Eliot Asinof played minor league baseball briefly, but his claim to fame is this riveting account of the 1919 World Series. The heavily favored Chicago White Sox lost the best of nine series to the Cincinnati Reds in eight games. In the following season, the White Sox were engaged in another pennant race when a newspaper expose revealed that several key players had conspired with professional gamblers to throw the World Series (less well known is the fact that a few of the same Chicago players were also implicated in throwing regular season games during the 1920 American League title race).

Asinof did not have the benefit of computerized statistical data bases that are an aid to contemporary baseball historians and researchers, so there are a few mistakes and omissions in the book, but it is nonetheless an important book that remains relevant to this very day.

Film director John Sayles adapted Asinof's book and made the story into a engrossing motion picture that took great care to get the historical details correct, but the screenplay had to compress the material to accommodate the requirements of a conventional movie running time. I suggest you read the book before seeing the movie.

That eight members of the heavily-favored Chicago White Sox baseball team conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series in 1919 to the underdog Cincinnati Reds was somewhat in dispute -- until about 1920. After a sensational trial that year and several other investigations the general outline of "the fix" became well known, though Mr. Asinof apparently wasn't satisfied. This baseball-loving author was himself born in 1919 and obsessed enough to gather every detail -- and there's *lots* of detail here -- one would ever want to know about the scandal culled from sources still around in the early 1960s. `Eight Men Out' is the noble 1963 result, which addresses every possible *how* one could ever want about this fascinating bit of history. Too bad it suffers badly when it comes to *why*.

Simply put, Asinof doesn't tell much of a *story* -- at least in the sense of identifying the various character's motives, the fundamental conflicts, and of course how these are finally resolved. We get a smattering of the main character's backgrounds (including a great nugget of the famous gambler Arnold Rothstein pulling a knife on his adorable brother when they were children because the latter got more attention) and are informed, of course, of Sox owner Charles Comiskey's famous stinginess with player salaries but teasing out the motivation for and ultimate consequences of the fix is left largely in the reader's hands. While I can't find much fault with readers drawing their own conclusions -- and especially from a journalistic account this detailed -- `Eight Men Out' unfortunately doesn't quite stay "objective." Perhaps aware that a dry retelling of facts (many of them legal and arcane) makes for a stiff tale, Asinof drops several *hints* to keep his plot moving (e.g., sports gambling was fairly prevalent at the time, many players openly cavorted with gamblers, baseball itself had little to no policing of its players actions) and even makes a few clumsy attempts to recreate obviously apocryphal conversations. (One between Sox manager Kid Gleason and gambling shill Abe Atell is especially painful.)

This compendium of detail punctuated with a little narrative color gets the job done: I now know the undiluted who, what, where, when and how of this famous account. But given its renown and continuing resonance through the sports world I was frankly expecting much more. What were the *real* reasons the players got involved -- especially since at least one of them (third baseman Buck Weaver) clearly didn't "play soft" during the Series and several received no money at all? Was the baseball establishment justified in appointing a take-no-prisoners commissioner (ex-Federal judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis) who subsequently banned -- for life -- all the involved players from the major leagues? Did baseball itself -- with its cheapskate owners, publicity-seeking officials, and infamous "reserve clause" that created near-servitude conditions -- contribute to conditions that tempted the players?

Clearly interesting questions to ponder but Asinof doesn't even frame them terribly well, much less ask or answer them directly. As he admits in his introduction, the author had a difficult time getting the involved parties to talk about the scandal -- even several decades later. Strangely, even after a mountain of fact-gathering, he seems equally reticent to directly question this most damaging episode in American professional sports. I finished his book informed of everything and persuaded of nothing. No terrible thing, really -- but to fill out the story I'd strongly recommend John Sayles' excellent 1988 film of the same name.

Originally published in 1963, rereleased in 1987 to coincide with the "Major Motion Picture" trumpeted on the cover.

The story of the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal, when eight members of the Chicago Sox team of another stripe conspired to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, a heavy on-paper underdog. The eight Sox were charged, tried, and acquitted, but immediately banned from organized baseball for life by new baseball commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, hired specifically for this purpose.

This story is an American tragedy; the reader is drawn to the likable yet gullible baseball players being played for fools by the gambling interests and baseball owners, both with the wherewithal and organization to act to protect their interests and sacrifice the baseball players in a sordid morality tale.

The movie is a faithful recreation of the book, taking very few liberties with the historical account.

