Black Sox scandal, episode in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox, the American League champions, were banned from baseball in 1921 for having conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The best-known of the "Black Sox" was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Because of the scandal, baseball club owners appointed Judge Kenesaw M. Landis as commissioner of baseball to clean up the sport. The immense, rising popularity of Babe Ruth is thought to have counteracted the damage done to professional baseball by the Black Sox.