episode I said not only Irish scandals scandals that happen you know in the Major League Baseball tied to major-league baseball, but I know that we got a lot of guys out there who after they played the game ended up convicted of something so it might be a little bit interesting to take a look at

So I think this is a good point for us to leave this episode. I know we only got into two scandals today but that’s OK. I digressed a little bit with my high school story so I don’t wanna bore you or keep it any longer. I want you to be able to get on to whatever it was you were doing while you popped in. Our pot popped in like look at me my old ass man like you’re putting in a tape in your Sony Walkman what the fuck I don’t know maybe I’m just now I’m laughing my ass. Well, maybe you pop in your headphones and then throw the vacuum cleaner on or something and listen to the show. I don't care just listen to the damn thing that’s today’s episode everyone I hope you enjoyed it,  peace!