Shoeless Joe Jackson
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Joseph Jefferson "Shoeless Joe" Jackson (July 16, 1889 – December 5, 1951) was a left fielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. One of the greatest hitters of his era, he was one of eight players banished for life from professional baseball for his alleged participation in the Black Sox scandal. No player banned from baseball, including Jackson, has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, even before the rules were ammended to officially exclude banned players in February 4, 1991.
Born in Pickens County, South Carolina, he is considered to be one of the most outstanding hitters in the history of the game, to the point that Babe Ruth claimed that he modeled his hitting technique after Jackson's. Jackson is the only rookie to have batted over .400; he hit .408 for Cleveland in 1911 (although he would not be considered a rookie by today's definition). His career .356 batting average is the third highest in history, after Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby.
The nickname "Shoeless" came from when he played for the team sponsored by the mill where he worked before he played in the major leagues. Suffering from a blister due to a new, stiff pair of cleat shoes, and forced to play when a team mate didn't show up for a game, he took his shoes off before he went to hit, and when he got to base a fan started yelling inappropriate and vulgar comments at him. One of the things he was called was a "shoeless son-of-a-bitch". The name stuck with him all the way to the major leagues.
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Black Sox scandal
Template:Main In the Black Sox scandal of the 1919 World Series, Jackson admitted under oath that he agreed to participate in the fix, and accepted $5,000 as part-payment for his cooperation (a sum he claimed to have attempted to return twice). He also admitted to complaining to other conspirators that he had not received his full share. His team's owner, Charles Comiskey, encouraged Jackson to admit these things. A jury, however, acquitted him of criminal charges related to the scandal, although the trial itself could also be regarded as having been fixed, key evidence having gone missing from the prosecutor's office shortly before the trial.Template:Fact Jackson was found guilty of not reporting the scandal.
Jackson always publicly maintained his innocence and insisted that he was playing his best in the Series until his death. He had a .375 batting average, threw out five baserunners, and handling thirty chances in the outfield with no errors during that series. However, he batted far worse in the five games that the White Sox lost, totalling only one RBI, from a home run in game 8. The Cincinnati Reds also hit an unusually high number of triples to left field during the series, far exceeding the amount that Jackson—generally considered a strong defensive player—normally allowed.[1]
One play in particular has been subjected much scrutiny. In the fifth inning of game 4, with a Cincinnati player on second, Jackson fielded a single hit to left field and threw home. Eyewitness accounts say that the throw would have resulted in an out had pitcher Eddie Cicotte, one of the leaders of the fix, not interfered.Template:Fact The run scored and the White Sox lost the game 2-0. James C. Hamilton—the official scorer of the 1919 World Series—testified under oath in a later civil trial between Jackson and Charles Comiskey that the throw was honest and that Cicotte jumped up and knocked it down for an error.Template:Fact Chick Gandil, another leader of the fix, admitted to yelling at Cicotte to intercept the throw in his autobiography.Template:Fact Image:Cobb Jackson.jpg
Aftermath
The phrase "Say it ain't so, Joe! Say it ain't so!" is based on a young fan's comment to Jackson at the conclusion of the Black Sox scandal (possibly apocryphal). Jackson denied that there was any such incident, and only one of the many films of him leaving the courthouse depict such a scene (The 1988 film Eight Men Out).Template:Fact
Jackson was nearly traded to the Boston Red Sox for Babe Ruth before the scandal broke. The White Sox offered Jackson and $60,000. However, they were outbid by the New York Yankees, who offered a $100,000 all-cash deal.
After being banned from the majors, Jackson played extensively in semipro leagues in Georgia and South Carolina. Films such as Field of Dreams and Eight Men Out suggest that he played in the majors under fake names, although there is no evidence for this. In 1929 he and his wife, Katherine, moved to Greenville, South Carolina.
In the 1940s, he was working at his liquor store when former adversary Ty Cobb and sportswriter Grantland Rice entered as customers. Following an impersonal transaction, Cobb asked, "Don't you know me, Joe?" "Sure, I know you, Ty," replied Jackson, "but I wasn’t sure you wanted to know me. A lot of them don't."Template:Fact
Joe Jackson suffered from heart trouble in his later years and died in Greenville in 1951. He is buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park there. Jackson's last words before his death were reportedly "I'm about to face the greatest umpire of all and He knows I am innocent."
As with Pete Rose, some fans want to end the ban on Jackson and induct him in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Career statistics
see: Baseball statistics for an explanation of these statistics.
| G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | R | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG |
| 1,332 | 4,981 | 1,772 | 307 | 168 | 54 | 873 | 785 | 519 | 158 | .356 | .423 | .517 |
His .356 batting average is the third highest career batting average behind only Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby. His 1911 batting average of .408 is the sixth highest for a season in the twentieth century.
Despite being banned from baseball at what should have been roughly the two-thirds mark of his career, and being excluded from election to the Hall of Fame, 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.
Quotations
- He is the greatest natural hitter I ever saw.
- —Ty Cobb, Hall of Fame outfielder
- I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and (Joe) Jackson was good enough for me.
- —Babe Ruth, Hall of Fame outfielder and slugger
- I am going to meet the greatest umpire of all--and He knows I am innocent.
- —Joe Jackson
External links
- Template:Baseball-reference
- Shoeless Joe Jackson's Virtual Hall of Fame
- The Official Web Site
- Shoeless Joe Jackson at Find-A-Grave
Books
- Shoeless Joe, a novel by W. P. Kinsella
- Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof, an account of the 1919 World Series fix
- Joe Jackson: A Biography, by Kelly Boyer Sagert
- Say It Ain't So, Joe!: The True Story of Shoeless Joe Jackson, by Donald Gropman, also includes the Ted Williams and Bob Feller Petition to admit Jackson into the Baseball Hall of Fame
- A Man Called Shoeless, by Howard Burman
Films
- Eight Men Out, directed by John Sayles, based on the Asinof book and starring D.B. Sweeney as Jackson
- Field of Dreams, based on the Kinsella book, with Ray Liotta as Jacksonja:ジョー・ジャクソン (野球選手)