Shoeless Joe Jackson
Joseph Jefferson Jackson aka Shoeless Joe Jackson (July 16, 1889 - December 5, 1951), was a professional baseball player who played for the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. He was one of eight players banished for life from professional baseball for his alleged participation in the Black Sox scandal. This is the reason he is not included in baseball's Hall of Fame.
He is considered to be one of the greatest hitters ever in the history of the game, to the point where Babe Ruth claimed that he modelled his hitting technique after Joe's. Jackson is the only rookie to bat .400 (he would not be considered a rookie by today's definition, though) and his career .356 batting average is the third highest in history, after Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby.
The nickname "Shoeless" came from a game he once played when he was suffering from blisters on the feet from a new pair of spikes. He was sitting the game out, but a shortage of players obliged him to play. With no other option at one point, he played in his socked feet and hit a triple in one at bat. When he arrived at third base, a fan yelled out "You shoeless son of a gun you!" and the name stuck.
Joe Jackson always maintained his innocence about the Black Sox scandal and insisted that he was playing with his best effort in the 1919 World Series. Supporters point out the World Series statistics show that he maintained a .375 batting average and played well in the field, throwing out five baserunners and handling thirty chances in the outfield with no errors. On the basis of these stats, they maintain that Joe was obviously not participating in the players' conspiracy if he was playing that well.
Against his case, however, is the fact that Jackson admitted under oath that he agreed to participate in the fix, and accepted $5,000 as partial payment for his cooperation. He also admitted to complaining to other conspirators that he had not received his full share. His banishment was based primarily on these admissions. Furthermore, in the five World Series games which the White Sox lost, Jackson had only one RBI on a home run in the deciding game 8.
The phrase "Say it ain't so, Joe" is based on a young fan's comment to Jackson when he heard of the Black Sox scandal (possibly apocryphal).
External Links
Books
- Shoeless Joe, novel by W. P. Kinsella (basis for the movie Field of Dreams)
- Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof, an account of the 1919 World Series fix.
Films
- Eight Men Out, directed by John Sayles, based on the Asinof book and starring D.B. Sweeney as Joe Jackson.
