It figures. Hollywood finally gets around to doing another major movie featuring the White Sox, and the worst moment in the franchise`s history, if not the history of major league baseball, is the subject.
Then again, there isn`t much of a selection when a producer is dealing with the White Sox. They haven`t been blessed with such larger-than-life characters as Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Dizzy Dean, whose legendary feats were recorded on the big screen. Don`t expect to see ”Juice: The Julio Cruz Story,” opening at a theater near you.
The only other movie to feature the White Sox was the ”Monty Stratton Story,” starring Jimmy Stewart. Stratton was the promising young pitcher, who, as Sox luck would have it, blew off his leg in a hunting accident. Using a wooden leg, Stratton did come back to pitch again in the minors, providing the inspiration for the picture. The Sox, though, still were left to search for another starting pitcher.
The newest movie on the Sox, ”Eight Men Out,” focuses on the infamous 1919 team that conspired with gamblers to fix the World Series so they would lose. (Even when the Sox were good, they were bad.) The movie will have its world premiere Tuesday at the Fine Arts Theatre in a benefit for the Crossroads Fund, which supports community activities. The film will open nationwide, including Chicago, on Sept. 2.
The epic scandal, which rocked the country at the time, is based on the excellent book by Eliot Asinof. The incredible notion that the Sox even reached the World Series, and then had the audacity to throw it, still is hard to believe almost 70 years later.
The ins-and-outs of the conspiracy make perfect fodder for a movie. With the exception of a few lapses into Hollywood sappiness, director/writer John Sayles does a nice job of sticking to the facts as recorded in Asinof`s book. Sayles captures the tension and ambivalence of the eight players as the conspiracy grew and was revealed.
”The movie will introduce people to an important piece of history,”
said Asinof, who published his book in 1963. ”Baseball was the only real sport that achieved any attention back then. Sure, there was the occasional prize fight and horse racing. But there wasn`t basketball, football, tennis or golf. Major-league baseball was the centerpiece. That a World Series should be fixed probably was more horrible then than Watergate and Contragate put together.
”When I was growing up (Asinof was born in 1919), I had an uncle who always said that anything could be fixed. He believed that because of what happened with the Black Sox.”
True fans of the sport will appreciate Sayles` attention to detail in filming the baseball scenes. The director doesn`t miss much in re-creating the game played during that era. A member of the research crew even found a picture of Comiskey Park that revealed a telling irony. On one of the walls there was a sign warning fans, ”No betting allowed.” Veteran press box residents will recognize the fireplace in the old ”Bard`s Room.”
The actual baseball footage was made convincing by Hollywood standards thanks in part to ex-Sox outfielder Ken Berry. Berry, now a Sox coach at the major and minor league level, served as a technical adviser for the movie.
”It was neat,” Berry said. ”I got to play with the Black Sox, the White Sox, and now I`m back with the Sox again as a coach.”
Berry said Sayles wanted perfection, and in one scene, he almost killed actor Charlie Sheen trying to get it. Sheen played centerfielder Happy Felsch, who participated in the fix.
”We had a play where Charlie had to make a throw to the plate, and the runner was out, but the umpire called him safe,” Berry said. ”It was a bang- bang play. We did 10 takes, and Charlie`s arm was about to fall off. But on the 10th take, Charlie made the perfect throw. That`s the way John wanted it. He went out of his way to portray the game as it was.”
The end result is one of the better baseball movies in recent years. It`s a story that deserved to be told, because the scandal almost killed the sport, and it changed forever baseball in Chicago.
In 1919, the White Sox were the premier team in baseball. They were the Yankees before the great Yankee teams of the 1920s. With ”Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams and others, the Sox had the makings of a dynasty. They were the big favorites to beat the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.
Sox founder Charles Comiskey (played by Clifton James) was the proud holder of this empire. Yet he was largely responsible for its ultimate downfall, a point spelled out clearly in the book and movie.
Comiskey grossly underpaid his players. They came to loathe him. Had he treated them fairly, they probably wouldn`t have fallen prey to the gamblers. That fact was driven home during a poignant part early in the movie. Cicotte (played by David Strathairn), the Sox`s top pitcher, paid a visit to Comiskey`s office. The owner had promised Cicotte a $10,000 bonus if he won 30 games. The knuckleballer posted 29 victories, but he missed five starts in August because Comiskey ordered him to be rested for the World Series.
Since Cicotte came so close, and was denied his chance to reach the goal, he thought Comiskey owed him the money. Comiskey held tight to his wallet.
