Eight men out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series

by Eliot Asinof

Book by Eliot Asinof

Genres: Sports, Baseball, Nonfiction, History, American History, Audiobook, Crime

302 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Though rising in popularity, baseball became corrupted with almost incredible rapidity. There was hardly a game in which some wild, disruptive incident did not occur to alter the outcome. An outfielder, settling under a crucial fly ball, would find himself stoned by a nearby spectator, who might win a few hundred dollars if the ball was dropped. On one occasion, a gambler actually ran out on the field and tackled a ballplayer. On another, a marksman prevented a fielder from chasing a long hit by peppering the ground around his feet with bullets. The victims had no chance to appeal: there was nothing in the rules to cover such behavior. There were, of course, more subtle techniques for controlling ball games. Bribery became a common weapon…”
- Eliot Asinof, Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series

“My father said he saw him years later playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name. He’d put on fifty pounds and the spring was gone from his step, but he could still hit. Oh, how that man could hit. No one has ever been able to hit like Shoeless Joe…”
- W. P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe

Baseball is America’s game. Forget about television ratings, the growing regionality of the sport, and the rise of football and basketball. When you think about things that represent America, baseball is at the top of the list. In many ways, baseball’s history has mirrored America’s, and baseball’s problems – especially with regard to race and class – has mirrored the problems of the country as a whole. Baseball, like America, wears a halcyonic mantle that barely covers the warts beneath.

To be sure, I’m not above mythologizing baseball. When I think about the Major Leagues at the turn-of-the-century, I think of tough guys playing a kid’s game with ferocious joy, covered in dirt and tobacco juice; I think of the pitchers throwing every inning of a ten-inning game, and then doing it again the next day; I think of the baserunners spiking the hell out of their opponents, breaking up the double play at all costs; I think of the batters standing in the box without helmets or gloves or guards, taking fastballs off the noggin and then rubbing a bit of spit on the bruise; and of course I think about everybody sporting a lazy nickname like “Lefty” or “Kid” or “Chick” or “Shoeless.”

As Eliot Asinof demonstrates in his demi-classic Eight Men Out, that is a vision of time that sort of existed. Certainly, the game back then saw the rampant overuse of pitchers; the spiking of opponents; and more than a few lazy, obvious nicknames. That portrait leaves out a few important aspects, however, and in Eight Men Out, Asinof peels back the fairytale sheen of old-timey hardball to recount one of darker periods in the sport’s oft-troubled history, a time when the integrity of the game was in question, and the whole operation of Major League Baseball trembled in the balance.

***

In 1919, the year that eight members of the Chicago White Sox agreed to throw the World Series to the underdog Cincinnati Reds, baseball players were subject to a financial system that depressed their salaries, stymied their freedom of movement, and kept them from achieving market value. Under this system, the crux of which was the so-called reserve clause, a marvelous hitter like Joseph Jefferson “Shoeless Joe” Jackson could put up huge numbers year after year without ever seeing a commensurate rise in his salary. If he wanted to leave, he couldn’t – that is, he couldn’t play for anyone else. There was no such thing as free agency. He either had to accept the salary offered by his owner – in Jackson’s case, the skinflint Charles Comiskey – or quit.

***

It was in this larger context that the over-talented and underpaid White Sox entered the 1919 Fall Classic. According to Asinof – who frustratingly fails to include any notes in his book – the plot to throw the series originated with first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil, a solid batsman who put up 19.4 wins above replacement in his truncated career. Feeling a financial pinch, Gandil hatched a plan to throw the series with two sets of shady gamblers financing the deal. Pursuant to this plan, the gamblers would make huge bets they couldn’t lose, while the players would get a cut of the proceeds. Ultimately the eight players were supposed to split $100,000 (they did not get nearly this amount; a few got nothing). Some of the gamblers directly involved had ties to Arnold Rothstein, a connection famously remarked upon by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, where Rothstein is credited with orchestrating the whole conspiracy (credit he does not deserve).

Briskly paced and at less than three-hundred pages in length, Eight Men Out moves quickly. At times, you have to force yourself to slow down, because the web of deceit is a bit complex and – it should be noted – hotly debated to this day. Asinof’s version is probably the standard, but he has been criticized by many over important details, especially as it pertains to the guilt or innocence of Shoeless Joe.

(For example, in 2009, an article in Chicago Lawyer claims that Asinof’s files “suggest” that Shoeless Joe wasn’t part of the fix).

Allegations of inaccuracy – or worse, fabrication – on Asinof’s part definitely gave me pause. At the same time, the Black Sox scandal is not a topic I plan to explore any further. It was enough for me to get the gradual contours of the story. If the reputation of Shoeless Joe is the hill you want to die on, though, you should probably read Eight Men Out with some skepticism.

For my money, the best parts of Eight Men Out are the bookends. In the first chapter, Asinof puts together a seemingly credible version of “the fix” and how it was supposed to operate. He also does a good job of painting in the shadows of America’s pastime, with hotel lobbies and bars crawling with gamblers, players, and reporters, everyone with a sense of what was going on, but nobody really saying anything.

The final chapters are also well done, as Asinof recounts the criminal trial – in which the players were all acquitted – and the surprising aftermath, in which the new Major League commissioner, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, decided to ban the players for life, despite the lack of any convictions. No matter how deeply you feel that cheaters should get their due, there is something extraordinarily melancholy about these exiled ballplayers, many of whom received next-to-nothing for their efforts, who gave up their passion, their livelihood, and their good names for a fleeting shot at a fortune.

In contrast to the start and finish, the middle section of Eight Men Out, covering the World Series games themselves, felt a little baggy. Asinof is not a super talented writer. Leaving aside his annoying overuse of exclamation points, his recreations are middling and uninspired. Partially, my reaction is a function of the universe of talented wordsmiths who have covered baseball in prose that reaches for poetry. Perhaps it is unfair to compare Asinof to Roger Kahn or Roger Angell or Frank Deford or David Halberstam, but you can’t really expect fairness in a book about cheats and gamblers.

***

Eight Men Out is a relatively old book, first published in 1963. The age is apparent in its conception of baseball (pitchers being judged on wins, batters on batting average) and its aforementioned overuse of exclamation points. (Which don’t really belong in nonfiction books!). Yet, its age is also a virtue, because at the time it was written, many of the participants were still alive. As I pointed out above, Asinof does not include endnotes, but he states in his preface (albeit vaguely) that he talked with many of these guys personally, and got their stories firsthand.

Eight Men Out does a good job doing exactly what it sets out to do. Unravel the mystery of ballplayers and gamblers and the near-death of a cultural institution. It is, in point of fact, the place to go if your sole interest is in the mechanics of the plot. Even if you disagree with every word, you have to contend with its existence.

Nevertheless, I confess to wanting more. Indeed, when I got to the last page, my first thought was: That’s it?

There is a bigger picture here that Asinof misses entirely. Specifically, I’m talking about Major League Baseball’s economic model, with its voraciously profit-minded owners, Supreme Court-blessed antitrust exemption, and long history of simultaneously screwing ballplayers while convincing fans that they’re greedy bastards. By focusing on the conspiracy, Asinof – intentionally or not – mostly lets the owners off the hook. Instead, we are given the obvious: the players consorted with criminals; the players broke the public’s trust; the players were all to blame.

A better, fresher book would have recognized that the soul of this saga isn’t the corrupt gamblers and corruptible ballplayers. Rather, it is the age-old tale of labor versus capital, of the worker versus the owner. A better, fresher book would have recognized that the actions taken by Chick Gandil and Shoeless Joe were not an illness, but a symptom, and that the disease came from the top.

