Tough 1917 Zeenut card featuring "Sleepy" Bill Burns. Burns relayed information
between the players who had agreed to throw the 1919 World Series and
the gamblers who financed the endeavor. Burns was a key figure in the Black Sox
scandal, without whom, the scheme very well may have fallen apart. He is pictured here just two years prior to the events. Despite having
played his last major league game in 1912, Burns hovered around the
game, and by 1919, he was conspiring with members of the White Sox. Burns was also one of the parties who revealed the
story of the fix to a journalist in September of 1920.
This example, graded Poor 1 from SGC, does not have the coupon to which these cards originally came attached. Burns' face is appropriately hidden in the shadows in the image which graces this card, a seedy figure who seemed to always be involved in trouble but never the center of it. Heavy creasing, rounded corners, and soft edges help explain the card's grade, though the scarcity of this issue far outweighs any perceived cosmetic flaws on this example.
SGC has only ever graded 9 total examples of this 1917 Zeenut with the coupon, with only five receiving a higher grade than the Poor 1 offered here of "Sleepy" Bill Burns.