Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #37: Eight Men Out (1988)

While watching an enraged Al Capone talk about baseball while bashing in the head of a subordinate in the Untouchables, I realized I had no movie about baseball, the great American sport, on my 250^th Anniversary watchlist. Perhaps I should have gone for the more triumphal Pride of the Yankees, which focuses on New York Yankees star Lou Gehrig alongside the greatest of all time, Babe Ruth, but with all the crime movies I’ve been watching I found myself drawn to Eight Men Out, the story of how said octet colluded with gamblers and mobsters to throw the 1919 World Series.

Based on baseball journalist Eliot Asinof’s book of the same name, Eight Men Out tells the story of how the star-studded Chicago White Sox decided to purposefully lose the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, and how the particular players involved were forever banned from the big leagues. One may wonder why a sports team would throw away an opportunity for fame and respect like that. First of all, virtually the same team had already won the Series in 1917, so they already had that feather in their cap. Secondly, and more importantly, baseball players back then were often not paid that well, so getting a big cut from a bet to lose was way more attractive. These days, when people argue that athletes are seriously overpaid, it’s hard to see such a thing happening. The White Sox in particular suffered from the cost-cutting measures of owner Charles Comiskey (Clifton James), who would pull stunts to get out of paying players bonuses. One such incident, featured in the movie albeit after a different game, was when instead of extra pay he awarded champagne. Said champagne was also flat.

I am far from a sports historian, so I had to take a crash course (this link helped with the inaccuracies). I won’t list all the little inaccuracies, but it should be noted that Eight Men Out exists in a strange place where it’s both very faithful yet inaccurate. This is because Asinof’s book was written at a time when sports journalism was less rigorous and based more on hearsay and not completely verified anecdotes. Still, it’s a compelling sad story.

First I should get into the gamblers. Former baseball player Bill Burns (Christopher Lloyd), sensing the discontent on the White Sox team, comes up with the ambitious scheme to fix the World Series. Before gamblers and players would work to fix and throw single, less important games, but the Black Sox Scandal was on a whole other level. In reality Burns did not cook up the scheme. It was Charles “Chick” Gandil (Michael Rooker) who approached him. The movie changed the initiator from Gandil to Burns to make the players more sympathetic, as lashing out against unfair treatment. Burns gets his backing from Boston bookmaker and gambler “Sport” Sullivan, who stands out thanks to actor Kevin Tighe’s more obviously evil performance.

The ultimate ringleader, according to popular legend, is Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner). Rothstein is one of the most notorious figures in America’s criminal history. An intelligent Jewish New Yorker, Rothstein was running successful gambling rackets in his twenties. Then he helped develop the system of organized crime that would dominate many American cities over the 20^th Century. His role in the 1919 World Series, however, has become overblown, understandable given his high profile in the underworld. He did not manage the details of the fix and even left the amounts of the bets to be decided by lower members in his organization. One of the biggest myths of the book and film is that Rothstein sent a hitman to threaten pitcher “Lefty” Williams’ wife when he thinks about backing out of the fix. Asinof added this story, as well as many other fictional interactions, to fill in gaps of the story and increase the drama. In truth there were no evidence threats of violence and the culpable White Sox players likely saw their plan through to the end without any further prodding from the gamblers.

Of course, in a sports movie, there’s loads of characters filling out the main team. Three stand out in particular. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn) is one of the biggest stars of the team and one of the more sympathetic. He resists the offer to join Gandil and the other fixers in this scheme, but after club owner Comiskey blatantly cheats him out of a bonus, he joins to get back at him. John Cusack draws even more sympathy as George “Buck” Weaver. Fully aware of his teammates’ plans, he nevertheless does his best to win, thwarting several of their intentional fumbles. Despite his refusal to underperform, he still got punished as he had full knowledge of the conspiracy. He spent years trying to get reinstated in professional baseball, but to no avail.

The figure who’s drawn the most controversy is “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. It was considered particularly tragic that he was banned from the major league as he looked to be a legendary player. Because of this, stories of his alleged innocence have been told. Several of his teammates claimed he refused the bribes to throw the game and was tricked into confessing thanks to his illiteracy and naïve nature. The popular narrative was that he was a great player, but also a good-hearted, simple-minded dupe who was unfairly bunched in with the rest of the Eight. But further research has shown that he did take a bribe, and also he clearly screwed up several times in the games, indicating he was playing below performance to ensure a loss. While on Jackson, the famous line from a heartbroken kid, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” was never said.

Director John Sayles actually acted in the movie, playing witty journalist “Ring” Lardner. It’s actually pretty uncanny how similar they look. Lardner, as in real life, is shown to be close to the White Sox, growing more cynical and disappointed as he learns about the fix. None other than famed journalist and historian Studs Terkel acts alongside him as sports journalist Hugh Fullerton. This leads to the most compelling aspect of the movie. Because the White Sox could have won the World Series if they tried, they break the hearts of many of the people around them. The one that got to me the most was the manager “Kid” Gleason (John Mahoney). He’s a veteran of the game that’s got another World Series win in his grasp, but suddenly his team is failing and, as he learns, betraying him.

Manager "Kid" Gleason tries to get his players to actually play right.

Then there’s the wives and kids. Some of the players’ wives are eager to see their husbands go out and win, with one even placing a small bet with a guy in the audience. The movie starts with some young boys who are major fans, a pair of them personally getting to practice the game with Buck Weaver. Of course, nobody likes to see little kids get crushed by their heroes, and this is what happens by the end. On an unrelated note I looked into how the Cincinnati Reds team in 1919 and their fans today view the Black Sox Scandal and if they saw their win as tainted. Surprisingly they didn't feel too bad about having their opponents throw the game. The argument is that the Reds had a great team of their own with a better win-loss record that year, and thus they could still have won if the Sox were still trying. A lot of people assume the Black Sox would have easily won without all the chicanery, but this is ignoring that the other team also won its way into the World Series.

The trial itself was controversial. Much of the evidence mysteriously went missing and the players were declared not guilty, perhaps because the conspirator Bill Burns made it sound like Rothstein’s betting organization masterminded the affair instead of the players. Still, the White Sox players were still punished. With the reputation of professional baseball in dire danger, the club owners agreed to appoint judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis (John Anderson, and yes, that was Landis’ real name as his father was a Union soldier wounded at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864) as the Commissioner of Baseball. Landis’ first major act was to ban the eight from ever playing professional baseball again. The movie ends on a sad note as Shoeless Joe Jackson plays in a minor southern league under a pseudonym. Several players did take this route, though the particular scene here was an invention of Sayles to let the audience reflect on what the players lost from the scandal.

Pacific Trading Cards actually made
baseball cards to tie in with the movie.

I’m not a big sports fan, movies in the genre often don’t appeal to me unless they’re a comedy or have some other hook to draw me in. Eight Men Out has one of those hooks thanks to the organized crime link, and the great cast really helps out, too. This isn’t a movie I’m likely to revisit, but it is pretty good.

Rating: 7/10