Eddie Cicotte

Baseball player, born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was one of eight Chicago White Sox players who allegedly conspired to ‘fix’ the 1919 World Series. An outstanding right-handed pitcher, he lost two games in that series. In 1921 he was barred from baseball for life for his part in the ‘Black Sox’ scandal.

Edward Victor Cicotte (June 19, 1884 - May 5, 1969) (pronounced See-Cot) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball best known for his time with the Chicago White Sox. He was one of eight players permanently ineligible from professional baseball for his alleged participation in the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series, in which the favored White Sox lost to the Cincinnati Reds in eight games.

Cicotte was a starting pitcher and a knuckleball specialist who won 208 games and lost 149 over the course of a 14-year career pitching for the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, and White Sox.

A Detroit native, Cicotte played baseball in Georgia in 1905, where he was a teammate of Ty Cobb. Pitching in three games for Detroit, Cicotte compiled a 1-1 record with a 3.50 ERA.

Cicotte didn't return to the major leagues again until 1908, when he resurfaced with the Red Sox. Cicotte won Game 1, lost Game 3, and pitched six innings of relief in Game 5 for a no-decision.

Injuries reduced Cicotte to a 12-19 record in 1918, but in 1919, he rebounded to win 29 games and once again lead the league in wins, winning percentage, and innings pitched, as well as in complete games.

In the 1919 World Series against the Reds, Cicotte pitched in three games, winning one but pitching ineffectively and losing the other two.

Cicotte was the first of the eight players to come forward, signing a confession and a waiver of immunity. Despite this, Cicotte and his alleged co-conspirators were subsequently made permanently ineligible from baseball by Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball's new commissioner, recently hired to restore the integrity of the game in the wake of the 1919 scandal.

His baseball career over, Cicotte returned to Detroit, where he worked for the Ford Motor Company and other miscellaneous jobs until his death in Detroit at age 84.

In the 1988 film Eight Men Out, about the Black Sox scandal, Cicotte is portrayed by actor David Strathairn.