The Chicago White Sox, who are set to play the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series of 1919, are at odds with their team's owner, Charles Comiskey (Clifton James), who pays his players unsatisfactory wages despite the team's popularity. A group of professional gamblers offers the Sox's best athletes a fortune to throw the series, and the players agree. However, their reputations and careers are ruined when the dark secret, dubbed the Black Sox Scandal, reaches the public consciousness.

Noah Gittell is the author of Baseball: The Movie, which chronicles the evolution of the baseball film from Pride of the Yankees to the present day. He is a film critic and sportswriter whose work can be found in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Guardian.