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite movie and book combinations is Shoeless Joe, which became the basis for the classic baseball film Field of Dreams. When Ray Kinsella hears a voice telling him, “if you build it, he will come,” he is convinced that if he constructs a baseball diamond on his farm, that Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other members of the 1919 White Sox will be able to play organized ball again. I have watched the film countless times but had never read Eight Men Out, Eliot Asinof’s book that details the actual events in 1919 that lead to Jackson and his teammates’ banishment from Major League Baseball. As we have reached the hundredth anniversary of this event that shaped modern baseball, I felt that this was as good a time as any to read Asinof’s now classic story of baseball history.

In 1919, Major League Baseball was only forty three years old. The National League organized in 1876, followed by the American League in 1901. No city had enjoyed a successful run as Chicago which saw both the National League Cubs and American League White Sox at or near the top of league standings on an almost annual basis. With pride in the national game swelling following the defeat of axis powers in World War I the previous year, Americans’ love for baseball was at an all time high in 1919. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey boasted the best team in the American League and was poised to win another pennant. He ruled with an iron fist, keeping player salaries lower than that of any other team in baseball, leading him to earn large annual profits while outfitting a team of disgruntled stars. With the White Sox primed to win another pennant in 1919 and gate receipts at Comiskey Park at an all time high, Charles Comiskey felt that he held the hand that controlled most of the major leagues. Only one man challenged Comiskey, known as the Old Roman, for power: American League president Ban Johnson. The two men, while united in their love of baseball, had not been on speaking terms for years as each of them desired the upper hand for control. This feud, more than any events that would occur on the field, would shape how the 1919 World Series would be played out on the field.

By keeping player salaries below the league average, Charles Comiskey’s pennant winning team was not a unified group. There were two key cliques, one a group of educated players lead by second baseman Eddie Collins and the other a group of disgruntled, largely uneducated players lead by shortstop Arthur “Chick” Gandil. The double play combination was notorious for barely speaking to each other off of the field while also making stellar plays on it. Gandil and veteran pitcher Eddie Cicotte lead a faction who most believed that Comiskey had underpaid them for years. During a series in New York ten days prior to the close of the season, Gandil was approached by gamblers with a preposition: throw the World Series for $100,000. Even though he knew it was illegal to gamble on organized baseball, Gandil also saw that notorious baseball players on the take lead by Hal Chase of the New York Giants still had jobs in the big leagues even if they bet on a nearly daily basis. For Gandil and Cicotte it was a no brainer. They had families to support, mortgages to pay. As soon as they could find other teammates willing to go along with the fix, Gandil and Cicotte were on board with throwing the 1919 World Series.

Asinof details the World Series and its aftermath in a story that reads like a legal thriller. During the series itself, sportswriters and the White Sox manager and other players could tell that something was off. The White Sox boasted a superior team to their National League Cincinnati Reds opponents, yet the Reds won the first two games of the best of nine series effortlessly. The Sox manager took his concerns to owner Comiskey who was just as alarmed at gamblers taking control of baseball; yet, due to his ongoing feud with Ban Johnson, the league president did nothing to stop the fix. Perhaps had Johnson done what was right for baseball rather than his own ego, the scandal would have ended after the first two games, reinstating order to the game. Yet, Johnson saw the fix as an impetus to remove his rival from baseball once and for all. After eight games, the Reds came out on top, and the double crossed players had to settle for only $20,000 of the promised $100,000. Crooked gamblers had won the day, leaving baseball reeling. League owners desired that the game was cleansed of all gamblers, leading to the appointment of Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis as its first full time commissioner. It was Landis rather than Johnson who banned the eight Black Sox for life, leading children to ask the great Joe Jackson, “say it ain’t so, Joe.”

Readers are introduced to notorious gamblers as Arnold Rothstein and leading sportswriters of the day including Hugh Fullerton of Chicago and Ring Lardner of New York. While players got paid paltry salaries and fell into a league with gamblers, sportswriters were in the pockets of the league owners. With newspapers being the lead source of media for the entire country, it was up to the writers to maintain baseball’s clean image for the fans. As the Black Sox trial played out, writers spoke of the players’ guilt while writing of gamblers double crossing and owners having zero knowledge of the fix. Shaky alliances formed out of gamblers with deep pockets and baseball owners with large egos. All wanted to be exonerated, especially Comiskey who stood to have eight players on his ball club banned for life. As the courtroom drama unfolded, the White Sox fell to the second division, and the New York Yankees, lead by Babe Ruth ascended to become baseball’s dominant team of the 1920s, cleaning up the game’s image and preserving it for generations to come. It would be until 2005 that the White Sox would win another World Series.

Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other Black Sox lived out the rest of their days as business owners and making attempts to play in semi organized ball. Over the years some asked to be reinstated only to have each successive commissioner deny their request. Jackson lived out the rest of his days in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina and did not “play” in another major league game until the release of Field of Dreams in 1988, thirty seven years after his death. The Black Sox scandal removed gambling from organized baseball and lead to the coming of Babe Ruth as an American hero. In his 1963 baseball courtroom drama, Eliot Asinof has preserved this story of personal greed and ego rivalries for generations of baseball fans. Reading this in 2019, my only hope is that America’s game will last for at least another hundred years.

4 stars

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a lad, I used to love baseball. Part of my obsession with the sport was collecting baseball cards. When I was in the hospital to have my tonsils removed, my Dad brought me a stack of cards to cheer me up. It was the best gift ever. I think I sort of blanked out from the anesthesia and my mother left the cards at the hospital.

I’m still not over this today. Even after spending thousands on therapy bills, just thinking about this is like setting a match to the drum of gasoline that is my dormant inner rage…

Where was I? Oh, yeah, baseball.

Loved baseball, didn’t miss a game on either radio or TV. Idolized the players. The heroic, perfect players.



Then as I grew older, I realized athletes aren’t the bee’s knees. They drink, take drugs, cheat on their wives, gamble... And nothing done on a ballfield can really be considered heroic. They can be assholes, just like you and I. Well, more like me.

The early 1900’s were good times for the sport. Baseball and its players were held in high regard by the adoring masses – the game’s popularity had reached a frenzied peak. The Chicago White Sox were the best team in baseball; sadly, and here’s the rub, they weren’t paid as such. Charles Comiskey, although a brilliant innovator in the early days of the game, was a hard-assed miser when it came to paying his players anywhere near their market value relative to what others were paying. In some cases, players on other teams with half the talent were being paid twice the salary. Comiskey and his stooges would take advantage of his illiterate players when it became time to negotiate salaries and sign contracts.



The ballplayers are portrayed as country hicks who went to the big city to play baseball rather than remain home, like Lil’ Abner, being chased around by scantily clad, horny hillbilly women.



And because anti-trust laws didn’t apply to baseball, the players were treated as chattel – “You can’t play anymore? Thanks for everything and clean out your locker on your way out.” “You don’t like what you’re being paid, well, you not only can’t play baseball for us, we’ll make sure you’ll never earn a living at this game playing for anyone else!”

So before the 1919 World Series began, when the White Sox were about to clinch the pennant, disgruntled White Sox players approached gamblers with the idea of throwing the World Series for money. The machinations and subterfuge as written here is well wrought, interesting and fairly easy to follow.

With most unsavory activities planned out by “bumpkins” and greased by the avarice of the underworld, it, of course, doesn’t go undetected.

