Les coulisses de l'exploit

This is one of the greatest sports stories ever told, the real story about how and WHY they fixed the World Series. Eliot Asinof's book should be read by anyone interested in history, and Sayles does an admirable job of tying it all together into a script (Sayles even cast Asinof in the movie, and then cast him again in Sunshine State.) It's a story that anyone interested in a history of America, a history of labor and management, a history of the greatest game will definitely enjoy. After reading it, the Shoeless Joe character from "Field of Dreams" suddenly has a resonance which that particular film could never explain (though it is nicely explained in the source for that film "Shoeless Joe") Also worth reading is "The Glory of Their Times" an oral history of early baseball.

This is probably the best film to be completely ignored by every major award in film in the last 25 years. For all that its about baseball players, it is NOT a baseball movie. The Black Sox scandal and its effect on baseball transcended baseball. The ensemble cast does a marvelous job, particularly Straithairn and Sweeney, who plays "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, one of the more tragic figures of the whole mess. In spite of taking money to throw the Series, Jackson went out and batted .375 for the Series. The Chicago payers in on the payoff (and one poor soul who didn't go along, but was approached) were banned from baseball for life. No less an authority than Ted Williams believes Jackson should be in the Hall of Fame. But I digress. The film goes into the motivations of the players, who were playing for a pittance and had no say over where they played. Thus they were perfect targets for the fix in the first place. Excellent and gripping film about human reactions to stress and temptation. Most recommended.

To this day, baseball has been a huge part of Americana. And nothing has given the sport a black eye like the World Series scandal of 1919. John Sayles presents the historic swindle in "Eight Men Out." A lot of emotions are on display, as the Chicago White Sox players struggle with the moral dilemmas of the love of the game and being role models to the youth of Chicago, or their desperation caused by tight-fisted White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. Back then, many people of Chicago were ready to forgive their hometown heroes. And even now, you can't help but feel sympathy for the wronged players.

When the team that couldn't be beat threw the World Series in 1919 they did more than deliberately lose a few baseball games; they corrupted the National Pastime and ushered the sport out of its age of innocence. Writer director John Sayles succeeds in showing exactly how and why eight players on the best team in baseball set in motion what had to be one of the most poorly conceived, organized and executed conspiracies in the whole history of graft, and in his usual role as a champion of the working class portrays the guilty players as victims of money-grubbing corporate exploitation (represented both by team management and organized crime).

But it's all the cynical wheeling and dealing behind the Black Sox scandal which make the film so fascinating. The story might have been unbelievable if it wasn't entirely true, but like any aspect of real life the details are messy and inconclusive. Most of the film recounts the mechanics of the fix; events during the subsequent exposure and trial are telescoped too quickly into the final forty minutes or so, which makes sense: in any conspiracy the crime is always more interesting than the punishment.

It helps to be at least slightly familiar with the huge cast of characters involved: players, gamblers, reporters and so forth. A few scenes have been added for dramatic unity, and others were abbreviated to maintain a consistent pace, but all the facts are there, and Sayles manages to pull them all together in an entertaining history lesson from our collective adolescence, re-creating that fateful moment when the boys of summer grew up for good.

Although I generally agree with Roger Ebert's reviews, I just can't understand how he was annoyed enough with this movie to give it a measly two stars. He claims that there wasn't enough exposition. I found everything explained satisfactorily, even for the non-fan or baseball history buff. And it is period-piece film-making at its finest. I cannot imagine a better telling of this story. And the baseball action is excellent. One factual error, though: Bucky Weaver (John Cusack) would never mention Babe Ruth as better (or even comparable) to Cobb, Speaker and Wheat in 1919 or 1920. It shocks me that Sayles kept that line. USA Today heralded "Eight Men Out" as the greatest baseball movie ever, and though there is some fine company, I find it hard to disagree.