"I don't know why I did it...I must have been crazy! Risberg, Gandil, and McMullin were at me for a week before the Series began. They wanted me to go crooked. I don't know. I needed the money. I had the wife and the kids. The wife and kids don't know about this. I don't know what they'll think.

              "Before Gandil was a ballplayer, he was mixed up with gamblers and low characters back in Arizona. That's where he got the hunch to fix the Series. Eight of us, we got together in my room three or four days before the Series started. Gandil was master of ceremonies. We talked about it, and decided we could get away with it. We agreed to do it.

              "I was thinking of the wife and kids. I'd bought a farm. There was a four-thousand-dollar mortgage on it. There isn't any mortgage on it now. I paid it off with the crooked money. I told Gandil I had to have the cash in advance. I didn't want and checks. I didn't want any promises. I wanted the money in bills. I wanted it before I pitched a ball. We talked quite a while about it. Yes, we decided to do our best to throw the games at Cincinnati.

              "Then Gandil and McMullin took us all, one by one, away from the others and we talked turkey. Gandil asked me my price. I told him $10,000. And I told him $10,000 was to be paid in advance. It was Gandil I was talking to. He wanted to give me some money at the time, the rest after the games were played and lost. But it didn't go with me. Well, the argument went on for days, the argument for some now, some later. But I stood pat. I wanted that $10,000 and I got it.

              "The day before I went to Cincinnati I put it up to them squarely for the last time that there would be nothing doing unless I had the money. That night I found the money under my pillow. There was $10,000. I counted it. I don't know who put it there. It was my price. I had sold out 'Commy'. I had sold out the other boys. Sold them for $10,000 to pay off a mortgage on a farm and for the wife and kids...$10,000...what I had asked, cash in advance, there in my fingers. I had been paid and I went on. I threw the game.

              (Answering as to the manner in which the games were thrown Cicotte replied) "It's easy. Just a slight hesitation on the player's part will let a man get to base or make a run. I did it by not putting a thing on the ball. You could have read the trade mark on it the way I lobbed it over the plate. A baby could have hit 'em. Schalk was wise the moment I started pitching. Then, in one of the games, the first I think, there was a man on first and the Reds' batter hit a slow grounder to me. I could have made a double play out of it without any trouble at all. But I was slow--slow enough to prevent the double play. It did not necessarily look crooked on my part. It is hard to tell when a game is on the square and when it is not. A player can make a crooked error that will look on the square as easy as he can make a square one. Sometimes the square ones look crooked.

              "Then, in the fourth game, which I also lost, on a tap to the box I deliberately threw badly to first, allowing a man to get on. At another time, I intercepted a throw from the outfield and deliberately bobbled it, allowing a run to score. All the runs scored against me were due to my own deliberate errors. In those two games, I did not try to win...

              "I've lived a thousand years in the last twelve months. I would not have done that thing for a million dollars. Now I've lost everything, job, reputation, everything. My friends all be on the Sox. I knew it, but I couldn't tell them. I had to double-cross them.

              "I'm through with baseball. I'm going to lose myself if I can and start life over again."