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“Shoeless” Joe Jackson Passes Away at 64 – TDI Baseball 1951

Wikipedia Commons/Labeled For Reuse

A career cut short; a life cut short. Such was the case with Joseph Jefferson Jackson, better known by his nickname, “Shoeless Joe.” A promising baseball career came to an abrupt halt due to the fallout from the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” scandal, and Jackson’s guilt was one in question, making it even harder to accept for the South Carolina native.

Banned for life, Jackson toiled under assumed names in the semi-pro circuit as a player and manager and later on settled down as a proprietor of a dry cleaning business, a barbecue restaurant and a liquor store. He suffered from heart trouble later in life and eventually succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 64. But the story doesn’t begin – nor end – there.

A prodigy who was discovered at 13, Jackson’s made his debut in 1900 with his local team as a pitcher and then was switched to the outfield. It was around d this time that he first obtained his famous bat, “Black Betty.” Eight years later, Connie Mack signed him and Jackson struggled for two seasons playing in the minors and majors for the Philadelphia Athletics. He was traded to the Cleveland Naps in 1910 and made an impression as a late season call-up.

As a rookie the following season, Jackson hit .408 (but finished second to Ty Cobb for the batting title) and had a successful stint in Cleveland before he was dealt to the Chicago White Sox during the 1915 campaign. He helped the team win the World Series and had become a star. By the time the 1919 Fall Classic rolled around, Jackson hit .351 in the regular season and his team were heavy favorites against the Cincinatti Reds.

Arnold Rothstein was reported to have been the mastermind behind fixing the Fall Classic and the Reds completed the upset. Jackson hit .375 and had a perfect fielding percentage, but admitted on the stand during grand jury testimony that he ‘dogged’ it in the outfield getting to balls and throwing them to the cutoff man, thus allowing the Reds to hit what seemed like to be more triples than they should have if he had hustled and more runners to score.

None of the eight players accused of throwing the Series were found guilty by the grand jury, but new baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis threw the book at them, banning all the accused players for life from Major League Baseball. At the time the punishment was handed down during the 1920 season, Jackson was batting .382.

The other seven players implicated in the scandal maintained that Jackson was never at any of the meetings held to discuss it and he refused on two occasion the $5,000 payoff (although it was thrown on the floor of his hotel room the second time). He died never knowing if his lifetime ban would ever be lifted by future commissioners and it has not to this day.

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JACKSON’S CAREER STATISTICS

G AB H 2B 3B HR R RBI BB SO AVG OBP SLG FP
1,332 4,981 1,772 307 168 54 873 785 519 158 .356 .423 .517 .964

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