Eight Men Out

Eight Men Out is a 1988 American sports drama film based on Eliot Asinof's 1963 book Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. It was written and directed by John Sayles. The film is a dramatization of Major League Baseball's Black Sox Scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series. Much of the movie was filmed at the old Bush Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. Plot In 1919, the Chicago White Sox have won the American League pennant and are considered among the greatest baseball teams ever assembled; however, the team's stingy owner, Charles Comiskey, gives little inclination to reward his players for a spectacular season. Gamblers "Sleepy Bill" Burns and Billy Maharg get wind of the players' discontent, asking shady player Chick Gandil to convince a select group of Sox—including star knuckleball pitcher Eddie Cicotte, who led the majors with a 29–7 win–loss record and an earned run average of 1.82—that they could earn more money by playing badly and throwing the series than they could earn by winning the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Cicotte was motivated because Comiskey refused him a promised $10,000 should he win 30 games for the season. Cicotte was nearing the milestone when Comiskey ordered team manager Kid Gleason to bench him for two weeks (missing five starts) with the excuse that the 35-year-old veteran's arm needed a rest before the series. A number of players, including Gandil, Swede Risberg, and Lefty Williams, go along with the scheme. "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, the team's illiterate superstar, is also invited, but is depicted as not bright nor entirely sure of what is going on. Buck Weaver, meanwhile, insists that he is a winner and wants nothing to do with the fix.