"Eight Men Out" was first published in 1963 but may still be considered the definitive account of the 1919 Black Sox scandal which is often brought up in today's media as a reference to the current black spot on baseball ("steroids is the biggest scandal since 1919..."). The Chicago White Sox's loss in the 1919 World Series caused by eight (well, one of the 8--Buck Weaver--actually played to win) players who agreed to throw the series as part of a gambling conspiracy was very complex with many names involved. The strongest part about Asinof's book is how clearly he explains the workings of the series fix. The official trial documents were lost and most of the survivors of that time who were in anyway close to the fix refused to cooperate with the author.

Asinof had to rely in large part on newspaper articles either contemporary or later accounts that revealed hitherto unknown facts about the case. Despite such limitations, Asinof clearly reveals the workings of the gambling world, the motivations of the players involved in the conspiracy, the suspicions of the newspapermen who covered the series, and the response of the higher ups like Charles Comiskey and AL President Byron Johnson in dealing with the scandal. Conjectures were made in the process, but Asinof includes relevant background information on the characters involved to give validity to his interpretations.

The planning of the conspiracy (probably the most difficult part of the story to tell) and the games themselves are the most comprehensive and intriguing parts of the book. The trial and the aftermath were also well-written and thorough covering the fates of almost every character involved. I saw a sports memorabilia catalogue that offered a letter signed by Commissioner Landis to Joe Jackson dated April 6, 1922 which stated "In view of the crime in connection with the World's Series of 1919, of course the money about which you inquire cannot be paid to you" (the minimum bid was $5,000--half of what Cicotte received for his part in the conspiracy). This book definitely gave me a better understanding of what that 1919 scandal that ruined the careers of Jackson and seven of his teammates was about. If one is really interested in this subject, I would recommend also looking at other more recently published books to see if there has been more information unearthed since "Eight Men Out."

I saw the movie, but the book explains in more detail the tragedy of the 1919 World Series White Sox (or Black Sox). This book details that the gamblers such as the Little Champ were the real villians in this fiasco. Commisky was also a cheap skate who payed his talented players peanuts and then expected them to win pennants. The victims were the ball players who all expected were rich (they were not) and got duped by a bunch of fast talking gamblers. Shoeless Joe Jackson comes across as a decent man trying to make a go of it in life. These talented people were out matched by more brilliant eastern money men.

This is a great read about the All American pastime. I came away with true respect for the ball players, although not the baseball clubs. This is a tragic story of eight talented players being out hustled by gamblers.

Eliot Asinof does a very good job at retelling this famous world series game. This book grabs you and you stay hooked from the first word to the last, hearing about the day that the White Sox fixed the 1919 World Series. I highly recommend this great capture of the White Sox scandal game, especially for all of the baseball fans, and anyone who is not interested in baseball. It is a great read. This fixation of baseball came to be known "The Black Sox Scandal".
Chick Gandil a tough 31 year old man started this scandal and brought in other baseball team members including; Claude "Lefty" Williams, Fred McMullin, Charles "Swede" Riseberg, "Shoeless Joe Jackson, Oscar "Happy" Felsch, George "Buck" Weaver, and Eddie Cicotte. These 8 baseball players made history in the name of baseball, when getting involved with gamblers. With money on the line all of these baseball players are willing to try anything. The pressure and the pain of this baseball game is very interesting. Did they really think they could get away with this? What were they thinking? Well in this story Asinof tells all that and more. By explaining each intense moment to the next you stay hooked.

I teach a course to high school seniors called Baseball in American Society. (2nd semester). We use Eight Men Out as one of the required readings. Comparing controversies that have happened in baseball over the years is part of the syllabus and the 1919 Black Sox scandal fits right in.

I just completed "Eight Men Out" and I thought that the book was very interesting because of its vivid description of the "Black Sox Scandal." Instead of dealing with the use of steroids, early 20th century baseball battled constant corruption through the influence of gambling. "Eight Men Out" describes how gamblers, not the ball players were the most important figures in professional baseball, and how difficult it was for the typical fan to realize their fixes and for professional baseball to eliminate their influence. Today's baseball fans should definitely skim through the book. If you are looking for a sports book to read, and you are particularly interested in baseball, you should try this book because it is a phenomenal story of one of the most important eras in baseball history. Overall, it's a quick read and very informative. I would also suggest "Boys of Summer," and "Ball Four" if you are interested in reading about baseball.

