Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 2-February-03
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Eight Men Out (1988)

Professional athletes have never been the heroes that America likes to imagine, but that doesn't mean we can't wax nostalgic about the good old days. Whereas our modern dope-smokin', wife-beatin' superstars are so rich they'll never be punished for their crimes, there was a time when people expected a little more from their jock idols and felt real shock, anger, and dismay at their downfall. John Sayle's baseball movie "Eight Men Out" captures such a time, when players were still scrapping for decent pay and the game still had an air of genuine innocence (unlike today, when the very nostalgia of baseball is, I believe, owned under trademark by The Coca-Cola Company). Like a lazy summer afternoon in the bleachers, "Eight Men Out" slips by steadily and quietly with only a few moments of excitement, but it's not an unpleasant way to kill a couple of hours (especially if you're a baseball fan).

The eight men of the title were members of the Chicago "Black Sox," who were tried for conspiracy and then banished from professional baseball after suspiciously losing the World Series in 1919. As the movie opens, we find the Sox (still White) heading into the Series with a reputation of being one of the greatest teams ever assembled. But while the team's pompous owner, Charles Comiskey (Clifton James) is living large in a skybox with a group of sportswriters, his purportedly devoted, brotherly, and happy-go-lucky team is in the locker room bickering and complaining about his stinginess. No, the lives of America's diamond heroes are definitely not 14 carat, so the time is ripe for unscrupulous influences to go to work. And they come out in droves: an Irishman from Boston (Kevin Tighe), a twosome from Philadelphia (Christopher Lloyd and Richard Edson), a weaselly ex-boxer from Chicago (Michael Mantell), and a high-class speculator named Mr. Rothstein (Michael Lerner), whose money, one way another, funds the whole scheme. Everybody wants a piece of the action, and when they're through, the White Sox are soiled, crumpled, and largely reduced to tatters.

Working from a book by Eliot Asinof, writer/director/actor Sayles (who memorably plays sportswriter Ring Lardner) exposes all of the many factors that contributed to the fraud, taking a rather lenient stance toward the members of the team who decided to throw the games. Although first baseman Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker), the instigator of the conspiracy, is depicted as a sleazebag, the other men who signed on are portrayed as either foolish, frustrated by being underpaid drudges, or too weak not to do what everybody else is doing. Young hotheads Fred McMullin (Perry Lang), Swede Risberg (Don Harvey), and Hap Felsch (Charlie Sheen) are the first to enlist because of the money they're promised (at least $10,000 each, which is more than they make all season). But they can't throw the game on their own; the real key to making the conspiracy work is star pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn), who only agrees to accept the bribe after Comiskey denies him a promised end-of-season bonus. Once Eddie is in, the other reluctant players follow, including second-string pitcher Lefty Williams (James Read) and the slow but talented "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (D. B. Sweeney). The only starting player who outright refuses to throw a game is Buck Weaver (John Cusack), the hero of the tale, but he doesn't blow the whistle until it's too late.

As the movie runs through each of the seven World Series games (only two of which were won by the Sox), you can't help but feel disgusted with the corrupt players, despite Sayles' pointing the finger at Comiskey as the real crook. How could these men sacrifice their dignity, betray their other teammates and fans, put their loved ones in danger, and cruelly deceive the opposing team (the Cincinnati Reds), who must have been humiliated by their win? The point of the story, however, isn't to determine the degree of the players' guilt, but to illustrate the melancholy idea that sooner or later everything becomes susceptible to corruption, particularly during the increasingly polarized and capitalistic 20th century. The Black Sox conspirators may have done wrong, but they were just pawns who never had any power of their own except on the playing field. Caught between the money-based might of Comiskey and the money-based lure of the gamblers, they fell prey to their own foibles and ended up paying the price, while everyone else involved got off scot free. "Eight Men Out" (sort of like "Quiz Show") seems to capture the moment in history when it became the norm in public scandals for strikes to be called on the little guy, while the movers and shakers are left to go on swinging.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.