In
her article “Sport, Education, and the Meaning of Victory”, Heather Reid
discusses the distinction between “winners” and “winning” as well as the
importance of virtue in sport. Reid
takes her analysis back to Aristotelian Virtue philosophy, explain how
participation in athletics was considered to be a demonstration of arête, or virtue. Reid argues that we as a society see
winning as important because of the similar virtues associated with excellence,
such as courage discipline or justice.
However, Reid also mentions how many modern athletic programs only focus
on winning in terms of numbers instead of the character-building aspects. According to Reid, if these values are
seen as unimportant, the pursuit of victory in our athletic programs should not
be as integral a part of our educational foundation. In our
class discussion, after discussing the definition and “point” of sport, we
considered Reid’s points and questioned why winning is seen as so
important. The general consensus
was that an honorable participation in sport helped foster a sense of community
and that everyone should want to win even if it is not the best indicator of a
team or athletes performance. The
drive to win can help us better ourselves for the future, but as Eight Men Out presents, throwing away
those values for a material trophy is useless and detrimental.
However,
Eight Men Out presents a slightly
different perspective than some of the other films we focused on. It seems like much of our discussion
concerns how athletes conduct themselves on the field of play, whereas Eight Men Out is equally about the
players’ virtues on and off the field.
When we talked about “winners” vs. “winning,” we are comparing a
virtuous appreciation of the sport as opposed to purely giving attention to the
final score. However, from a
certain perspective, some athletes purely obsessed with winning might deserve a
slight bit of respect for their drive and determination on the field. Eight
Men Out presents a situation where the “winning” is not even taking place
on the field. It is a similar
situation to a player playing dirty in order to win a game, but instead, they
are sacrificing every bit of their dignity on the field for a slight personal
gain off the field. In today’s
world, some of the biggest names in sports are being accused of using steroids
for personal gain. However, those
athletes are still cheating to win, whether it be for personal numbers or their
team. Instead of cheating to win,
the 1919 White Sox cheated to lose.
Based on Reid’s analysis, there is absolutely no virtue to be found in
the case of the Black Sox Scandal.
I
think Eight Men Out is a solid,
historically accurate depiction of one of the darkest moments for America’s
National Pastime. Naturally, some
of the characters personalities are emphasized for dramatic effect – Charles
Comiskey is made into more of a villain to demonstrate the players’ unhappiness
with their pay, as are the gamblers.
However, the film does a great job of portraying a lapse in athletic
virtue both on and off the field, taking all the importance of “winning” out of
the actual sport and inserting it into a scenario of pure personal gain. If you like baseball movies, I would definitely
consider Eight Men Out, especially
since the Black Sox Scandal has become such a notorious benchmark for the
sport’s history.