I just completed "Eight Men Out" and I thought the book was very interesting because it not only described the "Black Sox Scandal," but it described a time in American sports history that is hard to imagine for younger fans today. Instead of dealing with the use of steroids that recently entered the American courts earlier in the year, early 20th century baseball battled constant corruption through the influence of gambling. "Eight Men Out" describes in vivid detail how gamblers, not the ball players were the most important figures in professional baseball, and how difficult it was for the typical fan to realize their fixes and for professional baseball to eliminate their influence. Today's baseball fans should definitely skim through the book because it describes how baseball saved itself from disaster, and why baseball is not a game void of sin, but a game capable of manipulation. If you are looking for a sports book to read, and you are particularly interested in baseball, you should try this book because it is a phenomenal story of one of the most important eras in baseball history.

Asinof has a very good writing style, it's just that there are numerous times where you may lose interest because the story doesn't always flow as easily as it should. Asinof is trying to include as much information as possible in a few hundred pages and you won't be overwhelmed, as much as exhausted with detail. Overall, it's a quick read and very informative. I would also suggest "Boys of Summer," and "Ball Four" if you are interested in reading enjoyable baseball stories.

Now White Sox is World Series Champions again, it's time to bury the eight men forever from our memories.

Now White Sox is World Series Champions again, it's time to bury the eight men forever from our memories.

I thought that the book was as interesting as anything can be when it is part of a college course. I did, however, feel that it skipped from character to character with little sense of flow. The book was geared more towards getting across all of the facts instead of being an easy read.
I love baseball and this book but if you read it be prepared to spend quite a lot of time reading and understanding it.

THis book has plenty of developed characters, a great plot, tons of suspense, and to top it off, its a true story.
The only downfall in my opinion, was that there were way too many characters. This is not the authors fault because this is a true story. If you can remember these characters and is a slow, thorough, reader, you will love this book.
I am more of a skimmer, but i still thought it was great. BIg vocab words too.
This book is great in every perspective.

I saw the movie, I knew the story, but nothing could have prepared me for this account of it all. The different parts of the whole scandal, all the involved people from Rothstein to Gandil, this book is full of detail. I could not put it down as I wanted to keep learning more and more about what happened and why these players corrupted the game. I started to sympathize for them even though what they did was wrong. They were being cheated by Comiskey and there was no way around that. Well you can read it to find out how and learn more about the scandal as it unfolds.

The book, bar none, on the 1919 World Series fix. The details of the extremely ill-planned conspiracy to do...well, everybody thought they were doing something different...are presented very well by ex-journalist Eliot Asinof, whose writing is convincing and direct. As a White Sox fan, and one who was depressed that that team's only mention in Ken Burns' Baseball was the Black Sox Scandal, I would like everybody interested to read this book and reflect on how major breaches of trust do not appear that way to those involved, when they perceive the routine betrayals and frauds going on everyday.

Eliot Asinof has given us compelling drama in the telling of the "Fixed" World Series of 1919.
He follows the participants day-to-day, moment by moment. Shoeless Joe, Chick Gandil, Buck Weaver, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams, Kid Gleason, Charles Commisky, Ray Schalk, and the gamblers.
Asinof deftly allows readers to come to many of their own conclusions as to what extent the ballplayers themselves went along with the fix. Cicotte and Gandil were certainly guilty, but maybe or maybe not Buck Weaver and Shoeless Joe.
Asinof relates the role of newly appointed Baseball Commisioner Landis, and the politics of banning the ballplayers for life.
How guilty was Joe Jackson? What about Buck Weaver? Were there any other ways out of the whole mess without banning the players for life?
If everyone could have it to do over again, they would've done things differently. But, Eight Men Out tells what happened.

From the first paragraph to the last sentence of this gripping book, Asinof grabs your interest and doesn't let go. The story he is telling is fascinating - a tale of talented but clueless ballplayers, manipulating gamblers, money-hungry owners, and corrupt politicians, all coming together to create the greatest scandal the world of baseball has known. He tells it with clear, clean prose that keeps the story moving through every detail to its tragic conclusion.
The eight disgraced ballplayers who threw the 1919 World Series have been dubbed the Black Sox for posterity, 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 greatest all-time hitters, whose talent was only exceeded by his naivete, and Buck Weaver, the outstanding thirdbaseman whose only real fault was his loyalty to his friends in not reporting the scheme, as he took no part in throwing the games, and accepted no money. These clueless, grossly underpaid ballplayers, most of who profited little or nothing from the fix, were the only ones punished for the scandal that rocked the nation.
The tale of the gamblers involved is as fascinating as it is telling. 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.
Finally, the least likeable characters of this tragic, real life morality play 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 all 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, while willingly sacrificing true justice and exposure of their own hypocrisy. After reading this book, you may be left shaking your head that Charles Comiskey is in the Hall of Fame, and Shoeless Joe Jackson is forever banned from that hallowed hall.
Eight Men Out is a story of baseball, crime, and legal maneuvering. It is a window into the workings of power, and a cautionary tale of the corruption of the American dream and the twisting of justice by powerful interest. Most of all, it is an American tragedy of lives and reputations ruined, dreams shattered, and potential unfulfilled, that is as fascinating as it is sad.
If you are interested in baseball, American history, or the sociology of American society, you should read this book. You will not be disappointed.

