Writer Eliot Asinof was born in Manhattan on July 13, 1919. After graduating from Swarthmore but before joining the Army during World War II, he played minor league baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies' organization. His best-known work was Eight Men Out, which is about the 1919 Black Sox scandal and became a movie in 1988. He wrote over a dozen books during his lifetime including Man on Spikes, Seven Days to Sunday, and Final Judgment. He also wrote for television and the movies, but his published credits were limited, most likely because he was blacklisted in the 1950's. He died due to complications of pneumonia on June 10, 2008.