Ancillary Topic Sports

Although there were not many professional sports played in and around the 1920s, there were sports that were loved by fans. The most popular sport of the time was Major League Baseball. In fact, one of the greatest players of all time played in the 1920s, Babe Ruth. Baseball was the biggest spectator sport in America at the time, and many other great players played during this decade.

The biggest event around that time was in 1919, involving a scandal in the 1919 World Series. The team in question was the Chicago White Sox, or as they are commonly referred to, the Black Sox.

Betting on professional sports was big at the time, and nothing was bigger than the World Series. A few team members approached eight key members of the team and were willing to pay them to "throw" the World Series that year. The most prominent member of the scandal was "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, the third baseman of the team. He was the best player, and was the first to be approached about the scandal. Although he is now the member most associated with the team and the incident, it has been proved that he did never accept any money and refused to throw the World Series. Despite the facts, he is still associated and thought of as the key member of the scandal when in reality he played fairly and as hard as he could to win the series.

Another popular sport in the 1920s was tennis. During the 1920s, some of the best tennis players to ever play the game participated, and two Olympic games were played in the 1920s that included tennis, before it was no longer an Olympic sport in 1928. The best male player in the 1920s was Bill Tilden, who won five consecutive U.S. Open titles starting in 1920. The best female participant in the 1920s was Molla Bjurstedt Mallory, who won three U.S. Open tittles in the 1920s.

While more popular overseas than in the United States, cricket was a popular sport of this decade, widely being played in England and India.





Page last updated on April 28, 1999.
Curator: Michael Schlesinger