Joe Jackson needs to get his lifetime ban from baseball lifted and considered for the Hall of Fame.
This is the opening paragraph to the SABR BIO on Shoeless Joe Jackson:
Shoeless Joe Jackson was a country boy from South Carolina who never learned to read or write much (“It don’t take school stuff to help a fella play ball,” he once said1) but is widely hailed as the greatest natural hitter in the history of the game. A left-handed batter and right-handed thrower, Jackson stood 6-feet-1 and weighed 178 well-built pounds. He belted sharp line drives to all corners of the ballpark, and was fast enough to lead the American League in triples three times. He never won a batting title, but his average of .408 in 1911 still stands as a Cleveland team record and a major-league rookie record
Shoeless Joe Jackson Treated Unfairly
It’s time to FREE Joe Jackson (known as “Shoeless Joe”) from his lifetime ban in baseball and elevate him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Joseph Jefferson Jackson was born in Pickens County, South Carolina to a poor family .His father George was a sharecropper. Joe never received an education as he was expected to work at the mill beginning at age 6 or 7. Lack of education was a n issue all of his life. In fact, he couldn’t read a menu. He would wait until his teammates ordered and he would verbally copy them.
How Did Shoeless Joe Jackson Get Banned?
The Black Sox scandal is where certain members of the 1918 Chicago White Sox would conspire to to profit by throwing the 1919 World Series. The evidence that Joe was involved never existed but he was made an example by the authoritarian baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Jackson did accept hush money to keep him quiet on the plans of others on the team to play poorly. That was never disputed. But other circumstances are clear and reconsideration of this topic is needed.
Joe Jackson , being uneducated and from a small town was in over his head with a slick crowd that had big contacts in the underworld of gambling. He did not participate in any of the meetings used to plan the demise of the White Sox. Until his death in 1951. Jackson swore to this fact. He never acknowledge the fact that he was in favor of it .
Shoeless Joe Jackson Showed No Signs
Jackson’s statistics in the series are very good. He made:
- NO ERRORS
- Jackson led both teams in batting average at .375
- He hit the only home run by either team
- He score or batted in 11 of his tams 20 runs
- More baseball articles at Baseball Spotlight
Shoeless Joe Jackson Conclusion
Judge Landis was unfair to Jo Jackson. Was because he couldn’t defend himself with lack of education?
This case went to a court of law and Jackson was acquitted of all charges.
Still the commissioner made an example and banned him from baseball and had his record s expunged from all accounts. To erase any mention of him in the record books.
As the star of the team—and one of the best players of all time—Joe Jackson had the farthest to fall. So, even though he was the least “guilty,” he endured the harshest punishment.
Lifetime banishment from baseball. His life is over as he died over 70 years ago.
Jackson has the third highest career batting average in history. It is time to GET JOE JACKSON into the HALL of FAME and erase a bad decision by a commissioner that simply wanted to flex his power!
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About the author– Tom Knuppel has been writing about baseball and sports for a few decades. As an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan he began with the blog CardinalsGM. Tom is a member of the United Cardinals Bloggers and the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. He also maintains the History of Cardinals website. More recently he has been busy at KnupSolutions and the primary writer of many sports at KnupSports and adds content at Sports 2.0. Tom is a retired High School English and Speech teacher and has completed over one hundred sports book reviews. He also can be followed on twitter at tknup or email him at tknuppel@gmail.com
