In 1968, Asinof signed the " Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. Īsinof also worked on other projects related to the scandal, including TV documentaries such as the 2001 ESPN Sports Century Flashback: The 1919 Black Sox Scandal and the 2005 The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the 1919 Chicago White Sox for "Throwing" the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Jackson indeed confessed to accepting $5,000 to throw the series and claimed the team threw the second game, though he maintained he played to win the whole time. Asinof's use of fictional characters within a supposedly non-fiction account raised further doubts about the historical accuracy of the book. Further, Asinof omitted key facts from publicly available documents such as the 1920 grand jury records and proceedings of Jackson's successful 1924 lawsuit against Comiskey to recover back pay for the 19 seasons. An article in the September 2009 issue of Chicago Lawyer magazine argued that Eight Men Out, purporting to confirm the guilt of Jackson, was based on inaccurate information for example, Jackson never confessed to throwing the Series as Asinof claimed. The book was published in 1963 the screenplay for the film Eight Men Out, co-written by Asinof and director John Sayles, appeared in 1988. The work was chosen as one of "the golden dozen" baseball books by noted author Roger Kahn.Īsinof's most famous book, Eight Men Out, reconstructed the events of the Black Sox scandal which marred the World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds in the same year Asinof was born. His 1955 debut novel, Man on Spikes, was based on the experience of a friend, Mickey Rutner, who played minor league ball and twelve games in the majors. He was married for five years to Jocelyn Brando, an actress who was the elder sister of Marlon Brando the marriage ended in divorce in 1955.īesides playing the game seriously, Asinof wrote extensively about baseball. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1940, then played briefly as a minor-league first baseman in the Philadelphia Phillies' organization.ĭuring World War II, Asinof served in the U.S. In his youth, he worked in his family's tailoring business. His most famous book was Eight Men Out, a nonfiction reconstruction of the 1919 Black Sox scandal.Īsinof was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan and lived in and around New York City for much of his life. Eliot Tager Asinof (J– June 10, 2008) was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction best known for his writing about baseball.
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