Joe Jackson, more commonly referred to as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson made his Major League Baseball debut in August of 1908, with the Philadelphia Athletics, where he spent his first two seasons. The left-handed-hitting outfielder then spent five seasons with the Cleveland Indians, before joining the White Sox.
Jackson led the league in triples three times in 1912, 1916 and 1920. He hit better than .380 a total of four separate seasons, including an impressive .408 in 1911. He led the league in hits in back to back seasons (1912 and 1913). His career batting average sits at .356 after his 13 seasons in the Major Leagues.
Those numbers in that era would without a doubt have landed Jackson among the many legends of the game enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
But he is not there. Jackson is among eight members of the White Sox team, accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, more affectionately known as the infamous Black Sox Scandal.
The men allegedly did so after being approached and paid handsomely by notorious mobster Arnold Rothstein, as he and his conglomerate made millions betting on the underdog Reds.
Although all eight were acquitted in court of the charges, Major League Baseball’s first commissioner Landis banned all of the men from baseball and subsequently removed Joe Jackson’s name permanently from any consideration for enshrinement into Cooperstown.
Jackson passed away on December 5, 1951, at the age of 64.
Although he only spent six seasons in a White Sox uniform and was banned from the game while he was still in his prime (just imagine the numbers he could ultimately have produced). Unfortunately, his legacy will only be for the allegations of the scandal and not for what he did on the field just before the Roaring Twenties.
