Eugene Paulette: The First Man Out
Gene Paulette - the first man out. Image credits: Baseball in Nashville
You are probably familiar with the “Eight Men Out,” the Chicago White Sox players banned from baseball for life by Kenesaw Landis for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series.
But they were not the first game-fixers to be banned by the new commissioner. That distinction belongs to a little-known utility player named Eugene Paulette.
Gene Paulette broke in with the New York Giants in 1911 before spending four years in the minor leagues. The St. Louis Browns bought him in 1916 and the next year traded him to the Cardinals.
In 1918 he played every position at least once. He filled in as a catcher for four innings one day. On September 2, the last day of the season, in Cincinnati he was playing first base.
The Reds led, 5-3 in the 8th inning and had a runner on second with two outs. Cards manager Jack Hendricks then moved the pitcher to first base and sent Paulette to the mound. He gave up one hit that scored a run, then got the third out.
In St. Louis he became acquainted with a covey of gamblers who were interested in enticing players to rig the outcome of games. It didn't take much “fixing” to secure a loss by the last-place Cardinals in 1918 and Paulette wrote a letter to one of the gamblers assuring him that a few other players would go along with the scheme.
The St. Louis syndicate also tried to fix the 1918 World Series without success, and probably had some involvement in the fixing of the 1919 World Series.
By 1919 Paulette had been traded to the Phillies, and that's where he was when the White Sox became the Black Sox in the 1919 World Series and baseball hired its first commissioner, Kenesaw Landis, to clean up the mess.
The investigations and trials that followed lasted into 1921. During that time the letter that Gene Paulette had written to the St. Louis gamblers, who were suspected of being part of the Black Sox conspiracy, wound up in Landis's office. When Paulette was questioned by Landis about the letter, he failed to provide a satisfactory explanation.
Landis banned him from baseball on March 24, 1921, the first such action taken by the new commissioner. The Eight Men Out of the Black Sox were not banned until August 3.
