Eliot Asinof, the author of "Eight Men Out" passed away recently. At 88, I am sure this surprised no one but gave me a chance to reflect on a great book. The story of the fixing of the 1919 World Series, it is a book that made the connection between baseball and its place in the world apparent to me. We may think that we are going to the park and then leaving there but the machinations of what makes want to be there are controlled, rigged, if you will by real world devices. Going to the game can just be a desire to belong, my early motivations. It can be a place to see an athletic contest, a heathen concept in this age or in the years leading to the Roaring Twenties, a desire to gamble. Asinof's book showed how the wheels of baseball and organized gambling meshed to create an undesirable world from an innocent game. Nothing was the same in baseball ever again after these events and for the first time, the events of a game in a park had repercussions that spilled out across the fruited plains. This book enriched my understanding of America and I think I will read it again soon....
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