You asked "How does the reserve clause make it OK for the players to deceive the fans and sell out their teammates?" and I answered that the Reserve Clause created a toxic environment for player-management relations.
Note the disconnect between the parties I refer to and the ones you refer to. If the primary victim of throwing the series had been management, it would still be a stain on the players' integrity, but at least an understandable and maybe on some level acceptable one. But I think this is a hard case to make.
That James quote seemed to suggest that the players were just greedy for no reason.
There's no inherent contradiction between being exploited and being greedy--a person can be both of those things. The James quote doesn't assume players were treated fairly -- in fact, if you read the essay the quote is taken from, he makes the opposite point very clearly and eloquently.*
Also, no one needs a reason to be greedy; we are greedy by nature. But our greed is normally kept in check by conscience. So if what you're saying is that being exploited by the owners disabled the players' consciences, I'm saying that's not a valid plea. The fact that someone hurts you doesn't give you a moral blank check.
Apart from that, I am happy to have this debate with you, but I don't know what you said that I was supposed to answer.
You weren't supposed to answer anything I said, but when you start a post by quoting something I wrote, I tend to assume that what follows is a response to that.
*Found it online, and it's worth quoting at length because I think James strikes exactly the right balance here:
It is a hard thing to know that another man is making money off of your labor, and has no intention of dealing fairly with you. This is not to say that Joe Jackson or Happy Felsch or Heinie Zimmerman were not guilty of their own crimes, because they were. But the arch-villain of this villainous era was Charles Albert Comiskey. He had no reason in the world not to deal fairly with his players. The White Sox drew the largest crowds in baseball in this period—even larger than the Giants—yet the White Sox were one of the lowest-paying teams. Comiskey held all the power in the relationship between owner and players, and he had to rub their noses in it.
….Put Joe Jackson in the Hall of Fame? How about if we kick Comiskey out? Bury them all in a common grave, and put up a marker with an eleven-word epitaph. They all wanted the money, and they all wanted it all.