Eliot Asinof

The headlines proclaimed the 1919 fix of the World Series and attempted cover-up as "the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America!" First published in 1963, Eight Men Out has become a timeless classic. Eliot Asinof has reconstructed the entire scene-by-scene story of the fantastic scandal in which eight Chicago White Sox players arranged with the nation's leading gamblers to throw the Series in Cincinnati. Mr. Asinof vividly describes the tense meetings, the hitches in the conniving, the actual plays in which the Series was thrown, the Grand Jury indictment, and the famous 1921 trial. Moving behind the scenes, he perceptively examines the motives and backgrounds of the players and the conditions that made the improbable fix all too possible. Here, too, is a graphic picture of the American underworld that managed the fix, the deeply shocked newspapermen who uncovered the story, and the war-exhausted nation that turned with relief and pride to the Series, only to be rocked by the scandal. Far more than a superbly told baseball story, this is a compelling slice of American history in the aftermath of World War I and at the cusp of the Roaring Twenties.

The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series

Eight Men Out

Jim Bouton

A story of game-fixing during National League playoffs. In his 38-year career as a baseball umpire Ernie Kolacka never once favored a team, but now he must, to repay a debt to a Korean War buddy in trouble with gamblers.

Strike Zone

James Thomas Farrell

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, Mickey Donovan finally achieves his childhood dream of playing baseball for the White Sox when he makes the team in 1919, a dream that is transformed into a nightmare by the infamous Black Sox scandal.

Dreaming Baseball

John Clyde Cagle Jr returns in triumph as the legendary ""Black Jack"", superstar of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a menacing mound demon with a Fu Manchu moustache and a 106 mile-per-hour fastball. Then Jack confronts his old mate Cyrus's murdered body and most provocative of all, a woman called Foxx.

Off-season

Offers a baseball tale about Sam Ward, an aging minor league pitcher, who gets a chance to pitch in the majors, and Ernie Kolacka, an umpire who has agreed to fix the game

Eliot Asinof

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