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Shoeless
Joe and Ragtime Baseball
On
July
16, 1889, Joseph Jefferson Wofford Jackson was born into a poor family
in
Greenville, South Carolina. He never learned to read or write. By the
time he
was six years old, he worked as a cleanup boy in the cotton mills.
By
age 13,
he labored amidst the din and dust a dozen hours a day along with his
father
and brother. It was hard and back-breaking employment. Playing baseball
on a
grassy field was his way of escape. It was there where Joe’s natural
ability
stood out. Baseball was his game, and he loved it. The youth had such
passion
and skill that he was recruited to play for the mill team organized by
the
company.
One
humid
and hot summer day, Jackson was playing the outfield. His shoes
pinched. He
removed them and played in his stocking feet. An enterprising
sportswriter gave
him the nickname: "Shoeless Joe." Even though it was reported that
was the only time Jackson ever played that way in a game—the “Shoeless”
moniker
stuck. He hated the name, feeling it cruelly referenced the fact
that he
could not read or write.
From
the
mill team, Jackson moved on to play with the Greenville, South Carolina
Spinners. It was there in 1908 that a scout recommended him to
Philadelphia Athletics
owner/manager Connie Mack, who purchased his contract for $325.
The
youngster made his Major League
Baseball debut on August 25, 1908. The more he played the more his
potential
impressed everyone. An article in the Evening Times noted:
“He
has justified early predictions of his abilities. With experience and
the
coaching of Manager Mack, he should turn out to be…the find of the
season.”
Sadly,
Jackson was unable to read what
the Philadelphia newspaper wrote about him. He could not even read
menus. In
restaurants, he usually ordered what another player did. Sadly, he did
not fit
in with his teammates or the big city. Homesick, he jumped the team and
took a
train back home.
Mack
sent
Jackson down to a minor league team in Georgia in 1909, where he won
the
batting title. In 1910, Mack called him up to the big league team but
decided
that Jackson lacked the disposition to play in a big city like Philly.
In one
of the worst trades in baseball history, the 6'1'', 190-pound Jackson
was shipped
to Cleveland for a player named Bris Lord (Bristol Robotham Lord,
nicknamed
"The Human Eyeball") and $6,000.
Shoeless
Joe fit in quite nicely in Cleveland, where he batted .408 in 1911. In
mid-season of 1915, after compiling a .375 career batting average with
the Ohio
team, Jackson was traded for three players and $15,000 to the White Sox.
It
was in Chicago that Jackson made a point of wearing alligator and
patent-leather shoes—the more expensive the better. It was as if he
were
announcing to the world, "I am not a Shoeless Joe. I do wear shoes. And
they cost a lot of money!"
With the White Sox,
Jackson became one of
baseball’s storied stars. His defensive play was at such a remarkable
level
that his glove was called "the place where triples go to die."
On
offense, he was one of the most
feared hitters of his time. Babe Ruth copied his swing, claiming
Jackson was
the greatest hitter he ever saw.
Then
along
came 1919!
The
1919
Chicago White Sox were one of the greatest teams of their era. Paced by
Jackson
who batted .351, they won the American League pennant. They were 3-1
favorites
to win the World Series as they prepared to face off against the
Cincinnati
Reds.
Prior
to
the series, betting odds started to shift to even money. The word on
the street
was that New York gambler Arnold Rothstein was behind the swing and
that the
series was fixed.
Hearing
the rumor, the 31-year-old Jackson asked Chicago
manager Kid Gleason and owner Charles Comiskey to bench him. But they
insisted
he play. They would have been crazy to put down their best player.
During
the
series, Jackson hit the only home run. He posted the highest batting
average.
He committed no errors. He established a new World Series record with
12 hits.
Nevertheless, the Reds won the Fall Classic.
Edd
Rousch, who played for the Reds, insisted that charges that the series
was
fixed was nonsense. "We were just the better team," he said.
"Maybe
I'm a dope but everything seemed okay to
me," said umpire Billy Evans, who worked the series.
But
the rumor of a fix persisted as the 1920 season got
underway. The White Sox were driving hard to their second straight
pennant when
a petty gambler in Philadelphia broke the news that a Cubs-Phillies
game had
been fixed in 1919.
That
led
to a gambling investigation—its focus the 1919 World Series. With only
a couple
of days left in the 1920 season, a Grand Jury was called to determine
whether
eight White Sox players should stand trial for allegedly throwing the
1919
World Series. Jackson was one of the eight players.
