Comiskey, Charles

Charles Comiskey, in full Charles Albert Comiskey, byname the Old Roman, (born Aug. 15, 1859, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died Oct. 26, 1931, Eagle River, Wis.), baseball player, manager and owner during the formative years of professional baseball, and one of the founders of the American League.

Comiskey began playing semiprofessional baseball in 1876 and in 1882 joined the St. Louis Brown Stockings (later known as the Browns) in the first year of operation of the American Association, a league formed to challenge the National League (NL), which had begun six years earlier. As a player, Comiskey transformed the way first basemen played when he positioned himself away from the first base bag in order to prevent hits to right field. Comiskey became a player-manager with St. Louis in 1883 and led the team to four league championships during the 1880s. In 1890 he joined the Chicago Pirates in the Players’ League, a circuit established when the NL sought to limit the pay of players. After a brief one-year return to the Browns in 1891, Comiskey played and managed the Cincinnati Reds for the last three years of his on-the-field career.

After he retired at the end of the 1894 season, Comiskey bought a baseball team in Sioux City, Iowa, and moved it to St. Paul, Minn. In 1900 he relocated the franchise to Chicago, renamed it the White Stockings (which was quickly shortened by local newspapers to “White Sox”), and directly competed with Chicago’s existing NL franchise, the Cubs. The new American League was elevated to major league status the following year, and Comiskey’s White Sox captured the first league title. During Comiskey’s ownership tenure (1901–31), the team won four league championships and two World Series titles (1906 and 1917). Comiskey was able to use his experience as a player and manager, as well as his intimate knowledge of the game, to become a very successful owner. His sole source of income was baseball, and the White Sox were the most profitable team of the early 20th century: during the White Sox’s first decade, Comiskey reportedly made a net profit of $700,000. His profit margin was due in part to the low salaries paid to his players. While Comiskey is often described as experienced and canny, others considered his style and tactics to be ruthless. He was generally popular with the public, aided by his wining and dining of sportswriters and his contributions to civic causes.

Comiskey’s reputation was tarnished by the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, involving gambling and the fixing of the World Series by White Sox players. He did not take decisive action against White Sox players suspected of throwing games, but a subsequent investigation and confessions of guilt by three players in 1920 broke open the scandal. As a result, Comiskey not only lost the services of eight players (labeled as the Black Sox) but gained the reputation as a person who turned a blind eye to corruption in order to protect his profits. Additionally, his tightfistedness with players’ pay came to be seen as the primary reason why the Black Sox were receptive to throwing the World Series in the first place. After the scandal, Comiskey was studiously avoided by other owners but was allowed to keep his franchise. Nevertheless, in 1939 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., for all of his earlier contributions to the game.