Clearly, he's an excellent player, however, the underlying suggest is that he has rigged games. Bill comments, "But he loses ball games'" (Hemingway 48). The idea that he may not be above board evokes the comment from Nick that "There's always more to it than we know about'" (Hemingway 48). The disappointment that both feel about this player indicates a kind of disillusionment with the game. Hemingway intentionally makes this suggestion based on the famous Black Sox scandal of 1919 when the World Series was thrown (Hurley). Americans so often believed in the power of baseball as something good and virtuous. The thought that baseball could be corrupted helps convey Nick's cynicism in this story (Hurley). Nick is a young man with a future and should be optimistic, but he has been tainted by something.

Baseball serves to illustrate the relationship between the men, but so do the novels that...
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