It
took the jury a single ballot to acquit all eight
accused players. Incredibly, the very next day, baseball's first
commissioner—Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who came to power in the
fall of
1920 with a lifetime contract and a mandate to clean up the game using
whatever
methods he saw fit—banned all eight players from baseball for life. The
bigoted
Landis was brought into organized baseball with a reputation of being a
vindictive judge, a hanging judge.
He
was all
of that.
Was
there
a plan to throw the World Series in 1919? Was a plan carried
out? If
so, which games were dumped? What role did each banned player
have? Why was there a total banning of the players?
Buck
Weaver was banned not for dumping but for allegedly
having guilty knowledge that there was a plot. Fred McMullen was
banned,
though he came to bat twice and got one hit. And Joe Jackson was
banned,
although his performance exceeded his own standards.
Most
importantly, the eight players were found not guilty in a court of
law. Yet, they were found guilty by a brand new baseball
commissioner.
At
the
trial, Joe Jackson was asked under oath:
"Did
you do anything to throw those games?"
"No
sir," was his response.
"Any
game in the series?"
"Not
a one," was Jackson’s response. "I didn't have an error or make no
misplay."
With
the
banning from baseball for life of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and the
seven other White Sox players, it seemed the sport was saying: "Now we
are
clean. Now we have purged ourselves of the dishonest ways of the past
in the
national pastime." And if Jackson in the prime of his baseball career
and
the others were sacrificed, that was the way it had to be.
Shoeless
Joe Jackson maintained that he had played all out in that World Series
of
1919. Nevertheless, Major League Baseball was done with Jackson
and his
seven teammates. It was a miscarriage of justice, a field day for
slander on
parade. Powerless players were punished, scapegoated.
For
a couple of decades, Jackson attempted to play the
game that he loved, the game that he had learned so well back in the
days of
his youth. He made an effort to play with outlaw barnstormers, mill
teams,
semi-pro outfits. Aliases and disguises did him not much good; his
unmistakable
talent brought the spotlight to bear on him. Relentless, unforgiving,
prejudiced Judge Landis, to keep Jackson from playing, threatened
baseball team
owners and league officials.
In
1932, Jackson applied for permission to manage a minor
league team in his home town of Greenville, South Carolina. Landis
denied the
application.
In
1951,
Joseph Jefferson Jackson died of a massive heart attack a week before
he was to
appear on the Ed Sullivan television show. He was scheduled to receive
a trophy
honoring him for being inducted into the Cleveland Indians Baseball
Hall of
Fame.
It
is an
old story.
The
roster
of Hall of Famers includes personalities with much shabbier credentials
and far
more soiled reputations. Attempts to get Joe Jackson into the Baseball
Hall of
Fame failed during and after his lifetime. Yet, Jackson's shoes are at
Cooperstown. Yet, his life-sized photograph is there. So is a baseball
bat he
used, along with the jersey he wore in the 1919 World Series. So is the
last
Major League Baseball contract he signed.
Prominent
attorneys like Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey
have argued that Jackson should go into the Hall. There have been
petitions,
Congressional motions, letters sent to baseball Commissioners through
the
years—all to no avail.
Commissioner
Bart Giammatti said:"I do not wish to play God with history. The
Jackson
case is best left to historical debate and analysis. I am not for
reinstatement."
Commissioner
Faye Vincent said, "I can't uncipher or decipher what took place back
then. I have no intention of taking formal action."
Commissioner
Bud Selig did not stand up for Joe Jackson even though he met with Ted
Williams, who pushed for Jackson's admission to the Hall of Fame.
Four
times
Jackson batted over .370. His lifetime batting average was .356, topped
only by
Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby. Ruth, Cobb, and Casey Stengel all placed
him on
their all time, All-Star team.
Joe
Jackson was vilified through the decades by many who never knew or
didn’t care
to know the full story. His, however, is a story that just will not go
away.
Justice
was not served when it came to Joseph Jefferson Jackson.
ABOUT
HARVEY
FROMMER
One
of the most prolific and
respected sports journalists and oral historians in the United States,
author
of the autobiographies of legends Nolan Ryan,
Tony Dorsett,
and Red Holzman, Dr. Harvey
Frommer is an expert on the New York
Yankees and has
arguably written more books, articles and reviews on the New York
Yankees than
anyone. A professor for more than two decades in the MALS program at
Dartmouth
College, Frommer was dubbed “Dartmouth’s Mr. Baseball” by their alumni
magazine. He’s also the founder of www.HarveyFrommerSports.com.