How a Baseball Player Banned for Life Made His Way to Ford

The baseball world received a shock this week. Commissioner Rob Manfred removed a number of players, including Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, from the permanently banned list, making them eligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Buried on the list of players was Eddie Cicotte.

Who is Eddie Cicotte? He was a Detroit native and, for a time, one of the best pitchers in the American League. Nicknamed “Knuckles” for his feared knuckleball, Cicotte led the American League in ERA and wins in 1917, plus wins and innings pitched in 1919.

Eddie Cicotte was also notorious as one of the “Eight Men Out” who conspired with gamblers as members of the Chicago White Sox, agreeing to throw the 1919 World Series – and forever branded as the “Black Sox.” Eddie Cicotte, Joe Jackson and the others were banned from baseball, removing their source of income and livelihood.

Eddie toured for a time with the other banned players, but when that notoriety wore off and the crowds disappeared, he had to find another source of income.

Luckily, he had a backup. In 1918, during Word War I, the Department of Labor wrote Ford Motor Company asking if we could find a role for Eddie Cicotte, who was listed as a Chicago American League pitcher. We found him a role, and his offseason work now included working at Ford.

After the ban, Eddie tried his hand running a service station in Livonia outside Detroit, but Ford once again hired Eddie when that failed. He worked in a variety of roles in plant security under the direction of Harry Bennett for more than two decades. Interestingly, his son also worked for a time at Ford, and the pair were celebrated in an internal publication during World War II.

After his retirement in 1944, Eddie Cicotte became a strawberry farmer outside Detroit until his death in 1969, about 50 years after the scandal that shaped his life.

As the Ford Archivist, it is always fascinating to me to learn some of the stories of the men and women who have worked at our plants over the years: Joe Louis, Barry Gordy and now Eddie Cicotte.

Ted Ryan is heritage brand manager and archivist at Ford.