Baseball owners knew that any hint of scandal could overturn the wheel barrel of $$ that they were raking in and the twisted “justice” is diabolical in how it’s brutally and sadly rendered.

This book is a stand-up triple and is recommended for fans of sports books, lovers of baseball and readers who believe that crime in all its assorted guises ultimately does not pay.

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If baseball is of no interest to you, you might be tempted to pass up this book of the greatest scandal in sports history.........but you don't have to be a fan to enjoy this well written and interesting telling of an incident that rocked the nation. It is a history of a time, a place, and the men who were involved.

It was 1919 and, exhausted by the Great War, people turned to baseball for relief and entertainment. That year the World Series brought the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds in a head-to-head battle for baseball's coveted title. Charles Cominsky, the hated owner of the Sox, had a team of disgruntled players who he treated badly and paid even worse. These were decent, normal and talented men who got caught up in the behind the scenes machinations which eventually led to their banishment from the sport for their lifetime.

The author gives us, not only a look at these players but also a look at Chicago where the "mob" was determining how the city was governed and what they could control. One of the top dogs of the criminal world, Arnold Rothstein, turned his eyes to baseball - thus the fix was in and the Black Sox scandal was born.

Well researched and written with style, this is an enjoyable and rather poignant history of the most shameful event in sports history. Even the non-sports fan will find it interesting. And it gave rise to a saying that lingers on to this day when a young boy tugged at the sleeve of Joe Jackson, one of the banned players, when the trial was over and cried "Say it 'aint so, Joe. Say it 'aint so".

Recommended.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

With baseball season kicking off I figured it was finally time to read a book that I have seen the movie version of several times. The Chicago Black Socks and the 1919 World Series gambling scandal is probably the most infamous story in the history of baseball. It rocked the sport to its very core and almost destroyed it - leading to a lot of the rules and structure of the organization of it that we still have today.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about it, but was not super impressed by the presentation. While it was well researched and all the facts were delivered, it was frequently stale, uninteresting, and hard to follow (specifically the trial after the fact). If you are not a baseball fan (which I am), I don't think there is any reason to give this one a try.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eight members of major league baseball’s Chicago White Sox colluded with gamblers, arranged to lose a 1919 World Series that they were heavily favoured to win, and were banned from organized baseball for life as a result. Yet the corrupt actions of these players were only part of a system that had itself grown corrupt. Such, at any rate, is part of the message of Eliot Asinof’s book Eight Men Out.

Asinof, himself a former minor-league baseball player (Moultrie Packers and Wausau Lumberjacks, 1940-41), spends a good deal of his time tearing away at the tissue of myths surrounding this difficult moment from American sports history.

For instance, many readers looking at the book’s subtitle -- The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series -- might assume that the “Black Sox” nickname was invented by outraged baseball fans after the fixing of the 1919 World Series was made public. In fact, however, the nickname took hold before that ill-starred championship series even began; team owner Charles Comiskey, whose dedication to winning was matched only by his desire to save money wherever possible, would let his team “run out on the field in the filthiest uniforms the fans had ever seen: Comiskey had given orders to cut down on the cleaning bills” (p. 23). The Chicago fans observed the players’ dirty uniforms, and a nickname was born – one that would take on new significance in years to come.

The 1919 White Sox were a team of extraordinary talent – even better, perhaps, than the 1917 White Sox who had won the World Series. The eight players who threw the World Series and became the “eight men out” included outfielder “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, the slow-talking South Carolinian who could not read but was among the greatest all-around players that the game ever produced. Jackson’s participation in the fixing scheme seems to have been relatively half-hearted; and he and third baseman Buck Weaver, who insisted that he had never taken money from gamblers, and pointed to his excellent play in the 1919 World Series as evidence of his innocence, emerge as relatively sympathetic figures among the “Black Sox.”

At the same time, the story of the “Black Sox” scandal is in many ways the story of Comiskey’s own personal tragedy. Comiskey, a man who “had become a rich man with his ball club”, and who had observed that “Chicago’s Southside…offered the finest baseball fans in America” (p. 50), betrayed both himself and his fans through his penny-pinching antics – behavior that made some of his players more willing to listen to the gamblers. Many team owners have had to live with losing a World Series; only Comiskey had to live with the knowledge that his team had lost a World Series on purpose.

Asinof’s meticulous reporting uncovers the careful machinations of gamblers who, when they weren’t betraying the players to whom they had promised large sums of money, were busy betraying each other. He also captures well the paradox of skilled baseball players, who know that they have what it takes to win, setting themselves with a grim, perverse sort of determination to the task of losing, as when Asinof describes pitcher Eddie Cicotte taking the mound at the beginning of Game 3, receiving a warm welcome from the Chicago home crowd, and reflecting that “It was going to be another tough day for him. He hated to lose in his home ball park” (p. 101).

Equally conscientious is the manner in which Asinof shows how slowly, how gradually, the truth about the 1919 World Series came out and exploded into scandal. Reports of Detroit gamblers launching “sure-thing” bets on a Cubs-Phillies game in August of 1920 meant that “the baseball fans of Chicago had had it. In the span of the past two seasons, they had heard enough stories of corruption to shatter their equanimity thoroughly” (p. 150).

The investigation of the game-fixing allegations led to the convening of a grand jury. One gets a strong sense, in these passages from Eight Men Out, of how very much the players – mostly working-class men with little or no formal education – are out of their depth in a world of Ivy League-educated attorneys, and depositions, and waivers of immunity. Buck Weaver, the third baseman who always claimed innocence of participation in the fixing of World Series games, at one point called an Illinois assistant state's attorney and offered to testify voluntarily before the grand jury. After Weaver hung up the phone, he reflected that “The lawyers were all such agreeable fellows. They even sounded harmless. But the bodies were dropping like flies” (p. 201).

A series of indictments was followed by a sensational 1921 trial on charges of conspiracy to defraud. In the passages dealing with the trial, the helplessness of the players in the face of larger social and economic forces is once again emphasized. Asinof writes that Shoeless Joe Jackson, who had impulsively offered a full confession during grand-jury proceedings,

sat through [the trial] like a kid listening to a fascinating story he had never heard before. Somehow, he’d assumed that it was the gamblers who had started it all. He had been following the proceedings with absorbed attention….He hated himself for having confessed….Not so much because he had been stupid, but because he’d been weak. He had allowed himself to believe the lawyers’ promise of protection. Now, he had no choice but to rely on them. That, too, he hated. Because he couldn’t understand all this. At recesses, he would nervously joke about his ignorance. “Hey, lawyer, who’s winning?” he would ask….His counsel would smile back and shrug. In a ball game, Jackson could always look at the scoreboard and tell. Here, the answer was a shrug. (pp. 253-54)

The eight players were acquitted of those conspiracy charges, to the noisy approval of courtroom spectators. But in the wake of that verdict came another verdict – that of the newly appointed Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis:

”…Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball!” (p. 273)

In context, Judge Landis’s decision makes sense for many reasons. Had baseball continued to be under the influence of gamblers, there was a very real danger that the sport might have lost all credibility as an athletic contest; it could have turned into a sensationalistic sideshow, like professional wrestling nowadays. But the most shattering and immediate impact of that decision was on those eight former members of the Chicago White Sox. On that August day in 1921, they became, then and forevermore, the “eight men out.”

