South Suburban College Professor Publishes Groundbreaking 1920 White Sox Baseball Article

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SOUTH HOLLAND, IL – For SSC’s Professor Bruce Allardice, baseball is both a passion and a field of study. “Baseball has been called our national pastime,” says Allardice. “To me, the history of baseball and the history of the United States are intertwined.”

Professor Allardice has authored numerous articles on baseball history, and co-edited a book on the 1919 White Sox. His latest article “How the Black Sox Threw the 1920 Pennant” (SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2016) focuses on the Black Sox scandal, the 1919 World Series where the favored White Sox accepted bribes to throw the series. This groundbreaking article proves that the Sox threw the 1920 pennant as well as the 1919 series.

“Up to now, scholars approached the scandal by looking only at the 1919 Series. This article shifts the historical paradigm, by showing that the 1919 scandal was part of a pattern of conduct that extended to 1920 as well.”

But Professor Allardice is more than a scholar. He gives presentations around the country on history, on political science, and baseball history – 65 presentations in the last 5 years – in such venues as the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) national convention, the Illinois State Historical Society, and the South Holland Historical Society.

Allardice confesses “I like giving presentations. I feel that by getting out of the classroom, I can bring history alive to the public at large. History is too interesting to be confined to the classroom.”

Bruce S. Allardice is a Professor at South Suburban College.

For the last decade he’s taught European and American History, as well as Political Science. His article on “The Spread of Baseball in the South Prior to 1870,” published in the Fall 2012 edition of Base Ball, received SABR’s McFarland Award in 2013. He works with John Thorne, Major League Baseball historian, in researching the early (pre-professional) history of baseball.

A full list of Professor Allardice’s publications and presentations can be found on his website, www.civilwarbruce.com. His research on more than 3,000 early baseball teams can be found at www.protoball.org.