Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series Audiobook (Free)

In 1919, American headlines proclaimed the fix and cover-up of the World Series as “one of the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America.” With this painstaking review, Eliot Asinof offers reconstructed the complete scene-by-scene story of the scandal, in which eight Chicago Light Sox players organized with the nation’s leading bettors to throw the series to Cincinnati. Asinof vividly represents the tense conferences, the hitches in the conniving, the real plays where the Series was tossed, the Grand Jury indictment, and the popular 1921 trial. Moving behind the scenes, he perceptively examines the backgrounds and motives of the players as well as the circumstances that produced the improbable fix all too feasible. Far more than a superbly told baseball story, this powerful American episode will appeal to all or any those interested in American popular tradition.