The epilogue to the book describes the ultimate outcomes for a number of the disgraced players. Buck Weaver sought to clear his name, and gain readmission to professional baseball, as diligently as he had played third base – but all in vain. Shoeless Joe Jackson meanwhile slipped into anonymity, to the point that Ty Cobb, wandering one day into Jackson’s liquor store in Greenville, South Carolina, found himself asking Jackson, “Don’t you know me, Joe?” and hearing Jackson say, “Sure – I know you, Ty. I just didn’t think anyone I used to know up there wanted to recognize me again….” (p. 293)

The saga of the “eight men out” permeates our culture. Aptly, Asinof includes as an epigraph for his book the excerpt from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) wherein Gatsby introduces narrator Nick Carraway to gambler Meyer Wolfsheim, and then “added coolly, ‘He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.’” The Black Sox scandal was just six years in the past when Fitzgerald published his great novel; and one can sense the shock that this sullying of the national pastime caused for Fitzgerald, and for millions of other Americans, in the way Gatsby narrator Carraway expresses incredulity at the idea that such a thing could be done:

“The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World's Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people – with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.”

And then there is W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe (1982), and its film adaptation, Phil Alden Robinson’s Field of Dreams (1989). The novel and the film, both crafted in the nostalgic 1980’s, offered a symbolic, looking-backward opportunity to reverse Judge Landis’s verdict, granting Shoeless Joe Jackson a chance to return to major league baseball and pit his talents against those of his fellow greats.

And perhaps most importantly, there is John Sayles’s 1988 film adaptation of Eight Men Out, with its superb evocation of period detail and its subtle suggestions that the true villains of the “Black Sox” scandal escaped both publicity and punishment. As Chicago journalist Hugh Fullerton (played by Chicago journalist Studs Terkel) puts it in the film, after the players have been acquitted of the conspiracy charges, “Gamblers eight, baseball nothing.”

The "Black Sox" scandal comes up in everyday life as well. One day, for example, a very ordinary English class I was teaching at Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois, took an interesting turn when I mentioned the “Black Sox” scandal and a student insisted, vociferously and repeatedly, that the whole thing was “not proven” and the eight players were almost certainly innocent. If by “not proven” he meant that the “Black Sox” were never convicted of a crime, he was correct; but the very insistence with which he clung to his viewpoint showed the extent to which he felt that the existence of the scandal threatened the good name of his beloved White Sox franchise.

Sometime later, my wife and I drove up from our home in Champaign and attended our first White Sox game at U.S. Cellular Field. I still have the ticket stub from that game, inserted as a bookmark in my paperback copy of Eight Men Out -- White Sox vs. Tigers, 25 July 2004. What stands out to me is not the game’s final result (the Tigers won, 9-2), or its highlights (the Detroit manager got thrown of the game in the first inning), but a seemingly routine detail that I noted during one of the inning breaks. Like all other major league teams, the White Sox have posted flags to commemorate their league pennants and their World Series titles. I found myself looking back and forth at the large flag for the White Sox’s 1917 World Series title, and then at the smaller flag for the 1919 American League pennant. Between those two flags, I found myself thinking, what an epic story looms. Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out tells that story very well. It is one of the best baseball books ever written – and one of the saddest.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the first paragraph to the last sentence this is a great baseball story. A tale of talented ballplayers, manipulating gamblers, money-hungry owners, and corrupt politicians creating the most notorious scandal in baseball history. The fact that much of the story is closer to creative fiction than strictly accurate fact doesn’t detract from the excitement of the tale.

Eight disgraced ballplayers took cash to throw the 1919 World Series, ever since dubbed the Black Sox. Yet with two exceptions, they are the most sympathetic characters in the whole sordid story. Chick Gandil, the tough first baseman who hatched the scheme, and his friend Swede Risberg, nasty tempered shortstop, who needed no prodding to join in, don't come off well. The rest of the crew, however, seem to have joined in a half-hearted, hapless manner. Particularly tragic are Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of baseball's all-time great hitters, whose talent was only exceeded by his naivete, and Buck Weaver, the outstanding thirdbaseman whose fault was not reporting the scheme.

The gambler’s role in this drama is particularly fascinating. Three distinct levels of gamblers were present in the fix. Sleepy Bill Burns was an ex-ballplayer and small time gambler who did the legwork, consulting with the players. He went bust and was double-crossed by both the gamblers above him and Chick Gandil. Abe Attell and Sport Sullivan were a level up on the gambler's food chain - they had some access to the big time boys, but were not part of that exclusive club. Through constant maneuvering and double-dealing, and calculated risk taking, they were able to walk away from the scheme with a tidy profit. Arnold Rothstein was the big time. His money backed the fix, yet he took almost no personal risk, and emerged completely unscathed from the whole nasty affair while turning a huge profit. Big fish eat little fish, no matter what the ocean.

In the tale as told here, the least likeable characters were Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, and the rest of the baseball owners. For years they had turned a blind eye to the corruption of gambling in the game rather than expose it and risk the popularity of their sport and the profits in their ticket sales. When the fix of the World Series exploded across newspaper headlines, and they could no longer hide their dirty secrets, they used their wealth and connections, buying off elected officials, and even colluding with the gamblers behind the fix, to protect their reputations and profits. It was their power, their lawyers, their money, that presented eight ballplayers as the scapegoats for national outrage.

In the years since Eight Men Out was published it has been challenged for making unsubstantiated and false claims, and getting many of the basic facts wrong. This is something to be aware of, and you may want to read other books on the scandal to get a different take. But the basic story presented here is still excellent, even if it’s more historic fiction than history, and is definitely still worth a read.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Who is he, an actor?"
"No, he's a gambler." Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: "He's the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby



This is a TOP TEN book in my baseball library.
Availability. IN PRINT – New, used, Kindle available.
Type. HISTORY/PLAYERS
Use. READ
_explanation_


The Introduction by Jay Gould – baseball fanatic extraordinaire, world famous evolutionary biologist, popular science writer of books such as Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and The Panda's Thumb – gives a sweeping view, in all of four pages, of the story this book tells. He paints a tapestry containing The Godfather, Part II, W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe, Arnold Rothstein, the gambler who performed the "brilliant and audacious Job" of fixing the 1919 World Series; of the American way of life, of human drama at its best; Bill James essay on game fixing during the teens and twenties; the way players such as Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Smokey Joe Wood were entangled by rumor and innuendo, if never by concrete evidence of fact; but after all these famous players were accused in one way or another, "no plot was so sensational, no resolution so fierce as the Black Sox Scandal. The "eight men out" of the Black Sox embody what can only be called baseball's most important and gripping incident."


The fall after the 1919 World Series there were many rumors going around that the outcome had been fixed by gamblers. As far as the general public knew, these were no more than speculation. As fall wore into winter, the rumors gradually died out, the average fan had other concerns. (White Sox fans were not so quick to move on.) Just after New Years, on January 5, 1920, the baseball world was consumed by the news that the Boston Red Sox had sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. This bombshell news rather submerged the lingering suspicions, likely even for many White Sox fans. But throughout the year 1920, as baseball resumed and the players who had agreed to throw the Series continued their careers, the rumors wouldn't quite go away. Finally, in September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate. The grand jury handed down its decision on October 22, 1920, and eight players and five gamblers were implicated. The indictments included nine counts of conspiracy to defraud.

The baseball owners, eager to do something about the state of gambling in the game, had decided to appoint its first Commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Landis assumed the new office prior to the 1921 season, and one of his first acts was to use the unprecedented powers granted him by the owners to place the eight accused players on an "ineligible list", a decision that effectively left them suspended indefinitely from all of professional baseball.

