Eight Men Out

1988
PG
1h 59m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

23K

YOUR RATING

John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, D.B. Sweeney, Don Harvey, James Read, Perry Lang, and Michael Rooker in Eight Men Out (1988)

A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.

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Baseball Drama History Sport

A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

23K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 nominations total

Videos2

Photos90

+ 84

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
In many scenes, players toss their gloves down on the field near their positions before they head to the dugout. Until the 1950s, players frequently left their gloves on the field while at bat. Because of the danger of players stepping on or tripping on them, and batted or thrown balls bouncing off them in odd directions, Major League Baseball requested, then demanded, players to take their gloves with them to the dugout. They finally complied after a rule change and fines.

Goofs
Shoeless Joe Jackson signs his confession with an "X". Jackson was illiterate, but he could sign his name by mimicking a pattern. Autographed baseballs and photographs from the time prove it.

Quotes
Buck Weaver: I still get such a bang out of it. Playin' ball. Same as I did when I first come up. You get out there, and the stands are full, and everybody's cheerin'. It's like everybody in the world come to see you. Inside that, there's the players, and they're yakkin' it up. The pitcher throws, and you look for that pill, and suddenly, there's nothin' else in the ballpark but you and it. Sometimes, when you're feelin' right, there's a groove there, and the bat just eases into it and meets that ball. And when that bat meets that ball, and you can just feel that ball just give, and you know it's gonna go a long way, damn, if you don't feel like you're gonna live forever. I couldn't give that up. Not for nothin'.

Crazy credits
The opening credits are done against a cloudy blue sky, first going up, then to the right, and down to the bottom (kind of like a fly ball). Despite the ensemble cast, the most well-known leading and character actors at the time are credited first in alphabetical order, then lesser known actors that had roles that were just as large or larger are credited in pairs of two. Example: John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, and Charlie Sheen are credited first, due to their successes with The Sure Thing (1985), Back to the Future (1985), and Platoon (1986), respectively; however, in pairs, Michael Rooker, Kevin Tighe, and Richard Edson also had pivotal roles, but were lesser known. Sheen already was well-established but had only a few minutes of screen time in the movie, Lloyd and Edson always are together, playing gamblers, but Lloyd was a much more well-known actor and credited first.

Alternate versions
Five seconds were cut from the British theatrical release in order to obtain a "PG" rating by removing a use of strong language. The film was later released uncut on video and the rating was upgraded to "15", which was subsequently downgraded to "12" for the DVD.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Moon Over Parador/Eight Men Out/Running on Empty/The Thin Blue Line/Crossing Delancey (1988)

Soundtracks
I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
Written by Jaan Kenbrovin (as Jann Kenbrovin) and John W. Kellette (as John William Kellette)
Published by Warner Bros. Music, a division of Warner Bros. Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

User reviews104

Review

Featured review

8/10

Good Movie, GREAT BOOK

This is one of the greatest sports stories ever told, the real story about how and WHY they fixed the World Series. Eliot Asinof's book should be read by anyone interested in history, and Sayles does an admirable job of tying it all together into a script (Sayles even cast Asinof in the movie, and then cast him again in Sunshine State.) It's a story that anyone interested in a history of America, a history of labor and management, a history of the greatest game will definitely enjoy. After reading it, the Shoeless Joe character from "Field of Dreams" suddenly has a resonance which that particular film could never explain (though it is nicely explained in the source for that film "Shoeless Joe") Also worth reading is "The Glory of Their Times" an oral history of early baseball.