One Black Sox Scandal Was Enough for Landis

Having survived the nearly fatal Black Sox scandal of 1919, baseball feared it was confronting another in late 1926.

Former Detroit player Hubert “Dutch” Leonard had charged that two of the game’s icons, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, “fixed” a 1919 Detroit-Cleveland game. The accusation chilled players and fans alike.

But Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had banned for life eight principals in the 1919 Series gambling scandal, exonerated Cobb and Speaker on this date, 72 years ago.

Leonard, in making the accusation, presented as evidence a letter from Cobb in which, assuming the worst interpretation, Cobb bet on his own team to win. Leonard pointed to a vaguely written sentence in the letter where Cobb wrote he’d “had enough of it in one bite” and “would never try it again.”

But Leonard, retired from baseball and living in Fresno, refused to face Cobb and Speaker at a hearing before Landis.

“These players have not been, nor are they now, found guilty of fixing a ballgame,” Landis ruled. “By no decent system of justice could such a finding be made.”

Also on this date: In 1973, having tied the University of San Francisco’s mark of 60 consecutive victories two days earlier at Loyola of Chicago, UCLA’s basketball team won its record 61st in a row, 82-63, at Notre Dame. . . . In 1991, Buffalo kicker Scott Norwood’s field-goal try with eight seconds left was wide and the New York Giants beat the Bills in the Super Bowl, 20-19. . . . In 1978, 5-foot-8 Franklin Jacobs of Fairleigh Dickinson University leaped 7 feet 7 1/4 inches for a world indoor high jump record. . . . In 1983, Bear Bryant, retired for one month as Alabama’s football coach, died at 69. . . . In 1970, in the NFL draft, Pittsburgh made Terry Bradshaw the first pick. . . . In 1969, Baltimore Colt assistant Chuck Noll became the Pittsburgh Steelers’ coach. . . . In 1969, the struggling American Basketball Assn. offered UCLA’s Lew Alcindor $1 million over four years and the option of playing for any of its teams.