The trial of the players took place in Chicago. It began on June 27, 1921, and went to the jury on August 2. In just three hours the verdict was returned. All players were found not guilty on all counts.

But the players' playing time in the Major Leagues did not resume. The morning after the trial the Chicago papers, rolling off the press, reported on the front page a statement issued by Landis: "Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball." [from the book and Wiki]



The book under review has pages and pages of information about the players involved. However, since it's scattered, I've not attempted to scoop overviews of the players from that source. Instead, most of what follows is edited from player portraits contained in The Ballplayers. Some information was also taken from The World Series and The Baseball Encyclopedia. Photos (with one exception) are from the Field of Dreams movie, which featured five the Black Sox players among those stepping out of the cornfield.

All references to "WS" are for the 1919 World Series.



The seven


Shoeless Joe "Field of Dreams" Jackson. Outfield.

Born: 1889, Pickens County S.C.
Age during WS: 30
Died: 1951, Greenville S.C.


Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson

WS record: batted .375 with 3 doubles, a homer, and a team leading 6 RBI. 17 OF chances, no errors.

Supremely gifted in his baseball ability, supremely limited in his ability to deal with life [until his later years, when his disappointments receded into the corners of his memory]. Could hit, run,and throw with the best but lacked education, judgement, and character. When his limitations overcame his gifts, it was a tragedy of both baseball and American life. [Had the fix never happened, he would surely have ended up in the Hall of Fame.]

The illiterate son of the cotton-town South, ignorant of city ways, easy to ridicule for everything but his baseball talent. His first ML team, the Athletics, turned him sullen and ineffective with their cruel, mocking humor. He was shipped to Cleveland.

In Cleveland he was accepted by his teammates, and responded with the great years of his career. From his first full year, 1911, through the 1914 season, he hit .408, .395, .373 and .338, with power. Unerring in the field, he had a powerful and accurate arm, and ran the bases well.

Money troubles forced Cleveland to trade him to the White Sox in 1915. [His hitting was no longer as good as initially, but still he was a star on the great team assembled by Charlie Comiskey. He had good years left, too - .351 for the 1919 pennant winners, and .392 the next year – the year after the fix.]

Friends pointed to his .375 WS average as evidence that he'd played on the square [and very likely he had], but he had undoubtedly accepted the promise of $5000 to help throw the games. [This was the amount Jackson received. Like the others, he had been promised more, but none of them were ever given the promised amounts]. Banned from baseball, he returned to his small South Carolina town, started a dry-cleaning business, and eventually prospered. Occasionally he swung "Black Betsy", his famous bat, in sandlot and outlaw games. In time, he retrieved some of his dignity if not the glory. Locally, he was warmly regarded at his death.



Eddie "Field of Dreams" Cicotte. Pitcher.

Born: 1884, Springwells Michigan
Age during WS: 35
Died: 1969, Detroit



Steve Easton as Eddie Cicotte

WS record. Pitched 21.2 innings to a 2.91 ERA, lost two of the three games he started.

Had he not agreed to throw the 1919 WS, would have been remembered as one the era's greatest pitchers. His career spanned 1908-1920. Won 208 games, had 20 wins in three of his last four seasons. Led the AL in wins with 28 in 1917 and 29 in 1919.

Cicotte was paid $10,000 for his part in the fix. "Though he took the bribe, he was not one of the disgruntled players at the core" of the group. "He was unhappy with his salary as his career wound down, and wanted to buy a farm for security. 'I did it for the wife and kiddies,' he explained, but he had to work many years at Ford in Detroit before he could afford to retire."


Chick "Field of Dreams" Gandil. First Base.

Born: 1887, St. Paul MN
Age during WS: 32
Died: 1970, Calistoga CA



Art LaFleur as Chick Gandil

WS record: 7 for 30, 1 error in 82 chances

In the mid 1910's Gandil made the acquaintance of Sport Sullivan, a sports gambler and bookie. Sullivan had rich and powerful friends, and his friendships with ballplayers like Gandil were crucial to a World Series fixing scheme he planned to pull off.

Gandil had rejoined the White Sox in 1917, but he was a malcontent, and was later to be considered the ringleader of the 1919 fix. His contacts with Sullivan, Abe Attell, and Billy Maharg paved the way for the scandal. Gandil refused to play for Comiskey in 1920, due to a salary dispute with the penurious owner. He never played again.


Claude "Lefty" Williams. Pitcher

Born: 1893, Aurora Missouri
Age during WS: 26
Died: 1959, Laguna Beach CA


WS record 0-3 16.3 IP gave up 12 runs on 12 hits and 8 walks

Had fine season with the White Sox in '16 and '17, played seldom in '18 as he worked in a shipyard. "The moody, inarticulate Williams roomed with Joe Jackson. Williams was at his peak (22-14) in 1920 when he was banned. He'd pitched poorly in the 1919 WS (0-3), a glaringly incongruous performance after he'd had a 23-11 record during the regular season.



Swede "Field of Dreams" Risberg. Shortstop.

Born: 1894, San Francisco
Age during WS: 24
Died: 1975, Red Bluff CA

[of course one thinks immediately of Swede Lvov]


Charles Hoyes as Swede Risberg (???)


Swede Risberg


WS record: 2 hits in 25 at bats, 4 errors in 57 chances

Risberg helped destroy a team that might have rivalled the great Yankees of the 1920s. Barred for life, he also fixed games in his rookie year (1917) and in 1920. Rough and rangy, he once knocked out a minor league umpire with one punch after a called third strike. [no, not Swede Lvov] Risberg despised his double play partner, Eddie Collins, for his talent, character, education, air of superiority, and above all, salary. He preferred the tough Chuck Gandil, who enlisted the young shortstop as his first lieutenant in the fix. During the trial Joe Jackson requested protection after Risberg threatened to kill him if he dared talk. 'The Swede is a hard guy', said Jackson.

During his exile, Risberg played semi-pro ball, worked on a dairy farm, and ran a tavern which proudly displayed his name. He was the last survivor of the eight Black Sox.



Oscar "Happy" Felsch. Outfield.

Born: 1891, Milwaukee
Age during WS: 28
Died: 1964, Milwaukee

WS record: batted .192, committed two OF errors

[here's Asinof's description of the first play in the top of the 6th inning, game 5, scoreless tie:
Eller led off with a fly ball to left center. Jackson and Felsch took off after it. For a moment it seemed as if either one could get to it. A moment later, it was apparent that neither would. The ball fell between them, and Eller raced around first. Felsch picked the ball up and threw badly to Risberg at second. The Swede played the ball listlessly, allowing it to roll away from him. Eller, standing at second, dashd for third. Risberg's throw to Weaver was late. Eller was suddenly a terrible threat to break the tie.

By the time the inning ended, Cincinnati led 4-0. It ended 5-zip.]

A superb outfielder with exceptional range and a rifle arm, still shares the records for double play by an outfielder in a season (15) and assists in a game (4). Warm, smiling, and amiable, he loved silly riddles, whiskey, ribald jokes, and baseball.

The fun-loving Felsch gravitated to the more raucous members of the Sox. These included the ringleaders of the conspiracy. Years later he told the author [of this book] "There was so much crookedness around, you sort of fell into it. I was dumb, all right. We started out talking about all the big money we would take, like a bunch of kids pretending to be big shots. [hmm … sounds like Studs L] I never really believed it would happen … and the next thing we knew, we were all tied up in it." Once he agreed to the plan, this simple man found himself in a situation he couldn't control. The gamblers had a hold on him. Through threats, they forced him to throw more games in the 1920 season.

