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As the story goes, Joseph Jefferson Jackson once had such horrible blisters on his feet that he played in a game without shoes. In his socks, he legged out a triple. While standing on third, a fan in the third base stands stood up and yelled, “You shoeless son of a gun!” The nickname stuck. And while Jackson was always known back then for his superb hitting and running, it’s the 1919 World Series that unfortunately keeps his name alive today.
Shoeless Joe Jackson, a very uneducated man who couldn’t do much but play baseball, began his professional career with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1908, playing just a handful of games. He moved onto Cleveland in 1910, where he hit .387. He remained in Cleveland for five more years, never hitting below .308. In 1911, his first full season as a pro, he hit .408 with a career-high .590 slugging percentage.
In mid-1915, Jackson was sold to Charles Comiskey and the Chicago White Sox. He remained with Chicago for the rest of his career, calling it quits after the 1920 season. He never hit below .300 with the Sox, and led them to the 1919 World Series against Cincinnati. However, it’s that series that has kept Jackson out of Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
In what became known as the “Black Sox Scandal,” Jackson and seven other teammates of the heavily-favored Sox were accused of throwing the World Series for money. While they were found not-guilty in a court of law, Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned all eight from the game forever for their association with gamblers. Jackson, who many said was at the initial meeting with the players throwing the series, supposedly changed his mind and decided he wanted no part of it. His offensive statistics show that that is true, based on his series-leading .375 average. However, he did commit a couple of costly errors that led to Reds wins, a series the Reds would eventually win, 5-3.
Jackson finished his career with a lifetime average of .356, third behind Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby. While there have been many attempts by Jackson fans to get him into the hall of fame, they have gone down without much noise. Jackson died in 1951 in his home state of South Carolina. He maintained his innocence of throwing
the 1919 Series until he died.
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