Eight Men Out (1988) on Netflix
In 1919, the Chicago White Sox win the American League pennant, but owner Charles Comiskey underpays them. Gamblers ask Chick Gandil to throw the World Series. Buck Weaver refuses.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.2/1024,305 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chicago, 1919. The White Sox take the American League pennant and go into the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds as favorites. The players feel cheated by their owner, Charles Comiskey, who underpays them and refuses pitcher Eddie Cicotte a bonus he was promised. Gamblers, among them Sleepy Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, and the gambler Sport Sullivan hear the discontent and start recruiting. Chick Gandil, Swede Risberg and Lefty Williams listen; Shoeless Joe Jackson is coaxed in; Buck Weaver wants no part of it. The gamblers seek money from the New York gangster Arnold Rothstein, who is not to be connected to the plan.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Eight Men Out (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Sayles said his original dream cast for Eight Men Out had Martin Sheen at third base, but he ended up with Charlie Sheen in center field.
- Ring Lardner Jr. reported that the production could not entice enough Indianapolis residents to act as extras, so the crew had to make a few hundred extras look like a World Series crowd of thousands, luring them with free entertainment, bingo with cash prizes and a $20-a-day stipend.
- Right-handed D. B. Sweeney said producers considered using the old Hollywood trick of shooting him batting from the right side and then flipping the negative, as they did in The Pride of the Yankees, but there was not enough money for it.
- When cloud cover abruptly changed the light during a baseball scene, John Sayles switched which World Series game they were shooting, from Game Two to Game Four, leaving the second assistant director, who knew nothing about baseball, to work out who was on base.
- Actor Bill Irwin noted that some cast members who had been chewing tobacco between takes switched to chewing apricots during the shoot.
