Eight Men Out Movie

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Posted By: chris

Hi all,

Just finished watching this movie all the way through for the first time in many years...how accurate is it in regards to the players invloved and their roles in the scandal? Was Gandal the true ringleader? Weaver and Jackson were both innocent? Just curious on everyone's thoughts...a great movie nonetheless, how amazing it would have been to be around baseball during that time period.

take care

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Posted By: paulstratton

The fix is on! These guys were getting screwed by Comiskey.

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Posted By: dennis

imo the interpretation as w/any "hollywood" production must have good and bad.....good in real life would be the clean players,little attention is paid to them. bad is the players in on the fix,or who knew of the fix and did nothing to stop it .the movie cleaned up the bad and gave (some of) them a sympathatic feel. i liked the movie and of course would love to believe weaver & jackson were clean,but i know in fact they weren't.

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Posted By: David Vargha

Jackson took money, so he was hardly "clean". IMO, Weaver was "clean" by the moral standards that he was raised in. He came from a working class background where one was considered clean if they didn't participate in wrongdoing even if they were aware of it (much like the playground rules where you don't "rat" on someone even though you didn't do anything). In fact, Landis didn't say that Weaver was a participant if I remember correctly. He was banned for his prior knowledge and failure to disclose. Weaver was judged, however, by a tougher standard and suffered the consequences (unfairly so IMO).

It's a great movie and I enjoy it every time I watch it. My wife and I watched it with my 12-year old son this year so he could learn about the Black Sox. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

These characters are the culprits, with others also involved.

And, I wish we had a Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, nowadays,
to straighten out Major League BB.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Chris

I recommend that you sign up for the yahoo group 1919blacksox

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/1919BlackSox/

In that group, you will find by far the most knowledgeable historians and scholars who have studied and researched the fix and the cover-up. There are also a number of threads which note the differences between the facts and Eight Men Out the movie.

Max

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Posted By: chris

Thanks for the replies everyone...

Also, what about Jackson playing semi-pro ball a few years later, any truth to that? What happened to him after the whole ordeal...the entire store is very intriguing.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

"The Swede was a hard guy".....I'm sure Weaver, like Jackson who made that statement was afraid to "rat" on the fellas.

Ted, it would be nice to have a commissioner with a backbone, but let's not forget that Landis made sure baseball stayed segregated while he was commissioner. It also appears as though he may have looked the other way at a gambling scandal involving Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Smokey Joe Wood.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Chris, nearly all of the 8 played semi-pro ball...many of them at times for the same teams.

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Posted By: chris

thanks Mike for the link..

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Posted By: MVSNYC

the movie was actually pretty acurate, according to my limited Blacksox research i have done over the years (books, fellow collectors, internet, etc)...i too would have loved to have been around back in those days.

MS

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Posted By: Todd

I grew up in Cincy and, according to every old-timer that I ever talked to, the Reds beat the Sox fair and square.

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Posted By: DJ

Errors in "Eight Men Out":

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While The Star-Spangled Banner was not officially made the national anthem until 1933, it was sung during the first game of the 1918 World Series and had been popular for years, so it's reasonable for it to be sung before a 1919 game.

Factual errors: Dickie Kerr who pitched game 3 of the world series is seen throwing right handed in the movie. But in actuality he was a left handed pitcher.

Factual errors: Eddie Collins, who was a left handed batter, bats right handed in the movie.

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Some of the neighborhood kids are listening to the game on a "crystal set" radio. Although the first "real" radio station in the USA (KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) wasn't launched until 1920, less well organized broadcasters were operating as early as 1909. It is not inconceivable that an enthusiastic local was broadcasting details of the game and so, whether accurate or not, it seems reasonable to allow artistic license.

Anachronisms: In Charles Comiskey's office after word of the scandal is out, Comiskey's lawyer is bouncing an autographed baseball in his hand made by Rawlings. During the Black Sox scandal, A.L Reach was the official ball of MLB.

Factual errors: During the trial, Buck Weaver exclaims that he batted .327 in the series. Actually he batted .324. The .327 probably came from a researcher's haste: Weaver's lifetime world series batting average was .327, but he batted just .324 in the '19 series.

Continuity: On the train, Ring Lardner undoes his bow-tie. Moments later, his tie is once again tied.

Factual errors: In the film, Risberg makes an error at shortstop in the first game. In the real-life first game, Chick Gandil was recorded with the only error.

Anachronisms: In the scene in the room where the live coverage of game one was being announced, after all the men had left the announcer states the final score. However, instead of saying the "Reds" he says the "Red Legs". This is inaccurate because Cincinnati was not called the Red Legs until the 1944 season.