When the scandal came out and he was barred, he was just emerging as a top power hitter.




Fred McMullen. Utility.

Born: 1891, Scammon Kansas
Age during WS: 27
Died: 1952, Los Angeles

WS record: 1-2, did not field

Minor player in the scandal. "The least significant of the Black Sox had very little opportunity to throw games, pinch-hitting twice in the tainted Series, singling once. A capable backup third baseman, McMullin was aware of the fix, and was banned."



…

and then there was

the eighth man out


George "Buck" "Field of Dreams" Weaver. Third Base.

Born: 1890, Pottstown PA
Age during WS: 29
Died: 1956, Chicago



Michael Milhoan as Buck Weaver

WS record: batted .324 with 4 doubles, 27 chances at 3B without an error


Slick-fielding Weaver was at his best in the 1919 World Series, cracking 11 base hits. But seven of his teammates were, to varying degrees, at something less. Weaver was not part of the "conspirators"; but he knew about it, had even sat in on some of the meetings, and said nothing. "He was lumped with the other Black Sox and banned from baseball for life, his "never snitch" ethics at odds with Judge Landis' jurisprudence. Chicago fans repeatedly petitioned for Weaver's reinstatement, but he was never pardoned for his failure to warn baseball that his teammates had sold their honor."

Asinof devotes the first four pages of his last section about Weaver's attempts to be vindicated for not selling out his friends. When he started this long trek he was certain that he would not be banned. He had taken no money. He had played his best. Landis, to whom he personally talked, refused – though not to his face. When their private meeting ended, Landis said he would write him. He never did, simply made a press announcement that lumped him with the others. Two other commissioners, years later (Happy Chandler, Ford Frick) also refused. When James T. Farrell met Weaver years later, he found, "… a thin , pale, gray man in his sixties. He dressed on the sporty side, and there were small red blotches on his face. He smiled easily and readily."

He ran a drugstore for many years, "avoided social events where prominent sporting people gathered because he did not wish to be the subject of either their sympathy or their contempt. He would pass his time with a group of friends playing pinochle in the back room of a saloon. He never drank or caroused. His wife was devoted to him, and he to her. They had no children of their own, but raised two children of relatives."

The last place he played baseball was in an Iowa cornfield, years after he died - along with some of his disgraced teammates, who he had refused to snitch on.








This book is where it all comes together. The early history of baseball, the beginning of the office of the commissioner, the owners unleashing of Babe Ruth on the record books and the way the game was to be played, references to the time in literature and movie. Any fan of the game, or fan of American history at the dawn of the twentieth century, would find the book to be a wonderfully interesting read.


For another baseball review:
_to TOP TEN_



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Under the Volcano from a classic one-book author
Next review: Some Desperate Glory a WW I diary
More recent review: A Mencken Chrestomathy

Previous library review: Summer of '49
Next library review: Baseball's Benchmark Boxscores

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a few things about the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal after reading this book.

I was struck by how much talent was involved in the scandal. Most know about legendary left fielder Joe Jackson, who was one of the best players in the game. But starting pitcher Eddie Cicotte also amassed a Hall of Fame caliber resume, and likely would have been enshrined if it weren’t for the scandal. Centerfielder Happy Felsch was a budding superstar. Third basement Buck Weaver and starting pitcher Lefty Williams were really good players in the prime of their careers. First baseman Chick Gandil and shortstop Swede Risberg weren’t great, but they were good enough to be starting players on a great team. Fred McMullen was just a utility infielder who got involved because he heard about the plot and wanted money.

The execution of the scam was terrible. It was disorganized. Many participants had loose lips. The players didn’t get the money they were promised, which made them angry. By the start of the World Series, rumors were rampant about the fix, and the betting odds reflected it – as the White Sox, who should have been heavy favorites, were trading at even odds to win.

The first half was the best part, when it discussed the hatching and execution of the plot. When it talked about the investigation and trial, the flow was not very good and parts were confusing. It did end strong when it talked about what post-scandal life was like for the players.

The writing was a little weird. It wasn’t written as a historical text. There were times where the narrator spoke for the inner thoughts of some of the players and gamblers, and some of those thoughts seemed like speculation to me. I would have preferred a more rigorous study of the subject.

I was also disappointed with the way the writer discussed the story of Shoeless Joe. It’s known that he took the money, but did he make any plays in the games that contributed to the conspiracy? I’m curious if the pro Shoeless Joe propaganda in Field of Dreams has any truth to it. The author was quite murky on that. I read a few passages a couple times trying to understand exactly what he was trying to say but I remained confused.

But overall, I enjoyed it. I got a better feel for what baseball was like back then, including how gambling was poisoning the game. I understand better why the players did what they did. I liked how the author didn’t either moralize or make excuses for the players, but just told their story.

[Fred Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent account of the famed "Black Sox". Too bad that a few bad apples spoiled the game for some excellent athletes forever.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 thoughts soon.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A colorful and impeccably researched narrative of the 1919 BlackSox scandal. An amazing synthesis of information related to the season, the fixed World Series, the follow up year, the leak of the scandal, the trial where the eight players were acquitted, the hiring of Judge Landis as baseball’s first commissioner, and his finding that the players threw the series. As a result Landis banished the eight men from the game for life.

Extra points for the insights into Charles Comiskey, the owner, and the key mob figures. I felt like I knew them well by the end of the book.

I would have liked to have seen a little more coverage of the follow up 1920 baseball season and then later the subsequent semi-pro experiences of the banned players seemed intriguing. Also could have done with less coverage of the courtroom particulars.

One of the most significant baseball books capturing an important moment in sports history. I liked the movie version of Eight Men Out as well. I give the nod to the book, but just barely.

4.5 stars

[Creolecat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out recounts the rigging of the 1919 World Series, where eight members of the Chicago White Sox threw the series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for payoffs from crime boss Arnold Rothstein and associates. Asinof's book presents the White Sox as a harried collection of gifted players, abused by their penny-pinching owner Charles Comiskey to the point where bribery seemed almost honorable. He affords the Black Sox varying degrees of sympathy, from the conniving pitcher Eddie Cicotte and conflicted Bucky Weaver to the hapless Shoeless Joe Jackson, an all-time great slugger whose reputation was forever besmirched. In Asinof's telling, they were fall guys: when federal prosecutors couldn't touch Rothstein and his allies, they went after baseball players; when the Black Sox were acquitted at trial, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned them from pro baseball for life, reducing them to odd jobs, outlaw baseball and everlasting infamy. Even those disinterested in baseball can be absorbed by Asinof's crisp writing and atmospheric rendering of postwar Chicago, a city alternately riven by hope (for a booming post-war economy and a treasured sports team) and fear (of corruption, crime and racial strife), whose fortunes became tied to the Sox. Recent historians have rightfully criticized Asinof's work: writing in 1963, he interviewed a handful of participants and drew largely from trial transcripts and newspaper accounts, not all of them reliable. Subsequent researchers, with access to more material (particularly previously sealed grand jury testimonies) find elements of the text misleading, particularly the claim that Comiskey's players were uniquely underpaid. The historian in me finds these lapses regrettable if not inexcusable; the reader finds it a story well-told, with the usual shortcomings (and virtues) of a well-crafted narrative history. Adapted by John Sayles into a 1988 film starring John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn and Christopher Lloyd.

