Two former Spokane Indians disgraced baseball. Long after their death, they’ve been reinstated by MLB.

What with the hullabaloo that followed baseball commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent decision to reinstate Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson, who has considered that the road to infamy had passed through Spokane?

That announcement, on behalf of Major League Baseball, reinstated 17 players from the sport’s permanently banned list. Eight had been members of the notorious Chicago White Sox, who had tanked in the 1919 World Series. Two of the 17 disgraced men, more than 11 %, played for the 1913 Spokane Indians.

Charles “Swede” Risberg, tall, angular and quick with his fists, became a key figure as the Black Sox were beaten by the presumably inferior Cincinnati Reds. “Shufflin’” Phil Douglas, a highly skilled right-handed pitcher, frustrated several big-league managers with his thirst for strong drink and reckless behavior. Douglas was banished as the author of a famously imprudent letter.

Rose, perhaps the best self-made ballplayer we’ve ever seen, retired as this country’s all-time hits leader. Also widely known for personal shortcomings, the man known as Charlie Hustle was barred for betting on games, baseball’s unforgivable sin, while he managed the Cincinnati Reds. A recent article by Grace Ford of the Quick Report called him baseball’s all-time most despised player.

On the other hand, Joe Jackson, who starred for the 1919 White Sox, was a remarkably gifted, barely literate country boy from South Carolina, whose guilt in the postseason scandal remains in doubt. He had a fine series. Other than Ty Cobb, he was the best offensive player of his time.

In 1913, although their paths did not cross, Risberg and Douglas wore Spokane uniforms during an extraordinary season that was distinguished by its failure.

Manager Harry Ostdiek led the Indians through hundreds of games over five seasons, more than anyone until Tim Hulett came along, nearly a century later. In addition to Risberg and Douglas, Ostdiek’s current team had pitcher Stan Coveleski, who became one of six Spokane-affiliated figures in baseball’s Hall of Fame. Including Ostdiek, 11 men played in the majors. But the Indians lost 19 of 23 games at one stretch in May, and Ostdiek resigned, leaving behind a last-place team. It was the only one in his 12-year career that hadn’t finished first or second.

Risberg, a strong-armed 18-year-old, began the season with Spokane. The teenager lasted only a month, batting .195 in 25 games. Tried on the mound, he went 1-3, giving up a run an inning.

After spending the rest of that season and the next with Ogden of the Utah-Idaho League, and two in the Pacific Coast League, Risberg became Chicago’s regular shortstop in 1917. He played a minor role as the White Sox won that year’s World Series.

Three years later, he followed the lead of veteran first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil in negotiations with gamblers who wanted the White Sox to lose. Gandil and Risberg collected the reward and distributed it among the teammates who were in on the fix.

All eight players were brought to trial, where they were judged not guilty. Nonetheless, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, hastily hired as baseball’s first commissioner, declared them ineligible for life.

Eliott Asinof’s book, “Eight Men Out,” and the subsequent film, covers the whole story with considerable accuracy.

Curiously, Walter “Dutch” Ruether, who starred for Spokane’s 1916 Northwestern League champions, was among the best players for the Reds in that 1919 World Series.

Douglas, a big man for the era at 6-foot-3 and more than 200 pounds, had begun his recorded pro career in 1911, putting up a flashy 28-11 record for Macon, Georgia, of the Sally League. Bought by the White Sox, he had a wicked spitball he had learned from Sox immortal Ed Walsh.

The nickname? Charles Dryden, a giant among early baseball writers, came up with it after watching the pitcher shuffle from the bullpen to the mound.

Douglas began the 1913 season with San Francisco of the PCL. However, troubled by poor control and a loss of confidence, he was turned over to Spokane in mid-July. His record was an unimpressive 10-10. But newspaper accounts praised his pitching, noting his above-average statistics. Cincinnati drafted him and, the next spring, put him in their starting rotation.

In addition to alcoholic sprees, Douglas also had a reputation for unexplained absences. His countless run-ins with his managers, fines, suspensions and disappearances would fill a book. There is one: “One Last Round for the Shuffler,” by Tom Clark.

Shufflin’ Phil pitched well for the last-place Reds in 1914. Just the same, Cincinnati sold him to the Chicago Cubs, who shipped him to the minor leagues. Back with the Cubs in 1917, Douglas did more good pitching. Two years later, he had worn out his welcome.

John McGraw, the great manager of the New York Giants, couldn’t resist. Douglas won 42 and lost 28 for the Giants. Fifteen wins came in 1921 and he won two more as the Giants beat the Yankees in the World Series.

But …

There had been countless suspensions, disappearances, fines and shouting matches with McGraw. Then, on July 30, 1922, facing Pittsburgh, Douglas was hit hard in a costly defeat, and McGraw lit into him. Douglas demanded to be traded to St. Louis, New York’s top rival, and went to a friend’s apartment where he drank himself into a stupor. He ended up in a sanitarium for rigorous care.

When McGraw billed Douglas for the treatment, the player protested and they had another shouting match that prompted McGraw to tack on a fine.

Douglas wrote a former teammate, Les Mann of the Cardinals, suggesting that he could be paid to disappear, leaving McGraw and the Giants in the middle of a pennant race. Mann, strait-laced, turned the letter over to the commissioner. Within days, Landis added Douglas to the list of permanently ineligible players.

Both men periodically but unsuccessfully sought reinstatement. Both played semipro ball in fast company for many years.

Douglas became a sympathetic then pathetic figure, pleading that drugs he took in the asylum led him to send a letter he knew he shouldn’t have written.

Risberg, California-born, returned there and operated a tavern for two decades in Weed, just south of the Oregon border. Old injuries caused him to walk with a limp. Eventually, that leg was amputated. He died in nearby Red Bluff on his 81st birthday, Oct. 13, 1975.

Douglas returned to the South and worked at various jobs. He died at age 62 in Tennessee on Aug. 1, 1952.