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In one scene, Dickie Kerr tells manager Kid Gleason that he remembers the first ball game he ever went to - Kid Gleason pitches a no-hitter to beat Cy Young one to nothing. Kid Gleason stopped pitching to become a full time infielder in 1895. Dickie Kerr was born in July of 1893, so it is unlikely that, at 15 months old at the most, Kerr would remember ever seeing Gleason pitch. Not certain when Gleason hurled his no-no, but he did pitch for St. Louis (Kerr's home town) in 1892,93, and 94, so it's possible Dickie did attend the game, but remember it, probably not.

Factual errors: The end of the film leads you to think that Chick Gandil's career ended with the official banishment of the "Black Sox". Actually, Gandil sat out the 1920 season because of a salary dispute with the Chicago White Sox.

Anachronisms: Many of the newspapers are shown with headlines set in the differing varieties of the Helvetica typeface. Helvetica was designed in 1957.

Factual errors: During the first game of the series, the scoreboard is shown in the bottom of the 4th inning with the score being Reds 1, White Sox 0. The actual box score shows that the Reds scored one run in the bottom of the 1st inning and the White Sox scored one run in the top of the 2nd inning. The score should have been tied 1-1 at the bottom of the 4th inning.

Continuity: Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis elected 1st baseball commissioner on November 12, 1920. The scene directly following the announcement of his commissioner-ship shows a newspaper date of January 14, 1920, 10 months earlier.

Factual errors: When the confessions disappeared, the next newspaper headline shows a date of Feb 2, 1920. The trial for the White Sox scandal didn't even open until June 27, 1921.

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Posted By: joe brennan

Wow. Very asute disection of the movie OJ. Wasn't aware of all of that, and I'm sure Hollywood making a product didn't research everything to the finest point. But knowing you have tells me you either have a passion for the Sox or factual Hollywood movies.

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: DJ

I should have given credit where credit is due and I assure you that wasn't my own creation.

If you go to the Internet Data Base (www.imdb.com), plug in the movie you want to read more about and on the side, there is a link that says "goofs" and it will point out the errors made in movies. It's addicting.

DJ

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Posted By: Larry

DJ- That was an incredible addition to this thread, being one of my favorite movies, I really appreciated the subtle error notes you have discovered, that was great..This is an educational thread, something we should all appreciate.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Jackson did take the money. Cicotte too. Weaver was aware of it and sat around while it was discussed but did nothing. I feel sorry for him. The irony is that had Weaver not been banned, he would have been Harry Steinfeldt today: known by afficionados but not anyone else. In some ways being unjustly kicked out made him more famous than he would have been under his own playing record.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I'm sure that Buck Weaver would have rather not been as famous if he could have continued to play professionally. I feel sorry for him too...his was more a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bottom line is though that he knew what was taking place and sat by and watched it happen....of course I'm sure that most of the team knew what was happening. Ray Schalk had to know that it wasn't on the level.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Nobody rats out anybody

Chicago
the start of the Roaring 20s
tommyguns
everybody wants a piece of the action
anybody else is on the take

What could Weaver do? And what rule existed to cover this? Heck, a commish wasn't even proposed yet.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Gil, I completely agree with you, and as I said earlier "Swede was a hard guy". Baseball players were a rough crowd in the deadball era and gambling on games by players was not uncommon for the era. Unfortunately for Weaver he sat in on at least one meeting about the throwing of the series...probably by happenstance because he was friends with most of those who participated in the scheme, and that's what I mean by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Landis was brought in to clean up the game and Weaver and arguably Jackson were thrown to the lions without due process. It is lamentable, but in the end it certainly kept most ballplayers from associating with the gamblers.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

I'd like to think i know a little bit about this topic... the best i can say is .... what max said

Regards,

Black Sox Fan

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

email me

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Posted By: S Gross

If you can, try to locate a copy of Nelson Algren's "The Silver-Colored Yesterday." It has a great story of the author growing up as a Swede Risberg fan (with his autographed bat) in North Chicago. Shunned by the local gang, he was forced to play RF, where: "... The worshipers of false gods hit scratchy little National League bloopers. There wasn't one honest-to-God American League line drive all summer."

It also has a great reference to strip cards:
"The Tobey of that committee was a sprout who had a paying thing going, for weekdays, in the resale of colored paper-picture strips of major-league players. He bought them ten for a penny and resold them to us for two, making himself as high as a dollar per week ..."

Hmmmmmmmmm .... flipping cards for a profit, not a bad idea ....

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Posted By: Max Weder

Nelson Algren has many Black Sox references in his works. Here is a very interesting book Riseberg "Ballet for an Opening Day". (However, this limited edition art book will set you back $2000--it is available in cheaper copies)




Max