Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
About this audiobook
In 1919, American headlines proclaimed the fix and cover-up of the World Series as “the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America.” In this painstaking review, Eliot Asinof has reconstructed the entire scene-by-scene story of the scandal, in which eight Chicago White Sox players arranged with the nation’s leading gamblers to throw the series to Cincinnati. 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 backgrounds and motives of the players and the conditions that made the improbable fix all too possible. Far more than a superbly told baseball story, this compelling American drama will appeal to all those interested in American popular culture.
About the author
Eliot Asinof was born in the year of the ill-fated World Series fix. After graduating from Swarthmore College in 1940, he played minor league baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies organization. He has written numerous books and a variety of plays for television and motion pictures. He lives in Ancramdale, New York, in a house he built with his son.
Harold N. Cropp is the artistic director of Commonweal Theatre Company and holds a BA in theater from Brown, an MBA from Santa Clara University, and an MFA in acting from the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver. He was the 2006 Sally Irvine Award winner for Initiative.
