T.S. Flynn responds to Tuesday’s
Black Sox post, writing, “As entertaining as they are, Asinof's and Sayles's Eight Men Out are flawed and
fictionalized accounts of the Black Sox scandal. The baseball researcher Gene
Carney worked extensively to unearth the facts behind the scandal, and he
published his preliminary findings in Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball's Cover-Up
of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded. Unfortunately, Mr Carney passed away
in 2009, but the work
he began continues through SABR. Also of interest (particularly for
American Studies scholars) is Saying It's So: A Cultural History of the
Black Sox Scandal by Daniel A. Nathan, which examines the
manifold ways the scandal has been represented (and twisted) in American
popular culture.”
An anonymous commenter responds to the Ruth and Gehrig post,
writing, “As a boy, I idolized Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as the greatest of all
time, but in my adulthood I have to discount their accomplishments because they
didn't play against African-American competition.
Interestingly, they were willing to barnstorm against those players to make
extra money in the offseason, but they didn't use their stardom to demand
equality on the Major League stage. Perhaps it was simply a time before
activist athletes like Ali, Bill Russell, and others, but a
player like Ruth at the height of his powers was uniquely positioned to demand
real change.”
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What would
you add?