"As Jackson departed from the Grand Jury room, a small boy clutched at his sleeve and tagged along after him. 'Say it ain't so, Joe, ' he pleaded. 'Say it ain't so.'"

But to the horror of the entire nation -- it was. The headlines proclaimed the 1919 fix of the World Series and attempted cover-up as "the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America!" In this timeless classic, Eliot Asinof has reconstructed the entire story of the infamous scandal in which eight Chicago White Sox players arranged with the nation's leading gamblers to throw the Series to Cincinnati. Scene by scene, he vividly describes the tense meetings, the hitches in the conniving, the actual plays in which the Series was thrown, the Grand Jury indictment, and the famous 1921 trial. Further, he perceptively examines the motives and backgrounds of the players and the conditions that made the improbable fix all too possible. Here, too, is a graphic picture of the American underworld that managed the fix, the deeply shocked newspapermen who uncovered the story, and the war-exhausted nation that turned with relief and pride to the Series, only to be rocked by the scandal. Far more than a superbly told baseball story, this compelling American drama will appeal to all those interested in the history of American popular culture.