Sean Deveney examines evidence that the Cubs threw the World Series in 1918:

Now, it cannot be said for certain that gamblers got to the '18 Cubs. But Eddie Cicotte, pitcher and one of the eight White Sox outcasts from the '19 World Series, did say in a newly found affidavit he gave to the 1920 Cook County grand jury that the Cubs influenced the Black Sox. Cicotte said the notion of throwing a World Series first came up when the White Sox were on a train to New York. The team was discussing the previous year's World Series, which had been fixed, according to players. Some members of the Sox tried to figure how many players it would take to throw a Series. From that conversation, Cicotte said, a scandal was born.

That's some heavy-duty history, and, fittingly, the Cicotte affidavit sits in a room on the third floor of the Chicago Historical Society. Last December, the museum won an auction for the rights to a group of documents pertaining to the 1919 White Sox. The museum's curator, Peter Alter, says the museum will eventually make the documents available to the public.

In the meantime, Alter gave me a sneak preview. It's fascinating stuff -- private notes, detailed depositions, internal memos, canceled checks. "It's a lot of material," Alter says. "What you are not going to find is something definitive that says who was innocent and who was guilty. People want clear-cut answers -- I understand. But there was a lot going on at the time that clouds the picture."

There was a lot questionable baseball going on in the teens, so anything is possible.