Shoeless Joe Jackson

Shoeless Joe Jackson
Outfielder
Born: July 16, 1888(1888-07-16) Pickens County, South Carolina
Died: December 5, 1951 (aged 63) Greenville, South Carolina
Batted: Left	Threw: Right
MLB debut
August 25, 1908 for the Philadelphia Athletics
Last MLB appearance
September 27, 1920 for the Chicago White Sox
Career statistics
Batting average	.356
Hits	1,772
Run batted in	785
Teams
Philadelphia Athletics (1908-1909) Cleveland Naps/Indians (1910-1915) Chicago White Sox (1915-1920)
Career highlights and awards
World Series champion (1917) 3rd highest career batting average with .356

Joseph Jefferson Jackson (July 16, 1888 – December 5, 1951), nicknamed "Shoeless Joe", was an American baseball player who played Major League Baseball in the early part of the 20th century. He is remembered for his performance on the field and for his association with the Black Sox Scandal, when members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series. As a result of Jackson's association with the scandal, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball's first commissioner, banned Jackson from playing after the 1920 season.

Jackson played for three different Major League teams during his 12-year career. He spent 1908-09 as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics; 1910 through the first part of the 1915 with the Cleveland Naps/Indians;^[1] and the remainder of the 1915 season through 1920 with the Chicago White Sox.

Jackson, who played left field for most of his career, currently has the third highest career batting average. With his career having been cut short, the usual decline of a batter's hitting skills toward the end of a career did not have a chance to occur. In 1911, Jackson hit for a .408 average. That average is still the sixth highest single-season total since 1901, which marked the beginning of the modern era for the sport. His average that year set the record for highest batting average in a single season by a rookie.^[2] Babe Ruth claimed that he modeled his hitting technique after Jackson's.^[3]

Jackson still holds the White Sox franchise records for triples in a season and career batting average.^[4] In 1999, he ranked number 35 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. The fans voted him as the 12th best outfielder of all-time.

Jackson ranks 33rd on the all-time list for non-pitchers according to the win shares formula developed by Bill James.

Jackson was reported to be illiterate (which was not uncommon for a poor rural Southernor of his era), and he was sensitive about this. Fans would ride him about this. In restaurants, rather than ask someone to read the menu to him, he would wait until everyone else ordered, and then order one of the things that he heard them order.

Early life

Joe Jackson was born in Pickens County, South Carolina. As a young child, Jackson worked in a textile mill in nearby Brandon Mill. Jackson's job prevented him from devoting any significant time to formal education.^[5] His lack of education would be an issue throughout Jackson's life. It would become a factor during the Black Sox Scandal and has even affected the value of his collectibles. Because Jackson was uneducated, he often had his wife sign his signature. Consequently, anything actually autographed by Jackson himself brings a premium when sold.^[6]

Jackson's immense hitting ability was apparent very early in his life. In 1900, at the age of 13, Jackson started to play for the Brandon Mill baseball team. He was easily the youngest on the team.^[7]

Jackson gets a nickname

According to Jackson, he got his nickname during a mill game played in Anderson, SC. Jackson suffered from a blister on his foot from a new pair of cleats. They hurt so much that he had to take his shoes off before an at bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks, and shouted "You shoeless son of a gun, you!", and the resulting nickname "Shoeless Joe" stuck with him throughout the remainder of his life.^[8]

Professional career

Early professional career

1908 was an eventful year for Joe Jackson. He began his professional baseball career with the Greenville Spinners of the Carolina Association, married Katie Wynn, and eventually signed with Connie Mack to play Major League baseball for the Philadelphia Athletics.^[8]"Chicago Historical Society". http://www.chicagohs.org/history/blacksox/joe1.html.  For the first two years of his career, Jackson had some trouble adjusting to life with the Athletics; reports conflict as to whether he just didn't like the big city, or if he was bothered by hazing from teammates. Consequently, he spent a great portion of that time in the minor leagues. Between 1908 and 1909, Jackson appeared in just 10 games.^[9] During the 1909 season, Jackson played 118 games for the South Atlantic League team in Savannah, Georgia. He batted .358 for the year.

