Reviews/Endorsements:
"If you think you know the story of the Chicago White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series... think again. Carney knocks down the myths and legends that have evolved and lays out the cold hard facts. His meticulously documented research uncovers new evidence in the 85-year old case, including diaries of key figures, grand jury testimony, and other contemporary sources. Carney definitively answers the questions about who was involved in the scandal and to what extent. More importantly, however, he shows why the cover up was more damaging than the fix itself. Burying the Black Sox will change the way we view the history of the game, and no baseball library will be complete without it. Burying the Black Sox is destined to be a classic."
-- Sean Lahman, sports editor, The Baseball Archive
"A must read for any baseball fan. Gene Carney is truly the reigning expert on the subject of the most famous event in the 137 year history of American MLB - the1919 "Black Sox" World Series. It is a mystery that just won't go away. If you want to learn how the business of baseball works, how the media is intertwined, and how the owners, managers and public officials conspired to create the "version" of this event that we all believe today, this is a must read for you."
-- Susan Dellinger, author, Red Legs and Black Sox
"Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball's Cover-Up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded is a 363-page master's thesis-quality look at what remains baseball's biggest scandal. Carney criticizes such famous writers as Jerome Holtzman, the official historian of Major League Baseball, for his interpretation of the transcripts of the 1924 trial in which former Sox star Shoeless Joe Jackson sued his former team for back pay. Thanks to Carney, we now have the definitive Black Sox source book in black and white."
-- Craig Muder, sports editor, The Observer-Dispatch, Utica, NY
“…Carney has broadened the context for the discussion…This is a fruitful line of analysis, and we can only hope that future writers in this field follow their welcome examples.”
-- Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Winter 2007-2008
"Aiming to supersede Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out, veteran baseball researcher Carney unpacks the history of the scandal to reveal new sources and new elements to the tale. Asking who knew what about the fix, when they knew it, and what they did about it, he answers with a fully documented study of scandal and cover-up that should prove essential for all baseball collections."
-- Library Journal
"It is startling to think that immutable baseball history you've 'known' since childhood is nothing more than a pile of unconnected errors. Gene Carney has convinced me: few of us know a thing about the 1919 World Series, and that if Joe Jackson and his colleagues committed any crimes, they paled in comparison to the cover-up effected by the game's management. And all that is particularly evocative and relevant today, as we try to figure out if the game's management is trying to expose the use of performance-enhancing drugs or hide the evidence of it."
-- Keith Olbermann
"If you think you know the story of the 'Black Sox Scandal,' think again and start reading. This thoroughly researched and well-balanced account goes well beyond anything that has ever been written about it before. Gene Carney has done a world championship job."
-- Bill Deane, former senior research associate, National Baseball Hall of Fame
"I thought that I knew everything about the Black Sox Scandal until I read this book. Gene Carney has not entirely solved the puzzle; nobody possibly could. But thanks to his detective work we have a lot more of the pieces and a fuller picture of what occurred both during the 1919 World Series and, equally significantly, during the cover-up that followed."
-- Jules Tygiel, author of Past Time: Baseball as History
"[Carney] assembles an impressive range of perspectives on each question about the incident. . . . Extensive research and thorough documentation will make this a valuable resource. . . ."
-- Publishers Weekly
"More good stories than you can count . . . And it's more challenging insight than you've ever read on Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox. . . . If you're at all serious about baseball, it's a must-read."
-- Greenville (SC) News
"If you read only one book on the 1919 World Series, it should be Burying the Black Sox. . . . an actual page-turner."
-- Chicago Daily Herald
"[The author] has done yeoman's work in assembling his research. . . . This volume is worth the price. . . ."
-- Foreword
"Sheds new light on the plight of 'Shoeless Joe' Jackson. . . . Worth the commissioner's attention in what little spare time he finds these days. . . . Selig might feel compelled to reexamine the lifetime ban. . . ."
-- New York Daily News
"The best, most researched, most enjoyable research I have ever seen on the Black Sox. Anyone remotely interested in the subject has to read Burying the Black Sox. It is the best!"
-- George Michael, The George Michael Sports Machine
"Carney has created the definitive study on the scandal in Burying the Black Sox."
-- Gabriel Schechter, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in History: Reviews of New Books
"Carney's book is carefull researched and well documented; he probably knows more about the 1919 World Series than anyone. It succeeds in correcting myths long believed by writers and fans who have too casually accepted uncorroborated accounts of the 1919 World Series' many tangled events."
-- John Eigenauer, www.super70s.com
"[Carney] has taken an incident which is really a tapestry of smaller, often unconnected events, twirled them around in his mind, analyzed them from every angle, and done the best job yet of solving a semmingly unsolvable puzzle. He has done this by uncompromisingly thorough research, as he literally discusses almost everything written or said about baseball's most intriguing event and yet keeps it highly readable...well worth one's time."
-- Rick Huhn, author of The Sizzler: George Sizzler, Baseball's Forgotten Great
"This is a must read for any fan interested in the Black Sox Scandal story. Gene Carney has done his research and the book speaks for itself...I have been researching Joe Jackson and the Black Sox Scandal for over 22 years, and this is the very best book to date on the true story of the fix....If you only have time to read one book on the Black Sox Scandal, you must read this one!"
-- Mike Nola, official historian, Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame, www.blackbetsy.com
"...[O]ne of the best pieces of baseball research to come along in quite a while."
-- Paul Adomites, Magical Baseball History Tour, www.magicalbaseball.com
"One of the most notorious events in baseball history—the "fixing" of the 1919 World Series by the Chicago White Sox (Black Sox ever afterward)—gets a thorough and overdue revisionist examination by a Utica, N.Y. writer. Carney goes far beyond the traditional "Eight Men Out" (book and film of the same title), especially in his account of baseball's initial attempt to cover up the World Series scandal."
-- John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"...Numerous books, films, and documentaries have been produced on the topic, but Carney's newest tome delves into the subject unlike any other...has shed new light on this great mystery of baseball."
-- Lou Parrotta, Boonville (NY) Herald
"How do you describe a book once you pick it up, you find it's hard to put it down. That's Burying the Black Sox. This book will be a future reference book. A 21-gun salute is in order!"
-- Joe Wayman, Grandstand Baseball Annual: Pitchers W-L Records, 1876-1902
"I have read the book and salute [Gene Carney] for an extraordinary job of research. He not only covered every angle, but every angle on every angle."
-- Norman Macht, Society for Annual Baseball Research Director and author of over 30 baseball books
"Gene Carney has done a first-rate job not only mining previous research but finding new material on baseball's blackest moment. While he concedes that not everything will ever be known about the scandal, given the difficulties of time and memory, this book reads with authority. Its special strength, as the title hints, is in the detail about organized baseball's attempt to bury the scandal. Thanks to Carney, more of this part of the story is now known than ever before. Highly recommended,"
-- Cait Murphy, author of Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History
"...[T]here is no doubt that this book was extremely well-researched. [Carney] does a good job of separating fact from fiction, giving credit to other sources where it is due and correcting misinformation that was previously published."
-- Steve Appelhans, The Chicago Sports Review
"For any baseball fan with an interest in this black spot on baseball's history, this is a must-read. Gene Carney 'hits a home run' in exposing the Black Sox scandal for the complex phenomenon that it was."
-- Bill Swanson, NINE
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