In the early autumn of 1922, events at the Bayside Amusement Park brought in hundreds of tourists to Clear Lake, Iowa. The park was especially popular on Sundays when people took some time out of their busy work routines for relaxation at the park and the adjacent ball diamond. It was a large diamond that some said could hold 1800 baseball fans.
On one particular Sunday in early October of that year, the St. Ansgar band came to town and gave afternoon and evening concerts that pleased a large crowd. But the main attraction that day was the baseball game between the local Bayside Cubs and the much-touted Blue Earth, Minnesota club. A large but orderly and well-behaved crowd of nearly eleven hundred fans gathered up to witness the ballgame. The Bayside Cubs won the game by the score of 6 – 3. Of special interest, however, was one of the players for the Minnesota team. In their line-up was a shortstop by the name of Charles August “Swede” Risberg.
Just three years before, quick tempered Risberg had been in the major leagues. Born in 1894, Risberg debuted with the Chicago White Sox in April of 1917. It was said although he was a below-average hitter, he had excellent defensive abilities and a strong arm and had soon won the position of shortstop on the team. Quick to anger, he once knocked out an umpire after a dispute and went to blows with Ty Cobb on another occasion.
In the season of 1919, “Swede” was the starting shortstop for the White Sox and batted .256 with 106 hits and 38 RBIs. At the conclusion of that same year, “Swede” joined with some other players with plans to intentionally lose the World Series. They had involved themselves with gamblers and had a debt to pay. “Swede” Risberg was said to have been given $15,000 for the fix and seemed to be the assistant to the ringleader of the fix, Chick Gandil. During the series, sure handed “Swede” had only two hits at 25 at-bats and also had eight errors in the eight games series.
When all was revealed, the seven players involved were made permanently ineligible for Major League baseball by the Commissioner, Mr. Landis. It was called the Black Sox Scandal. One of the players, Shoeless Joe Jackson was to be remembered for a conversation he had with a young fan after leaving the investigation. The boy was said to have hollered, “Say it ain’t so, Joe” to which Joe Jackson had no comment.
With his reputation shot and nowhere to go, Risberg returned to his western Minnesota home and there he could play semi-pro ball. He loved the game but, of course, made only a small salary as compared to his salary in the majors. He was known to play with several teams during these years, including the Sioux Falls Canaries. He also worked at a dairy in Wisconsin after his banishment.
In 1934 a reporter asked “Swede” about his expulsion from baseball and he made the following comment: “If I had held up a bank, I would have paid the penalty by now and would be out of jail and earning a living. Those fourteen years of punishment would seem to be enough, even if I had been guilty. At the time of the affair, I was going strong in baseball, with a good many years ahead of me. I think I have served my term, and
paid my fine, and I think I ought to have a chance to earn my living again in organized baseball.”
As he aged, he drifted to the northwest United States where he was a saloonkeeper for some years. While playing Major League ball, he was once spiked by Ty Cobb and this wound never properly healed. In his final decades, he had to have the leg amputated.
He remained a baseball fan for his entire life. “Swede” Risberg died in Red Bluff, California, in 1975 on his 81st birthday. He was the last survivor of the Black Sox Scandal.
Some members of the Black Sox Scandal were memorialized in another way years later. A writer, W.P. Kinsella, who had at one-time lived in Iowa City, wrote a book called Shoeless Joe Jackson. The book was later made into a 1989 movie titled, Field of Dreams, and won the” Best Picture” award at the Academy Awards. Much of the movie was filmed in Iowa’s Dubuque County near Dyersville. Actor Charles Hoyes played the role of Swede Risberg in the movie.