Eddie Cicotte

Lore & Background

Cicotte arrived in Chicago in the early 1910s and quickly established himself as a pitcher who could dominate a lineup with nothing but arm and nerve. His curveball was described by contemporaries as having a late, sharp break that left right-handed batters swinging at empty air. He wore his glasses on the mound—a rarity in an era when players rarely corrected their vision publicly—and the sight of a bespectacled lefty winding up became a visual signature at Comiskey Park. In 1917 he was part of the White Sox staff that out-pitched the Detroit Tigers for the pennant and the World Series title, and his name was spoken in the same breath as the greats of the day.

Then came 1919. The season that was supposed to be another championship run became the season that broke baseball's soul. Cicotte, like the other seven players named in the conspiracy, was later swept into the investigation and the trial. The details of what exactly transpired behind the scenes remain debated by historians, but the verdict was swift and absolute: Landis, in his first major act as Commissioner, declared all eight players permanently barred from the game. Cicotte was sent to Boston, played a handful of games, and then vanished from the major leagues entirely.

In the decades that followed, White Sox fans developed a complicated relationship with the name Cicotte. He was not merely a villain; he was a young man from a working-class background who had been a hero at the park and then was destroyed by it. Barbershop conversations in the South Side still carry an undertone of 'what if' when his name comes up—what if the curveball had stayed clean, what if the season had ended differently. He remains the ghost in the pinstripes' history, the reminder that the game's greatest betrayal happened on their diamond.

In Their Own Story

The August night in 1917. Comiskey Park is packed, the air thick with the smell of cut grass and cheap tobacco. Cicotte steps to the rubber, adjusts his glasses with one finger, and stares down a Tigers slugger. The crowd is a low roar. He winds up—left leg lifts, right arm loads—and the ball leaves his hand with that late, vicious break. The batter swings, misses, and the bat cracks against the dirt of home plate. Cicotte doesn't celebrate. He just pulls his glasses back up, stares at the next hitter, and waits. Behind him, the White Sox dugout is a wall of pinstripes, and for one breathless moment, the whole park feels like it belongs to that one bespectacled lefty who bends the world with a single pitch.

Reader's Guide

Context: Eddie Cicotte, the 'Cyclops,' threw left-handed for the White Sox from roughly 1913 through 1919, building a reputation as one of the league's most intimidating curveball pitchers. His glasses on the mound made him instantly recognizable, and his 1917 season—capped by a World Series title over Detroit—cemented his place in the South Side's baseball memory.

Peak: At his best, Cicotte could shut down a lineup with nothing but arm action and that late-breaking curve. In 1917 he was the anchor of a staff that out-pitched the Tigers for the championship, and his name was spoken alongside the era's greats. Fans at Comiskey would point to the mound and say, 'There's the Cyclops,' as if the glasses alone were a promise of trouble for the other team.

Legacy: The 1919 scandal and the 1921 lifetime ban erased everything that came after. At tailgates and barbershops, Cicotte's name still carries a weight that no stat line can capture. Fans don't just remember a pitcher; they remember a betrayal that happened to *their* team, and the young man at the center of it who was never allowed to pitch again. He is the cautionary ghost in every pinstriped jersey, the reminder that the game's darkest hour was written on Chicago's diamond.

Did You Know?

• Cicotte's nickname 'Cyclops' came from the thick-rimmed eyeglasses he wore while pitching—a visual rarity in the 1910s that made him instantly identifiable to fans at Comiskey Park.
• He was part of the 1917 World Series-winning White Sox staff that defeated the Detroit Tigers, a championship that stands as the franchise's last title before the long drought that followed the scandal.
• Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis issued the lifetime ban on the eight Black Sox players in 1921, making Cicotte's removal from the game one of the most consequential single decisions in early baseball history.
• After the scandal, Cicotte was sent to the Boston Braves, where he pitched a small number of games before the ban took full effect and he disappeared from the major leagues entirely.