Star Athletes: Playing for Fame or the Game?
             Baseball has been America's pastime for quite sometime and it has even given a select few an opportunity for a better life. Over time people have come to question the way in which players have been viewed in both movies and the way they perform on the field. Most of today players play the game for financial rewards and for the fame, instead of playing baseball the way it should be. In the past, movies and books have portrayed players as one who plays the game, for the love of the game. Baseball movies that have been made to show players loving the game are movies such as; Eight Men Out, The Natural, and Cobb.
             In the movie Eight Men Out, the 1919 Chicago White Sox team was overcome by the thrill of money when they chose to take money from gamblers to throw the World Series. The reason the players took the money was because they felt that Mr. Comiskey was not paying them enough. Many people viewed the White Sox as one of the best teams of all time, and that if they had played the game honestly that they would have won the World Series. However, Buck Weaver and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson turned back at the last minute to try and play their best. The White Sox actually almost come back from a 3-1 deficit. The White Sox were later sued for throwing the series, but they are found innocent by the jury. Commissioner of baseball at that time was Kenesaw Mountain Landis; he suspends the eight players from baseball for life. (Eight Man Out) The fact that Buck Weaver and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson decided to play the game as it was meant to be and not take the money shows that these players aren't in it for the financial rewards.
             Ty Cobb was a baseball player who gave everything he had on the field, but off the field, he was a role model for many baseball fans. In the movie Cobb, his life is seen through the eyes of sports reporter who wants to know all there i...