Major League career

Ty Cobb and Joe Jackson in Cleveland, 1913

The Athletics finally gave up on Jackson in 1910 and traded him to the Cleveland Naps. After spending time with the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association, he was called up to play on the big league team. He appeared in 20 games for the Naps that year and hit .387. In 1911, Jackson's first full-season, he set a number of rookie records. His .408 batting average that season is a record that still stands and was good for second overall in the league behind Ty Cobb. The following season, Jackson batted .395 and led the American League in triples. The next year he led the league with 197 hits and .551 slugging average.

In August of 1915 Jackson was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Two years later, Jackson and the White Sox won the World Series. During the series, Jackson batted .307 as the White Sox defeated the New York Giants.

In 1919, Jackson batted .351 during the regular season and .375 with perfect fielding in the World Series. However, the heavily favored White Sox lost the series to the Cincinnati Reds. The next season, Jackson batted .385 and was leading the American league in triples when he was suspended, along with seven other members of the White Sox, after allegations surfaced that the team had thrown the previous World Series.

Black Sox scandal

After the White Sox unexpectedly lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, eight players, including Jackson, were accused of throwing the Series to the Reds. In September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate.

During the series, Jackson had 12 hits and a .375 batting average — in both cases leading both teams. The 12 hits was a World Series record. He committed no errors and even threw out a runner at the plate.^[10] Jackson did bat far worse in the five games that the White Sox lost, hitting .286, with no RBIs until the final contest, Game 8, when he hit a home run in the 3rd inning and added two more RBIs on a double in the 8th, when the White Sox were way behind.

It is often said that the Cincinnati Reds hit an unusually high number of triples to left field where Jackson played during the series.^[11] This is not supported by the contemporaneous newspaper accounts. According to first hand accounts none of the triples were hit to left field.^[12] In fact more triples were muffed by "Shano" Collins than were hit to Joe Jackson. ("Shano" Collins was listed as the wronged party in the indictments of the conspirators. The indictments claimed he was defrauded of $1,784 by the actions of those charged.)

In testimony before the grand jury on September 28, 1920, Jackson admitted under oath that he agreed to participate in the fix. Contemporary news accounts contend that Jackson told the grand jury:

"When a Cincinnati player would bat a ball out in my territory I'd muff it if I could — that is, fail to catch it. But if it would look too much like crooked work to do that I'd be slow and make a throw to the infield that would be short. My work netted the Cincinnati team several runs that they never would have had if we had been been playing on the square."^[13]

No such direct quote or testimony to this effect appears in the actual stenographic record of Jackson's grand jury appearance.^[14]

Jackson did, however, admit to receiving a cash payment of $5,000 and that he had been originally promised a $20,000 bribe. Legend has it that as Jackson was leaving the courthouse during the trial, a young boy begged of him, "Say it ain't so, Joe," and that Joe did not respond. In an interview in Sport Magazine nearly three decades later, Jackson contended that this story was a myth.^[15] A contemporary press account does, however, refer to an exchange of Jackson with young fans outside of the Chicago grand jury hearing on September 28:

When Joe Jackson left criminal court building in custody of a sheriff after telling his story to the grand jury, he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, awaiting for a glimpse of their idol. One urchin stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said:
"It ain't true, is it, Joe?"
"Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is," Jackson replied. The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight.
"Well, I'd never have thought it," sighed the lad.^[16]

Regardless of whether Jackson's exchange with the shocked young fan was a true historical event or a fabrication by a sensationalist journalist, the "Say It Ain't So" story remains an oft-repeated and well-known part of baseball lore.

In 1921, a Chicago jury acquitted him and his seven White Sox teammates of wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the newly appointed Commissioner of Baseball, banned all eight accused players, claiming baseball's need to clean up its image took precedence over legal judgments. As a result, Jackson never played major league baseball after the 1920 season.

Aftermath

During the remaining twenty years of his baseball career, Jackson played and managed with a number of minor league teams, most located in Georgia and South Carolina.^[17] In 1922, Jackson returned to Savannah and opened a dry cleaning business.

In 1933, the Jacksons moved back to Greenville, South Carolina. After first opening a barbecue restaurant, Jackson and his wife opened "Joe Jackson's Liquor Store," which they operated until his death. One of the better known stories of Jackson's post-major league life took place at his liquor store. Ty Cobb and sportswriter Grantland Rice entered the store, with Jackson showing no sign of recognition towards Cobb. After making his purchase, the incredulous Cobb finally asked Jackson, "Don't you know me, Joe?" Jackson replied, "Sure, I know you, Ty, but I wasn't sure you wanted to know me. A lot of them don't."^[18] This anecdote, like many others in Cobb's autobiography, is probably apocryphal.^{[citation needed]}

As he aged, Joe Jackson began to suffer from heart trouble. In 1951, at the age of 63, Jackson died of a heart attack.^[7] He is buried at nearby Woodlawn Memorial Park.