”Twenty-nine,” Comiskey said coldly, ”is not 30.”
With that answer, Cicotte, who initially turned down a chance to join the fix, accepted the gamblers` money, and he eventually dropped two games in the series, which the Sox lost five games to three.
The other members of the conspiracy were driven by the same motivation. They felt accepting money from the gamblers was a way to get what they deserved.
”Studs Terkel (who played reporter Hugh Fullerton) said he would only be in the movie if they made Comiskey out to be jerk,” Asinof said. ”He treated the press better than his players. He had the press in his back-pocket. Comiskey definitely was the heavy.”
It`s hard to imagine such an occurance in the present game. Free agency and salary arbitration, accounting for the mega-buck wages now, weren`t available to the players in the Black Sox`s day. It was either Comiskey`s way or the highway.
Arguably, the Sox never recovered. If they had stayed clean, the Sox probably would have continued to be, along with the Yankees, one of the top teams in the `20s. The nucleus for greatness was there. After all, the Sox won the World Series in 1917, and were within a game of first place and charging hard in 1920 when the exposure and subsequent suspension of the eight players occurred during the final weeks of the season.
With the heart of the team ripped out, the Sox virtually were left to wander in baseball`s desert for 40 years. They didn`t win another American League pennant until 1959, and they haven`t won one since. That`s one pennant in 69 years.
Baseball, fortunately, did recover from the scandal much quicker, but there were some doubts for a while. The eight Black Sox had violated a public trust, and, indeed, were tried in court on that charge.
The fans were so rocked by the enormity of the conspiracy, that it took a little boy to express their true feelings. As Jackson walked out of the court house, an innocent lad tugged on his coat and pleaded, ”Say it ain`t so, Joe.”
Whether or not that encounter between hero and fan took place is irrelevant. The public couldn`t believe it had been deceived by a bunch of players it had come to idolize.
Baseball could have been irreparably damaged were it not for the actions of two people-newly chosen Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Babe Ruth.
Landis banned the eight players forever from major league baseball. It didn`t matter to Landis that the players were acquitted in a tainted trial that smacked of as much corruption as the scandal itself. Landis didn`t need a jury`s verdict to make his decision.
”Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ballgame . . . no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers . . . will ever play professional baseball!” Landis announced.
The emergence of Babe Ruth both restored the faith and renewed the excitement in the fans again. With the Babe hitting homers at a record clip, the Black Sox soon were forgotten.
However, the movie could revive a campaign to clear the names of Jackson and Weaver. Both players died without having themselves taken off baseball`s black list.
Jackson, an incredible hitter who had a career .356 batting average, has been denied his rightful spot in the Hall of Fame because he was known as a
”Black Sox.” Jackson (portrayed by D.B. Sweeney) was an illiterate Southerner, who unknowingly was coerced to join the fix. Obviously, he didn`t understand what he was supposed to do, because all he did was hit .375 during the Series.
”I`ve been getting calls from South Carolina (Jackson`s home state) on-and-off for the last several years, and I expect I`ll get more now that the movie is out,” Asinof said. ”My position is that Joe Jackson should be in the Hall of Fame and that his name should be reinstated. That`s not to say that he didn`t participate in the fix, and that he didn`t receive any money. He made a terrible mistake. But he was more a victim than a perpetrator.”
Weaver`s story is even more tragic. He participated in discussions about the fix, but didn`t join in or take any money. He played the Series to his fullest, hitting .324 along with contributing outstanding defense at third base.
Yet in Landis` mind, Weaver (portrayed by John Cusack) knew about the conspiracy and didn`t do anything about it. He was guilty, regardless of whether he took a cent.
Weaver went to his grave trying to erase the smudge off his name. A campaign continued even after his death.
”Weaver was a total innocent,” Asinof said. ”The only thing he did wrong was not to rat on his buddies. He never took a dime.”
Weaver just wanted to play, as he expressed in a touching scene near the end of the movie. Sitting with a couple of starry-eyed kids, Weaver describes the feeling when a hitter connects on the sweet spot.
”Damned if you don`t feel like you`re going to live forever,” Weaver said.
In the end, only Weaver`s shame lived forever. He tried, but he couldn`t prevent the Sox from throwing a World Series.
”Eight Men Out” is more than a movie about baseball. It`s about history.
And fans with more than a passing interest will be able to view an exhibit on the incident at the Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark St. Entitled ”Say It Ain`t So, Joe, the Black Sox Scandal of 1919,” the collection of photographs and artifacts will run from Oct. 19 through April 30 of next year.