[Tom Stamper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering my reading habits, I should have gotten to this years ago. It’s on almost every list of great baseball books, and it was turned into a good film in 1988. I think I was too influenced by more recent scholarship that disputes Asniof’s evidence and conclusions. Now having read this, I can see where John Sayles was more on the side of Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver than the book was.

Asinof more or less says that Jackson may have hit .375, but he only played his hardest in the games they were allowed to win. Buck Weaver was much more involved in the plot even if he ultimately didn’t participate in taking a dive. Sayles makes it a mystery of how involved they were by focusing on Gandil and Cicotte’s treachery and leaving other players as enigmas.

The reason this book is a classic and will continue to be is that Asinof’s style makes you feel like you’re witnessing the plot rather than being told of it. He has you follow conspirators into hotels and he creates conversations taken out of the depositions. We can certainly assume that some of the sworn testimony was bunk, but he argues the players and even the gamblers were mostly willing to come clean, especially once they were offered immunity.

If you read Asinof’s bibliography you can see that this was his only classic work. His obvious talent here just didn’t click with other subject matter. I wish I had read this before I read Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball's Cover-Up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded. I am tempted to re-read it now.

[Nancy Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of nonfiction read I love, a book about an iconic incident you think you know something about. "Say it ain't so, Joe!" That's pretty much what I knew of the "Black Sox" baseball scandal.

Everything I thought I knew about the throwing of the 1919 World Series turns out to be wrong. Just about every fact Mr. Asinof unearthed surprised me: Why did they do it? Were they just bad apples? When did people start to suspect the fix was on? Who initiated the fix? Who really made money? Who was indicted and who was convicted? Was justice served? Did anyone live happily ever after?

Not only does Mr. Asinof illuminate this one sad incident in the great sport of baseball, he places it evocatively in an era when the game was transitioning from a sandlot pastime played by talented but naive amateurs and run by ruthless businessmen to a professional sport played by trained pros and governed by rules enacted to eradicate the exploitation of the early years.

Asinof examines the series literally pitch by pitch, hit by hit, to show how the games were cleverly thrown. He does the same with the trial, witness by witness, motion by motion. It can all get a little confusing, but stay with him. It's like watching a ballgame on TV -- you can get up, make a sandwich, walk the dog and call your mother and when you sit back down, it's still the same inning. You'll figure it out. Watch the movie Eight Men Out, too. It'll help.

[Char · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting but often dry look at the 1919 World Series, the players and the mobsters involved.

[Susan in NC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just ok for me - really well -written and researched, but just not my kind of book. I needed a book about a sport or with a sport in the title for a reading challenge, and my husband, a lifelong baseball fan, recommended this book. He says the movie is also well done, and accurately portrays baseball of the period - I plan to watch it soon with him - I think I’ll grasp more of the plot through the film.

I don’t know much about baseball, and even less about betting - so this story about gamblers enlisting members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox baseball team to throw the World Series, in what became known as the Black Sox Scandal, lost me in the play-by-play descriptions of the games themselves.

Asinof is a very good writer, and explains in his preface the difficulties he faced researching and pulling together information about the scandal, as much of the official documentation had disappeared and several participants had died. The exposure of the scandal and eventual trial was at first interesting and fast-paced, but I got bogged down in the double-crossing of the gamblers and machinations of the owners and politicians - it was actually rather disheartening, yet another example of greed and corruption taking advantage of the less-savvy, less educated rubes (in this case, the ball players).

These passages, first from the assistant state’s attorney working on the case, then from a journalist trying to make sense out of an interview with a player caught up in the scandal, show both the skill of Asinof’s writing and the tragedy and hypocrisy of the scandal:

To Replogle, [assistant state’s attorney] the players were victims. The owners poured out a stream of pious, pompous verbiage about how pure they were. The gambler said nothing, kept themselves hidden, protecting themselves – and when they said anything, it was strictly for cash, with immunity, no less. But the ball players didn’t even know enough to call a lawyer. They only knew how to play baseball.

- Page 177

[Journalist Harry] Reutlinger was moved. How much of Felsch’s story was honest and accurate, he had no real idea. What evoked his admiration was the genuine remorse and lack of self-pity. Felsch was guilty, yet he had pride in himself. The entire confession was devoid of anger or bitterness. He had simply done a bad thing and was ready to take the consequences.… Reutlinger had seen enough of America to know that the written rules are rigid and righteous, while the real rules are often wide open and dirty. Such he assumed, were the rules of baseball itself. You played hard and got away with as much as you could, legal or otherwise.

- page 192

I enjoyed the author’s character sketches, and his summary of the mood of the nation, and Chicago, at the time - as a Chicago native, and as a history buff. WWI had just ended, America was feeling flush with victory and patriotic, Chicago had just endured a brutal summer of racial unrest and a riot that left many dead.

I had some interesting conversations with my husband about what I learned about the beloved game, but was disheartened when he told me it wasn’t until 1969 when the dreadful Reserve Clause, which allowed owners like Charles Comiskey to basically own players for life, while profiting mightily off their talent, was finally abolished. Curt Flood fought for the right of free agency for himself and fellow players, but his career was destroyed in the process. And this took 50 years from the Black Sox Scandal - and a man’s career was ruined.

So, it was an interesting, extremely well-written and researched book, but disheartening.

[Franky · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a baseball fan, I couldn’t help but read Eliot Asinof’s novel without thinking about the current state of baseball. Baseball, in recent years, has taken quite a hit (sorry for the pun) with its battle over steroids and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). As the sport probes further into this scandal to clean things up, baseball itself is reeling, the public often disenchanted with the grand old game. A proverbial witch hunt to find out who was “doping” has left us to question not only the morality of the sport, but has paved the way for other questions: Who from this “steroid era” should be in the Hall of Fame? Which heralded records and statistics should stand? What can be done to improve the integrity of the sport? Much like the current PED Scandal, the infamous Black Sox Scandal of 1919 shocked and disillusioned fans of the sport nearly a century ago. And much like this current scandal, it was a difficult chore trying to piece together exactly how it started, who was guilty, and what further solutions there were to the problem. This novel has much relevance to corruption that runs amok in any sport.

Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out is an intriguing look at the White Sox 1919 World Series scandal, which involved the “fixing” of the World Series, including all events leading up to it as well as its crushing effect on the players and the sport. What the author does particularly well is set the stage for telling of what happened by outlining all principle individuals involved, including the eight players on the White Sox as well as the owners and big-name gamblers, and does so with a timeline that takes us to events leading up to the White Sox-Reds World Series and then detailing the public exposure and the trial. You get some perspective as to why such talented players on the White Sox would even want to along with this. Asinof clearly adds his own color to the events and those involved, but his book is well-researched and written, with an eye for detail and accuracy. Particularly poignant is Asinof’s depiction of public reaction to this scandal: “…the American people were at first shocked, then sickened. There was hardly a major newspaper that did not cry out its condemnation and despair…It was a crushing blow at American pride.”

In many respects, Eight Men Out has as much to do with a dark moment in America’s baseball history as it does greed, gambling and the corruption of power in sports and business. It is really a brilliant read for anyone interested in baseball or historical events.

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love baseball and loved this book. If you like baseball then this is the book for you.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what it says about me that I can watch a Shakespearean tragedy and be more or less unaffected, but that reading Eight Men Out just tore my heart out. Should these ballplayers have been punished for throwing World Series games? Absolutely. But when you learn the extenuating circumstances regarding their meager pay and treatment by Charles Comiskey, it’s hard to not feel like the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, compounded by the fact that the gamblers involved in the fix got off scot-free, in part due to assistance by Comiskey himself. Buck Weaver, Shoeless Joe, and Eddie Cicotte are particularly tragic figures, and their lifetime bans hurt the most.