Theo Logos

Eight Men Out is both an excellent journalistic/historical account of the events surrounding the "Black Sox" scandal and a very good read. Asinof creates vivid and believable portraits of all of the protagonists while being careful to make clear when he's relating facts supporting by verifiable evidence and when he's offering reasonable but unverifiable inferences or conclusions. Far and away the best and most accessible accumulation of research into the scandal, and one of the better books you'll find anywhere focusing on sports history.

Easily one of the finest books on baseball history I have read. I saw the movie in the late 1980s and have always been fascinated by the motivations that would prompt the players to risk their careers. Although Asinof does not excuse the players he also puts a lot of blame on Charles Cominsky and other individuals -- not just the gamblers -- who either were aware that something strange was going on or tried to cover it up.

This book tells the history of the 1919 World Series. Most prior accounts have been fragmentary. No one person knew all the factors; many of the participants never met each other or knew of their existence. Asinof wove together a multitude of threads from the newspapers of that time ('Preface'). Official documents had disappeared, and most participants died before talking. Survivors refused to talk, the gambling gangster world was still around. Sources chose to remain anonymous. Many of the incidents in this book represent a composite of sources. The Introduction says this scandal was not an isolated incident in an otherwise unblemished history of baseball. Comiskey cruelly exploited his peons (like others), but this did not excuse this betrayal of the fans. The April 1919 Federal court decision found Professional Baseball violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; this must have impressed the players that year. A later Supreme Court decision overturned this (I wonder what was paid for it?). Perhaps the real scandal of 1919 was that it revealed baseball was a business, not a sport.

Baseball and betting were allied from the beginning, just like other sports (horse racing). Bribery and other tricks were used to fix the results (as in the 1876 pennant series). Baseball was the biggest entertainment business in 1917. When race tracks were shut down during wartime, gamblers and bookies switched to baseball. Gamblers would befriend baseball players with women and whiskey; they could control ball games as readily as horse races. Stories were hushed up for the good of the game. Bribing ball players was known, players had done this to win the pennant in 1917.

The heavy betting on Cincinnati lowered the odds. Rumors spread about the fix. One set of gamblers wanted Chicago to lose, but another set wanted Cincinnati to lose (p.47)! There was a thin line separating effective play from a near miss that helped the other side (p.66). When the gamblers failed to make their payoff after the second game, the White Sox went on to win. (The gamblers had them coming and going.) The gamblers said the series must be ended in the 8th game (p.113). Some people suspected something bad had happened. A pile-up of civil cases followed: all the defendants lost money betting on the White Sox. Accepting bribes now left the players open to blackmail and extortion (p.145). 1920 was a bigger year for gate receipts. The American League President sought to use this scandal against Comiskey. There was hatred among the White Sox players (p.166). Pages 170-1 tell why you should never act without benefit of counsel when questioned by the authorities (p.177). Different newspapers reported Jackson't confession in different ways (p.189). "The Front Page"? The players would not have betrayed Comiskey unless there was a cause for bitterness. The great national pastime must reflect the society it lived in, the worship of "easy money".

The Black Sox scandal wounded American pride and self-esteem, the image of nobility and humanity (p.197). While corruption was rampant in state and national legislatures, and show business, could baseball not be corrupt? Yet it foretold the 1920s, a decade of unprecedented crime, corruption, and immorality (p.198). Did America expect higher morals from ball players than from businessmen, or anyone else (p.243)? The ball players were charged with a conspiracy to defraud the public; but they only threw some ball games. The jury found them all not guilty; this kept Professional Baseball clean. The next day the new Baseball Commissioner announced that they would be banned for life (p.273). After you read this book you'll know why popular histories of baseball usually begin around 1921; the preceding 50 years is rarely mentioned.