MLB Narrative History: The Cleanest Black Sox

A Film and Historical Perspective

Director John Sayles’ brilliant transfer of Asinof’s Eight Men Out to the big screen is a film more about Weaver than the book on which it is based. Where the film succeeds is in the life-like characterization of several of the players. John Cusack, who looks considerably younger and more innocent than the circa 1919 photos of Weaver, has the third baseman’s part. At one point he sits quietly on a stoop with neighborhood children, talking about his love for the game. This is a tremendously effective scene for true fans and players. Buckie talks of putting a perfect swing on a pitch and feeling the ball “give.”

“Damn,” he says, “if you don’t feel like you’ll live forever.” The facts suggest strongly that Sayles has gotten Weaver right.

However, Judge Landis might also be cut some slack in regard to the Black Sox as well from the “distance” of 98 years. As SABR.org notes, “there was a method to Landis’s harshness. By making an example of Weaver, Landis sent a message to the rest of Organized Baseball that any player who learned of a fix was guilty in the eyes of baseball unless he immediately reported it.”

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And this worked. Three players identified by SABR.org on Weaver’s page alone were turned in by opponents and suspended for life within four years of the Black Sox trial for attempted tampering with contracts or bribery to throw a game.

George “Buck” Weaver died of natural causes at the age of 66, walking on Chicago’s South Side to his tax accountant’s office. He didn’t live forever, and professionally, he was murdered young by an inferior jurist who couldn’t sort out the good guys from the bad or didn’t care to because he saw a solution to the problem of gamblers’ influence on MLB.

In retrospect, there seems no reason Landis couldn’t have cut Buck Weaver a break, and use that action to highlight a zero-tolerance policy about contact with gamblers, moving forward from 1920.

Buck Weaver booked a .272 lifetime batting, and defensively was at the Hall of Fame level after a bumpy start to his career. His final three seasons he hit .300, .296, and .333. He was an improving veteran in 1920. He always had been focused on that improvement, beginning with learning to switch hit after his first year in the big leagues, thereby raising his average. He was committed to the game, and he was not really one of the Black Sox.

But Judge Landis didn’t recognize the gray areas in life. Period.

Buck Weaver played his last big league game at the age of 30.