The Hall of Fame Case for Shoeless Joe Jackson
With Major League Baseball’s new policy in place: Shoeless Joe Jackson should be in the hall, not just because of the player he was, but he tried to do the right thing
Sports leagues and their respective hall of fames usually have a “zero tolerance” or an “ineligible” policy when it comes to betting on the sport, but in death, there’s nothing they can do about the player because they have passed on. Shoeless Joe Jackson, a Chicago White Sox legend, who was banned in 1921 due to the Black Sox scandal in which the Reds-White Sox 1919 World Series was fixed in favor of the Reds so that underworld gamblers and anyone associated with them win extra money.
Now at the time, the White Sox were owned by Charles Comiskey, a man who was well known for his extreme frugality and his lowballing of players despite the fact they had one of the largest payrolls in baseball. They had just won the 1917 World Series and were one of the most powerful teams in baseball thanks to the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson, 2nd Baseman Eddie Collins, Pitchers Eddie Cicotte, Red Faber, and Dickey Kerr. However, underworld gamblers were looking for players to who wanted to make a few extra dollars, and they did find some.
It all began with Charles “Chick” Gandil meeting with Joe “Sport” Sullivan, a bookie from Boston, to discuss throwing the World Series for a unheard of $80,000 ($1.5 million in today’s money). Gandil did not like Comiskey one bit and felt he was underpaid for the great season he had. So Gandil had a meeting of White Sox players at the Ansonia in New York City. Most players went along with it. However, one person’s involvement was widely disputed and that was Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Jackson, a Greenville, South Carolina native was known for being very quiet and for keeping out of trouble. He had no idea what was going on at the time.
The 6′ 1″ 205lb Joe Jackson had a monster 1919 with a .351 batting average (181/599), with 7 homeruns, and 96 runs batted in. He also contributed with 31 doubles and 14 triples as well. All this was done in 139 games over the season.
In the 1919 World Series, Jackson had a .375 average with 12 base hits, committed no errors, threw out a player at home plate.
Legend has it that he admitted to be part of the fix in 1920 but many historians allege that there’s no evidence saying that he was part of it.
Joe Jackson did not know how to read much less even sign paperwork. He made several attempts to meet with White Sox owner Charles Comiskey but Comiskey, being the miserly owner that he was, refused to meet with him.
Charles Comiskey made a very bad in error in judgment.
In November of 1920, Major League Baseball announced the installation of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first commissioner of the league. Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a very iron-fisted judge who sat on the federal bench of the United States Courts. At the time, Major League Baseball was taking blind eyes to insider betting on baseball. The owners of the respective teams though did nothing about it because had they, it would damage baseball’s reputation.
In 1921, Judge Landis took control of Major League Baseball and made a very terse statement at an Illinois church:
“Now that I am in baseball, just watch the game I play. If I catch any crook in baseball, the rest of his life is going to be a pretty hot one. I’ll go to any means and to anything possible to see that he gets a real penalty for his offense.”
During the case, Joe Jackson was plied with whiskey and forced to sign an admission of guilt from counsel Alfred Austrian (whom himself was hired by Comiskey but it was also a conflict of interest as he was a team attorney). Jackson himself wanted to speak up but again, he was told to keep quiet. Ultimately, the eight men involved were acquitted, however Landis banned them for life from baseball.
Joe Jackson would never speak to his teammates again. In the years of his baseball career, he’d manage and play for several semi-pro teams. At the end of his baseball career, he opened a dry cleaning business in Savannah, Georgia. Later, he also ran his own businesses in South Carolina, opening up a barbecue restaurant and then a liquor store. One day in 1933, Ty Cobb and Grantland Rice walked into Jackson’s liquor store to make a purchase. Jackson showed no signs of knowing Ty until Ty spoke up after his purchase was made and said, “Don’t you know me, Joe!?” Jackson said, “Sure I know you, Ty, but I don’t think you wanted to know me, a lot of them don’t.”
Jackson had a very big heart, seemed like a quiet man, and just wanted to play the game the right way. Jackson would die in 1951 at the age of 64.
There have been many attempts to reinstate Jackson and commissioners have refused to review any new evidence that disputes Jackson’s guilt. The new policy in 2020 states that after a player’s passing, Major League Baseball retroactively removes them from the “ineligible list” since there is nothing more they can do with them after death.
In my opinion, Shoeless Joe Jackson is innocent of any crime and he tried to do the right thing by warning Charles Comiskey about the fix and the players who were involved. Rank-and-file White Sox players basically told Jackson to keep quiet and he just went with whatever they asked him to do but many players said that he was never at the meetings.
Landis himself was given way too much of a wide latitude in powers of the commissionership of baseball. He ran Major League Baseball like a totalitarian dictator and dared anybody to go against his rulings. While yes, Landis should have authority in baseball, he should not have dictatorial powers that exercised control over all player’s lives (much like Viktor Tikhonov did with the Soviet Union National Hockey Team).
Charles Comiskey should’ve sat down and listened to Shoeless Joe Jackson and for that matter, should’ve hailed Jackson as a person who just wanted to put an end to gambling in baseball.
Today, sports gambling is part of the way of life since the 2018 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was overruled by the Supreme Court, and players thankfully know better than to get involved with sports gambling due to the fact they make enough money as it is.
So I ask Mr. Rob Manfred, commissioner of baseball, to please reinstate Mr. Joe Jackson. This man was just trying to do the right thing to warn that the World Series was going to be fixed and players just wanted a bigger payoff thanks to the lowballing of their own. Joe Jackson has passed on and has more than served his sentence. I believe that Judge Landis overreached in his lifetime suspension of the players and that if players were maintaining that Jackson was never at the meetings, that means HE WAS NEVER INVOLVED.
Mr. Manfred, do a course correction and reinstate Joe Jackson for the good of baseball because he was a legend in his own right as a player but punishing him for trying to do the right thing is absurd.
