Eight Men Out (1988)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eight Men Out is a historical drama (based on a true story) which premiered in 1988.

 

The topic is the biggest scandal in the history of American baseball: the Black Sox Scandal of 1919.

 

Here is some basic information about this drama:

 

** Writer and director: John Sayles

** Based on the book Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof (first published 1963, reprinted 2000)

** Released on DVD in 2004

** Available via Amazon Prime Video

** Run time: ca 120 minutes

 

The cast can be divided into three categories:

# 1. The White Sox

** John Cusack as George “Buck” Weaver (1890-1956) – player

** Charlie Sheen as Oscar “Hap” Felsch (1891-1964) - player

** David Strathairn as Eddie Cicotte (1884-1969) - player

** D. B. Sweeney as Joseph “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (1887-1951) - player

** Michael Rooker as Arnold Gandil (1888-1970) - player

** Don Harvey as Charles “Swede” Risberg (1894-1975) - player

** James Read as Claude “Lefty” Williams (1893-1959) - player

 

# 2. Baseball

** George Clifton James (1920-2017) as Charles Comiskey (1859-1931) – team owner

** Charles John Mahoney (1940-2018) as William “Kid” Gleason (1866-1933) – team manager

** Eliot Asinof (1919-2008) as John Heydler (1869-1956) – baseball umpire

** John Anderson (1922-1992) as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944) – baseball commissioner 1920-1944

 

# 3. Gamblers and reporters

** Michael Lerner as Arnold Rothstein (1882-1928) – racketeer, crime boss, businessman and gambler

** Christopher Lloyd as “Sleepy” Bill Burns (1880-1953) – gambler

** Studs Terkel (1912-2008) as Hugh Fullerton (1873-1945) – sports reporter

** John Sayles as Ring Lardner (1885-1933) – sports reporter

 

THE PLOT

As stated above, this drama is based on a book by Eliot Asinof.  Director John Sayles gave the author a minor role in this drama: he plays John Heydler, a baseball umpire.

 

Director John Sayles also gave himself a role in this drama: he plays Ring Lardner, a sports reporter.

 

In one scene he is on a train. As he walks through the open carriage, where the players are sitting, he sings a song about baseball. The song is odd. Nobody responds. The scene is odd. It is even odder, because the person who sings the song is the director. Why did he do this? Why was this scene included in the movie?

 

Ring Lardner and his colleague Hugh Fullerton (played by Studs Terkel) were the two sports reporters who first broke the story about the scandal of 1919.

 

In 1919, when the Chicago-based team The White Sox were expected to win the World Series, some professional gamblers contacted some members of the team and persuaded them to throw the game, that is to lose the game on purpose.

 

The gamblers offered them money. Since many players felt they were underpaid by team owner Charles Comiskey, some of them were easy targets.

 

Once the fix was in, the gamblers would place their bets on the team that was expected to lose. When this team would win, the gamblers would win a lot of money.

 

Unfortunately for the gamblers, the players were not very good at losing. It was obvious what was going on. It was easy to see that some players did not really want to win. They were openly sabotaging their own team. When the White Sox lost the World Series, the truth was soon revealed and there was an official investigation into the case.

 

The name of the team was the White Sox. Since some members of this team took bribes to throw the game, the case became known as the Black Sox Scandal.

 

Who were involved? Eight players were charged with conspiracy. Hence the title Eight Men Out. 

 

When the players were found not guilty in a court of law, they thought they were saved. 

 

They were wrong: 

 

The newly-appointed baseball commissioner K. M. Landis ignored the verdict and banned all eight players from professional baseball for life.

 

In this historical drama we follow the case from the beginning to the end.

 

REVIEWS AND RATINGS

What do reviewers say about this drama? Here are the results of three review aggregators:

 

** 71 per cent = Meta

** 73 per cent = IMDb

** 80 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)

** 86 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)

 

As you can see, the ratings are quite good. However, not all reviews are positive. The famous movie critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013) does not follow the general trend. 

 

Ebert is not impressed. He offers only 2 out of 4 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 50 per cent. In his review, he says this film is about a scandal which is not explained very well for the viewer:

 

“… if you are not already familiar with that story, you’re unlikely to understand it after seeing this film.”

 

He also explains what went wrong:

 

“It’s an insider’s movie, a baseball expert’s film that is hard for the untutored to follow.”

 

The male characters of this drama resemble each other and to make matters worse they often dress the same way: they wear a suit and a tie. When the baseball players wear their uniform, it is not easy to know who is who (even though names are often used).

 

I agree with Roger Ebert. His criticism is fully justified. This film is much too technical. More than half of the total running time is devoted to setting up the fix and to the nine games of 1919. Less than half of the total running time is devoted to the investigation of the scandal. The structure of the film is most unfortunate.

 

CONCLUSION

If you are a baseball fan, you may like this film, because there is a lot of baseball here. If you do not know much about baseball, you will be lost during the first 80 minutes of the film.

 

If you are a general viewer who wants to know the basic facts about the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, this film is not very helpful, because the basic facts are buried under an avalanche of technical terms about baseball.

 

In my opinion, this historical drama is highly overrated. It is not great, it is not good, it is not even average, it is a big disappointment. This is why I cannot offer more than two stars (40 percent).

 

RESOURCES

 

The Fix Is In: Baseball Gambling and Game Fixing Scandals by Daniel E. Ginsburg (1995)

 

Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series by David Pietrusza (2003)

 

Burying the Black Sox by Gene Carney (2007)

 

The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball by Charles Fountain (2015)

 

Double Plays and Double Crosses: The Black Sox and Baseball in 1920 by Don Zminda (2021)

 

*****

Eight Men Out

(1988)

 

*****

 

Eight Men Out:

The Black Sox and 

the 1919 World Series

by Eliot Asinof

(first published in 1963) 

(reprinted in 2000)

 

*****