A Review of Eight Men Out
By: Eliot Asinof

The time was the fall of 1919, the country lye on the doorstep of what was to be known as the roaring twenties, a time best described as when the country lost its innocence, a time when a people discovered the pleasures of sin. In 1919, the U.S. has just come out of World War I, at that time known as The Great War. Our service men had went overseas for long periods of time, and spent that time among cultures it had never seen, consequently bringing back part of it when they came home. This was a time of disruption in the country, the world had changed. It was now evident that man was capable of atrocities that could end the human race, and wars that could span long years and cost many
The orchestrator of this scandal was a man named Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, a man described as a tall, beefy, red-faced man, who wore a white suit and bright bow tie, and like any mastermind he knew you creep into the club through the weakest link, and no doubt that link was "Chick" Gandil. Sullivan approached Gandil, and made him an offer as the old saying goes, he couldn't refuse. Gandil wanted $80,000 dollars to get enough players in the bag to throw the series, Sullivan and his cronies could bet on the underdog Reds and make like bandits, stealing the money, and the confidence of the people in the game for some time. So the wheel was set in motion, Sullivan however, knew he couldn't front that kind of money so he had to go to someone else to finance the scandal, and that man was Arnold Rothstein, a Jewish man who had built a fortune off of gambling and fixing different sporting events, horse races, boxing, and now the biggest of them all the World Series. It was up to Gandil to get the players he needed in the bag. First he needed a pitcher, he needed Edie Cicotte. Eddie, who was nearing the end of his prime, had to think of his future. He had a family, a mortgage, he was underpaid, and his time was running out, so he, after much deliberation agreed. So now Gandil was on a roll, he quickly got Risberg, on