The players on both teams got together and threatened to go on strike. They were very upset that baseball was reducing player shares because of the war. In 1917 the players on the winning team each received more than $3600. In 1918, they received $1103.
The start of the game was delayed for more than sixty minutes as the players representatives held talks with the national commission—they were holding out for $2000 a man. The commission, led by Boston Mayor John Fitzgerald (JFK's grandfather), wouldn't budge. With the crowd getting angry, and the realization hitting them how bad they would look if they held out for money when the country was at war, the players buckled and played.
Hippo Vaughn shut out the Red Sox, forcing a Game 6.
In that game, Cubs outfielder Max Flack dropped an easy fly ball which allowed two runs to score. The Red Sox won that game 2-1, and the series.
Did the Cubs throw the series? That's been the claim by some, and it's easy to see how they could come to that conclusion based on the player revolt, and the dropped fly ball, but nothing has ever been proven and no-one ever admitted a thing. Baseball looked into the allegations while they were investigating the 1919 Series (that the White Sox did throw), and found no evidence at all of the Cubs cheating.
The pitchers obviously weren't jaking it. Only 18 total runs were scored (10 by the Cubs, 8 by the Red Sox). The two staff aces, Hippo Vaughn for the Cubs and Babe Ruth for the Red Sox, both pitched magnificently.
Legitimate or not, neither the Red Sox nor the Cubs won the World Series the rest of the century.
