Chicago White Sox: “Eight Men Out” vs “Field of Dreams”

Eight Men Out

The Chicago White Sox had an ugly history in the 1910s. They were a very good baseball team but their off the field stuff as an organization is sort of a disgrace to what the organization is today. However, it is a part of their history and it is acknowledged in a few movies. There is nothing happy about the way this all turned out for the White Sox as eight of their players were banned from playing Major League Baseball for the rest of their lives.

The movie tells the tale based on a book called Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. It documents the events of the 1919 White Sox that were paid by gamblers to purposely lose the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds who were a far inferior team. That White Sox team was known as one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled.

Their owner, Charles Comiskey was a bad man who allowed this all to happen. The movie does a very good job of portraying all of this. There are players on the team who were illiterate and didn’t know much about what they were doing but were punished anyway. It isn’t a happy story but it is a very fun movie for people who are interested in the history of the game.