New Britain herald., 1927-01-10
LANDLS NON- COMzN77TAL
 ON RLSBERG,S CHARGES
One Fact Was Brought Out at the Hearing That Pool Was Collected and Paid to Detroit Pitchers Start ed in Pool Room in Rochester, Mnn.-Two Score Baseball Players Testfed-Expenses of Hearing Will Total More Than $20OOO.

Chicago. Jan. 10 R-Swede Ris- berg's remark in Rochester, Minn.. billiard room, caroming from the newspapers straight into the offices of kenesaw Mountain Landis here, has left the table in the most chaot- ic shape baseball's high commits sioner has seen 1t in the six years he has held office.
 The balls had all been racked neaty after the annual meeting of the major league magnates and the reelection for seven years of Com missioner Landis at salary of S65,000. Then the commissioner raised his cue, and Ty Cobb and Iris Speaker rolled from the American league.
 The other balls remained nicely punched in the center of the table until Swede Risberg, a figure in baseballs biggest blow-o off when he and seven others were driven from baseball on crookedness charge. walked into the Rochester billiard room and heard heated discussion of the Cobb-Speaker affair.
 What Cobb and Speaker did was nothing" Risberg remarked. They were square shooters. If the com- missioner wants to hear some real scandal, I can give it 10 him.
 A newspaperman convalescing at "a Rochester hospital heard of Ris- berg's statement. He talked with Risberg and the story was broad cast.
 If you know anything that's wrong with baseball, come on and tell it." Commissioner Landis wired Risberg.
 Risberg came, telling a story of game throwing in 1917 that impress sed Landis so that he summoned 3S players. past and present, to appear here and tell what they knew of the sloughing of the two 1917 Labor Day week doubeheaders which Ris- berg said Detroit handed 10 Chicago.
 Echoes of the story reached Chick Gandil, g- outlawed from baseball with Risberg in 1920. and he added his testimony in substantiation and elaboration of Risberg's. The &C., cused players also responded. almost to the man, and chorused their em- phatic denial of the crookedness charged against them.
 In two days of hearing last week more than two score baseball figures told their version of baseball as it was played 10 years ago. Accident ally they run up bill for the commissioner of approximately s2O,- 000, in expenses incurred in appear ing at the hearing.
 The commissioner has been un- communicative concerning the Ris- berg Gandil charges as he has been about the bomb Dutch" Leonard exploded shrapnel from which struck Ty Cobb and Iris Speaker just as they stepped from baseball.
 Attorneys for Cobb and Speaker have sought official eXoneration Of their clients from the commissioner, and it is possible that his decision Wednesday morning may include some statement on the status of these two stars.
 The evidence which Landis pon- dcrs includes the charges of Gandll and Risberg that a pool was collect ed among the 1917 White SoX and distributed among certain Tiger pitchers in return for "sloughing' four games to Chicago, and the de- nial by the accused players of any wrong doing.
 The one established fact from which the commissioner may work is that a pool actually was collected and paid to Detroit pitchers. Whether, as Gandil and Risberg charge, it was for throwing games, or, as the accused players contend, to reward the Detroit pitchers for beating Boston in a later series that meant much to Chicago, is the ques-