On another note, this book was written in 1963 which is like 25 years earlier than I thought. I've seen the 1988 movie based on the book and figured that the book was published around that time. Not so. Author Eliot Asinof was actually born the same year that the 1919 fix occurred. Regardless of when this thing was published, it reads easy. Eight Men Out has a lot of moving parts and plenty of material to cover (lots of people, two different fixing operations, an entire World Series, an investigation, and multiple trials/court actions) but the chapters still managed to fly by. I particularly appreciated that Asinof managed to keep the chapters of the book about the World Series contained and to the point. I’ve read plenty of baseball books where readers received pitch-by-pitch coverage of baseball games and I’m usually ready to tear my hair out by the second inning. Asinof covers the World Series comprehensively but focuses on the aspects that are of relevance to the story he’s telling and as a result, doesn’t overstay his welcome. Bravo!

And while the writing is mainly workmanlike, every so often Asinof would bust out a particularly good turn of phrase. I particularly liked the following, regarding manager Kid Gleason's suspicions of his team during the Series:

"It was apparent that there were no facts. Reality was a vague stink that anyone could smell, but no one knew where it came from."

My only real quibble with the book is some confusion around how the two different fixing operations went down. I had a hard time understanding what the two groups of gamblers knew about, how aware the players were of these two distinct groups. For the most part, though, Asinof does a good job of keeping everything straight. I also appreciated his ability to keep the reader aware of the book’s timeline. I had no idea that the investigation, grand jury, and trial stretch into the next season and playoffs. Nor did I realize how close the White Sox came to winning the pennant the following season, which could have potentially resulted in the White Sox playing in a World Series DURING the court proceedings on the previous year’s World Series fix. The PR nightmare that would have been is kind of a wonder to think about.

So all in all, a good book. Totally worth reading if you’re a baseball fan, though I would recommend watching Field of Dreams as a chaser. I suppose after a heaping helping of unyielding justice, I need a bit of mercy (even if it’s fiction) to help take the edge off.

[Shawn Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly well researched, very well detailed book. This is a great book for those who love baseball and those who do not. The story is great, sad, and incredible. Really another era in baseball and in time, yet has a moral conviction about it, that could be used in today's game with the steroids scandal.

You feel sorry for the players and yet you wonder if justice was truly served with their lifelong ban. A ban that follows them into death as well, since no one can get into the hall of fame. So there exists a lifelong and deathlong ban. Yet not everyone gets punished, so it points out the true inequality of what happened.

[Jacob Baehner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. There were so many emotions felt throughout. I’ve got so many thoughts on it, but here are a few:

The use of the eight ball players as scapegoats to protect, the wealthy elite of baseball execs, notable politicians, and high rolling gamblers from punishment and criticism is a sad but true reality we still face today in how the economic elite essentially use lower-middle class Americans as pawns in their games.

While (most of) the ballplayers are guilty of throwing the series, Asinof does an impeccable job of presenting their side of the story and the underlying motives for taking part in such a scheme. Their motives were not evil as Comiskey, the state, or gamblers would like you to think. They came mostly from a state of wanting to provide for their families and frustration through the lack of value Comiskey gave them in their contracts, being the best ball players in the league, but the least paid.

While I felt bad for all of the ballplayers by the end of the book due to gamblers, baseball execs, and politicians constantly double crossing them and screwing them over, I hurt most for Buck Weaver and Shoeless Joe. These men were tricked into agreeing to the fix and one could argue they didn’t even play as if they were a part of it. The real criminals of this fix were gamblers Abe Attell, Sport Sullivan, and Arnold Rothstein. And the only reason these players were barred from baseball is due to the lack of investigation on Comiskey and baseball’s part so they could save their own image.

One last thing I’ll say is this idea of making baseball “pure” is still around today. In 1918 the MLB was more concerned with gambling issues than issues of race (Jackie Robinson didn’t break the color barrier until 1947!), the same case can again be made in the late ‘80s and early ‘90’s when Pete Rose was banned from baseball and the hall of fame for gambling as it was “impure” to the sport, yet baseball’s historic greats such as Ty Cobb was a flaming racist and Babe Ruth a drunkerd, are both in the hall of fame and praised for their contribution to the game. Again you can see this in issues of steroids in todays game. Domestic violence and racism take on far less punishment than most steroid users! Baseball will never be a pure sport because men on their owns will never be pure. The only way to find purity is through Jesus Christ, so if baseball could center themselves on Him, that would solve all of their problems.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old friend. This and SEASONS PAST always made me wish that I could have attended ballgames in the early 20th-century. So many names and so many stories. And with this one Shoeless Joe and Eddie Cicotte in particular.

[Kellen Short · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a good story and well told. I thought Asinof did well in fairly portraying all those involved in the scandal as well as laying out a clear timeline making it easier to follow. However, lots of white dude names which made it a little tricky to keep track of while reading. Also, the older style of writing and speaking I found a little harder to get into.

[Ryan Bramlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Major League Baseball World Series has been a celebrated event for decades. Hundreds of thousands crowd around their TV to watch America’s pastime or if they are if they are lucky enough get to watch the game first hand. But the fans of the Chicago White Sox during the 1919 fix were not so lucky. The struggles and steps taken by the players and gamblers during the fix was packed into this intriguing book by Eliot Asinof. The story is about a New York gambler, Arnold Rothenstein that wanted to make some extra cash by betting on the world series. He then isolated eight underpaid Chicago White Sox players who kindly agreed to throwing the world series for double then what they made all year. They were playing the Cincinnati Reds, who were the huge underdog. Many people were suspicious of the White Sox because of the large bets being placed on Cincinnati.

I think that Eliot Asinof did a very good job of describing how the series went game-by-game and pitch-by-pitch. I believe that the players in this situation were very desperate for money because of their very small salary. Bench player for lesser teams were making as much or more than the great Joe Jackson and Eddie Cicotte. I do think that what they did was disloyal to their coaches,fans, and other players. Players that were in on the fix would make very subtle mistakes like not charging a ground ball fast enough or taking a bad angle on a fly ball. During game one Eddie Cicotte pitched and did not listen to his catcher who was not in on the fix and he only threw fastballs and was not throwing strikes. Now, I do not think that any players would even think of throwing the world series. I think that it was wrong what the players and gamblers did but I enjoyed this book.

[Vfields Don't touch my happy! · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. I’m 51 days away from opening day.
2. I knew about this scandal but I didn’t know the complete story.
3. I found the way the book was written made it a pleasure to read. I felt the era.
4. I can’t wait, it’s almost Baseball season. Play Ball!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer to 4.5 but still incredible. Having loved "Shoeless Joe"/Field Of Dreams and barely getting through the movie version of Eight Men Out when I was much to young to appreciate it, I was very surprised about how little I knew of the machinations of the Black Sox scandal. This book is essential baseball reading.

[Steve Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive story of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox fixing of the World Series. I enjoyed the level of detail of the actual games, the profile of the players and the subsequent trail.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good narrative about the scandal. While I enjoyed the book, I was surprised at the lack of scholarship that went into, especially since it’s basically the standard regarding the Black Sox scandal.

I would recommend to anyone reading the book to check out the SABR website for a list of errors the author made.