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 In 1908, while playing minor league baseball for Greenville, South Carolina, Joe Jackson had been breaking in a new pair of spikes that gave him such bad blisters that he played the following game in his stocking feet. Someone from the crowd yelled “You shoeless son of a gun, you!” late in the game, and the nickname stuck: “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.Jackson, known as a great hitter and fielder, still holds the third highest lifetime batting average in major league history: .356. Yet “Shoeless” Joe’s career came to an abrupt end. In 1920, eight players of the Chicago White Sox—including Jackson—were suspected of conspiring with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Although acquitted in a court of law, all eight players were banned from playing organized baseball for life. Known as the Black Sox Scandal, it has been the subject of many books and films, including Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams. Take a look at “Shoeless” Joe’s shoes and his famous “Black Betsy” bat, and learn more about the Black Sox scandal in Baseball As America. back >> |
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