The author of the watershed book on the Black Sox Scandal died yesterday at the age of 88.
Asinof published Eight Men Out in 1963; and was released as a John Sayles film in 1988, starring John Cusak, David Strathairn, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeny, and Gordon Clapp, Christopher Lloyd, John Mahoney, Michael Werner, Studs Terkel, and Sayles, among others.
The cause of death was pneumonia.
He also wrote Man on Spikes, a 1955 novel about a career minor leaguer who couldn’t seem to catch a break. The story was based on the experiences of cup-of-coffee major leaguer Mickey Rutner, who was the oldest living Jewish ex- big leaguer before he died last year. He also collaborated on Strike Zone with Jim Bouton (1995), “a compelling tale of major league baseball, two men try to reclaim their lives–a minor league player who has one last shot at success and an aging umpire who is planning to fix the game.”
Eight Men Out was one of the first baseball books I ever read and certainly opened the door for all the investigative volumes that followed.
is available on Amazon.com,
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