Certainly the tragic figure in "Eight Men Out" is not Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), who certainly receives his biggest cinematic boost from "Field of Dreams," but rather Buck Weaver (John Cusack). Weaver's sin was that he failed to rat out his teammates once he knew there was talk of a fix. Judge Kenisaw Mountain Landis, a necessary evil as the game's first commissioner, needed to scrap out the cancer of this scandal even if it meant cutting to the bone. That meant that Weaver, who was the third baseman on Ty Cobb's all-time team, suffers the same banishment for life from the game he loves as those who took payments to throw the World Series. Weaver's nobility is further enhanced in the film because he is the one who has time for the kids in the sandlot and who believes that the lessons he learned as a boy playing the game still apply not only to baseball but also to life. Jackson is something of a cipher in the film, more legend than flesh and blood human being. Consequently, Weaver's character stands in contrast to Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker), the limited "brains" behind the scandal and Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn), the star most wronged by Comisky the skinflint. Even at the end of the film, when we see "Shoeless" Joe on a semi-pro field playing under an assumed name, it is Weaver who offers the film's benediction from the stands and Weaver who emerges as the most sympathetic figure. If you get to vote for anyone to be in the Hall of Fame from the Black Sox, Bucky would be your man. But neither Weaver nor Jackson is in Cooperstown and there is a second ballpark on the Southside of Chicago named for the true villain of the story.
The owner of the team, Charlie Cominsky, was a difficult man to work for. When his team won the pennant he gave them flat champagne instead of the $10,000 bonuses he promised them. And because he had promised a pitcher a bonus for winning 30 games, he purposely benched him so that the pitcher could win no more than 29. Salary was $6,000 per year and they had to do their own laundry. This was a team that was ripe for exploitation by the gambling interests at the time. Arnold Rothstein, the famous gambling tsar, manipulates everybody, but his role gives some insight into his character. And Ring Lardner and John Sayles himself play sportswriters. I was confused by the ballplayers though. Perhaps if I was familiar with this particular 1919 team I would have been able to recognize them, but they looked alike and all blended together in my mind.
The best part of the film was the historical detail. There was no radio or television then. So if you weren't in the ballpark, you had to go to a gambling parlor where a gentleman with a stuffy accent read the play-by-play from tickertape. There was a large baseball diamond on the wall and another man would chart out the game as it was read from the tickertape. The acting was good, the moral dilemmas clear. The players wound up double-crossed by the gamblers and then put on trial. All this was fascinating. Especially since it was true. However, the film just misses getting a high recommendation from me because of my confusion about the ballplayers. But if you don't particularly care who was who and want to relive a small piece of American history, you'll like this video, especially if you're a baseball fan.
