Joseph Jefferson Jackson, better known as “Shoeless Joe Jackson” became interested in baseball at the age of 13. Jackson had been working in the cotton mills with his father and brother since this young age. Being illiterate and never liked learning in school, he took an interest in the sport of baseball when the managers at the mill asked him to play ball.
When Jackson was 15 years old, a local bat maker and fan of Jackson, named Charlie Ferguson, made him a 48 ounce bat and dyed it black with tobacco juice. He loved the gift so much that he named it “Black Betsy.” By the age of 16, Jackson became the best ball player in the Textile League and also became a local hero. He was adored by so many local fans who came to see the young Jackson hit home runs, catch what seemed to be impossible high flies, and throw the baseball more than four hundred feet.
Jackson turned 18 and began his baseball career. He played with the Carolina Association’s Greenville Spinners in 1908. While playing for this team, Jackson acquired his nickname Shoeless Joe Jackson. During a baseball game, Jackson played in only his stockings and a fan yelled out to him from the crowd after he hit a triple in the seventh inning, “You Shoeless sonofagun you!” Jackson only wore his stockings because the day before the game, he was playing ball in his new shoes which caused him to have blisters. When the manager told Jackson to play in the seventh inning, he took off his shoes and went out there in his stockings. Jackson never played in his stockings again but the nickname stuck forever.
The Philadelphia Athletics bought Jackson’s contract after only playing with the Spinners for one year. The Athletics purchased his contract for $325. After playing with
the Athletics for one season, he was traded to play with Cleveland. In 1915, Jackson began his baseball career with the Chicago White Sox.
Shoeless Joe Jackson may be best remembered for his involvement in the Black Sox Scandal. One night on a road trip in 1919, Jackson was approached by his teammate Chick Gandil who explained to Jackson that seven players from the team were going to throw the game in the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Jackson supposedly refused Gandil’s bribe of $10,000. Gandil told Jackson that this would happen with or without him. Gandil used Jackson’s name when discussing the matter with other gamblers involved in the conspiracy, and Jackson became infamous for ties with the Black Sox Scandal of 1919.
During these years of baseball, it was not uncommon for gamblers to be present at ballparks. The fixing of baseball games had been suspected since the 1850’s but this was hard to prove. There were many rumors that games were being fixed so the professional baseball players could supplement their lack of income with bribes by throwing single games. Ironically, during the baseball games, the team owner of the White Sox, Charles Comiskey, had posted signs in the ball park that read, “No betting allowed in this park.” However, these signs were not enough to stop the gamblers from placing bets or from bribing his players.
A collaboration of ideas between two masterminds had the 1919 World Series game fixed. The gamblers William Thomas “Sleepy Bill” Burns and Billy Maharg were the two main men behind bribing the players. Burns was an ex-major league pitcher who was able to set up the scandal because he still had ties and connections with many baseball players. Maharg was the gambler behind the scenes who had underground
connections to make the scandal work. Burns and Maharg first pitched the idea between the pitcher of the White Sox, Ed Cicotte and the first baseman, Chick Gandil.
Gandil was the ringleader of the scandal and told his other teammates that he needed them to agree with throwing the game. Gandil ensured that they would lose the series by involving six other players. He presented the idea to his teammates Claude “Lefty” Williams, Buck Weaver, Fred McMullin, Charles “Swede” Risberg, Oscar “Happy’ Felsch, and leftfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. Gandil told the players that the two gamblers would give the members involved in the scandal $100,000 to split between them. According to some documents, Shoeless Joe Jackson did not want to be involved in the scandal and told Comiskey about the fix. However, Jackson’s warning signs about the fixed game had been ignored.
Burns and Maharg bet roughly half a million dollars on ensuring that the Cincinnati Reds would win the World Series. The gamblers had told others about the scandal and more people had placed money on the Reds.
The 1919 World Series was played between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. Sure enough, the White Sox had lost the game despite the 17 other White Sox players who attempted to win the World Series. Chicago los the first game 9-1 and Cicotte allegedly received a $10,000 payment in his hotel room that night. However, the other players did not receive the money that Gandil had promised for purposely losing that game. The teammates were willing to lose another game if the money was promised by the end of the next day, so Chicago threw the next game and lost 4-2.
The players not involved in the conspiracy were suspicious of how the players who were involved were performing. There were arguments about poor pitching between the manager and the players. The players involved were skeptical in whether they should continue with the conspiracy.
The third game played was a win by Chicago. However, Chicago lost game four 2-0 and game five with a score of 5-0. The payments by the gamblers were not coming through as promised and Chicago played well enough to win the sixth and seventh games with scores of 5-4 and 4-1. The players all played their best during these games. A gambler, Rothstein, had threatened player Williams if they did not lose the next game and the series. Cincinnati won the World Series 10-5.
The Scandal had ended and the gamblers were happy with the outcome. Rumors began to surface in 1920 that more gamblers had bribed players of different teams such as the New York Giants, New York Yankees, Boston Braves, and also the Cleveland Indians. A grand jury looked into allegations of a fixed game between the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies. At this point, the White Sox were taken to court about the 1919 World Series scandal and baseball gambling.
It is still disputed against today if Jackson is innocent or not. Weaver and Jackson are the only players whose involvement in the scandal is still uncertain. Many people believe that the two players were not involved in the conspiracy, even though Jackson was the first to admit everything he knew when questioned at trial. Jackson did not attend any of the conspiracy meetings though he suspected the outcome of the game.
During the game, he batted, ran the bases, and also fielded to win the game. However, when the scandal was taken to court the grand jury believed that Jackson was just as equally and actively involved in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Weaver, however, had participated in many of the conspiracy games but denied having any involvement in actually having his hand in the plot.
A year after the scandal ended, players, managers, owners, and gamblers were called to court to testify in the conspiracy of throwing the World Series. Cicotte also easily admitted everything he knew about the scandal along with Jackson. After a month of hearing testimonies, the grand jury took two hours and forty seven minutes to decide the fate of the players. Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned eight White Sox players from baseball. Landis remarked, “regardless of the verdict of the juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked players and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.” Landis never allowed the White Sox baseball players to ever play professional ball again.
The court hearing was the beginning of the end of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s career. Jackson and his wife moved to Greenville, South Carolina where he lived as a child. He was banned from playing in the major leagues so he played only in the semipro leagues in Georgia and South Carolina. Jackson never forgot what had happened to him while playing for the major leagues. While on his death bed, Shoeless Joe Jackson’s last words were, “I’m about to face the greatest umpire of all and He knows I am innocent.”
Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox Scandal
Jill Andes