Was Jackson innocent?

To this day, his name remains on the Major League Baseball Ineligible list. Jackson cannot be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame unless his name is removed from that list. However, he spent most of the last 30 years of his life proclaiming his innocence. In November 1999, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a motion to honor his sporting achievements, supporting a move to have the ban posthumously rescinded, so that he could be admitted to the Hall of Fame.^[19] The motion was symbolic, as the U.S. Government has no jurisdiction in the matter. At the time, MLB commissioner Bud Selig confirmed that Jackson's case was under review, but to date, no action has been taken that would allow Jackson's reinstatement.

In recent years, evidence has come to light that casts doubt on Jackson's role in the fix. For instance, Jackson initially refused to take a payment of $5,000, only to have Lefty Williams toss it on the floor of his hotel room. Jackson then tried to tell White Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the fix, but Comiskey refused to meet with him. Also, before Jackson's grand jury testimony, team attorney Alfred Austrian coached Jackson's testimony in a manner that would be considered highly unethical even by the standards of the time, and would probably be considered criminal by today's standards. For instance, Austrian got Jackson to admit a role in the fix by pouring a large amount of whiskey down Jackson's throat. He also got the nearly illiterate Jackson to sign a waiver of immunity. Years later, the other seven players implicated in the scandal confirmed that Jackson was never at any of the meetings. Williams, for example, said that they only mentioned Jackson's name to give their plot more credibility.^[10]

Career statistics

See: Baseball statistics for an explanation of these statistics.

Films and plays

Shoeless Joe has been depicted in a few films in the late 20th century. Eight Men Out, a film directed by John Sayles, based on the Eliot Asinof book of the same name, details the Black Sox scandal in general and has D.B. Sweeney portraying Jackson. The Phil Alden Robinson film Field of Dreams, based on Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, stars Ray Liotta as Jackson. Kevin Costner plays an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice instruct him to build a baseball field on his farm in order for Shoeless Joe to receive redemption.

Jackson's nickname was also worked into the musical play Damn Yankees. The lead character, baseball phenomenon Joe Hardy, alleged to be from a small town in Missouri, is dubbed by the media as "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO". The play also contains a plot element alleging that Joe had thrown baseball games in his earlier days.

Jackson was also an inspiration, in part, for the character Roy Hobbs in The Natural. Hobbs has a special name for his bat (as Jackson did), and is offered a bribe to throw a game. In the book (but not the film) a youngster pleads with Hobbs, "Say it ain't so, Roy!"

Popular Culture

• In a Futurama episode, Bender mentions a robot blurnsball player named Wireless Joe Jackson.
• Shoeless Joe is featured in Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a song by folk/rock singer Jonathan Coulton which is very loosely based on the story of the Black Sox Scandal.

See also

• Chicago White Sox all-time roster
• List of Major League Baseball doubles champions
• List of Major League Baseball triples champions
• List of Major League Baseball triples records

References

Bibliography

• "Shoeless: The Life And Times of Joe Jackson", by David L. Fleitz (2001, McFarland & Company Publishers)
• Shoeless Joe, a novel by W. P. Kinsella
• 8 Men Out, by Eliot Asinof
• Joe Jackson: A Biography, by Kelly Boyer Sagert
• Say It Ain't So, Joe!: The True Story of Shoeless Joe Jackson, by Donald Gropman
• A Man Called Shoeless, by Howard Burman
• "Burying the Black Sox" (Potomac, Spring 2006) by Gene Carney
• "Shoeless Joe & Me" (HarperCollins, 2002) by Dan Gutman

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Shoeless Joe Jackson

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shoeless Joe Jackson

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• Shoeless Joe Jackson at Find A Grave
• hallyes.com Petition asking Bud Selig to reinstate Shoeless Joe
• shoelessjoejackson.com The Official Web Site
• See the letter written by Commissioner Landis banning Shoeless Joe Jackson from baseball