/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68819938/156753512.0.jpg)
1917
The White Sox, badly needing a competent first baseman, got Arnold “Chick” Gandil from Cleveland for $3,500.
Gandil had a mediocre White Sox career, with a poor OPS+ and just 4.2 bWAR over three seasons and 455 games with the White Sox. He was paid $4,000 in both 1918 and 1919, equivalent to about $60,000 today.
Of course, we now know that wasn’t enough for Gandil. Off the field is where the first baseman would have a lasting and detrimental impact, going on to become the ringleader of the infamous “Black Sox” scandal in 1919.
In Gandil’s last regular season game for the Sox he’d go 3-for-4 in a loss to Detroit, and in the 1919 World Series hit .233 with a triple and five runs batted in (remarkably similar to his 1917 Fall Classic numbers).
Perhaps sensing what was coming, Gandil retired after that 1919 World Series loss to the Reds.