Eliot Asinof

Eliot Asinof

• Bats Left, Throws ?
• Height 5' 10", Weight 180 lb.

• Born July 13, 1919 in New York, NY USA
• Died June 10, 2008 in Hudson, NY, USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Eliot Asinof played in the minor leagues in the Philadelphia Phillies system in 1940 for the Moultrie Packers and in 1941 for the Wausau Lumberjacks. He compiled cumulative totals of 56 G, .296 0 HR, 17 RBI, 47 R, 6 SB. He then served with the US Army in the Aleutian Islands during World War II.

He is best known as the author of Man on Spikes (1955), Eight Men Out (1963), Strike Zone (with Jim Bouton, 1994), and Off Season (2000). He wrote a number of books concerning other sports, including pro football. However, Eight Men Out, his history of the 1919 Black Sox Scandal is his crowning achievement as an author. He researched the book over three years and interviewed a number of survivors of the tainted 1919 World Series, obtaining first-hand information from central actors such as Happy Felsch. The book has remained in print since its initial publication and was turned into a movie of the same name in 1988.

He was a minor league teammate of Mickey Rutner, upon whom he based the character of Mike Kutner in the novel Man on Spikes.