"Field of Dreams" and the Legend of 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson

In 1887, Joe Jackson was born into a family of mill workers in Pickens County, South Carolina, and his family moved to a textile mill village outside of Greenville, SC when he was 5. When he was 6 years old, he went to work sweeping cotton lint off the floors of Brandon Mill. He never got a chance to have much formal education, and was essentially illiterate his whole life, a fact that would have some bearing on the events that would bring his baseball career to a halt in 1920. At age 13, Jackson started playing for the Brandon Mill baseball team. 

Many different legends have circulated over the years about how ‘Shoeless’ Joe got his nickname. In 1949, Jackson told Sport Magazine the real story. “When I was playing for Greenville back in 1908, we only had 12 men on the roster,” Jackson recalled. “I played in a new pair of shoes one day, and they wore big blisters on my feet. The next day we came up short of players, a couple of men hurt and one missing. Tommy Stouch was the manager, and he told me I'd just have to play, blisters or not. I tried it with my old shoes on and just couldn't make it. So I threw away the shoes and went to the outfield in my stockinged feet. I hadn't put out much until along about the seventh inning, I hit a long triple and I turned it on. As I pulled into third, some big guy stood up and hollered, ‘You shoeless sonofagun, you!’ They picked it up and started calling me ‘Shoeless Joe’ all around the league, and it stuck. I never played the outfield barefoot, and that was the only day I ever played in my stockinged feet, but it stuck with me.” 

Shoeless Joe with his favorite bat, 'Black Betsy,' playing for the Cleveland Naps in 1913

‘Shoeless’ Joe’s major league debut was in 1908 for the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1910, he was traded to the Cleveland Naps, and in 1915, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Two years later, in 1917, the White Sox won the World Series. 

To this day, Jackson holds the third-highest career batting average in the history of baseball – his average is .356. Jackson, who batted left and threw right, was such a formidable hitter that even the legendary Babe Ruth claimed that he modeled his hitting technique after Jackson’s. “I copied his style because I thought he was the greatest natural hitter I ever saw,” Babe Ruth said. “He’s the guy who made me a hitter.” Red Sox pitcher Ernie Shore marveled, “He could break bones with his shots. Blindfold me, and I could still tell you when Joe hit the ball. It had a special crack.”

Babe Ruth, playing for the New York Yankees, and Shoeless Joe, playing for the Chicago White Sox, looking at one of Babe's home run bats in 1920

The bat that ‘Roy Hobbs’ uses in The Natural, which he calls ‘Wonderboy,’ was probably inspired by Shoeless Joe Jackson’s favorite bat, ‘Black Betsy,’ a crooked, hand-whittled dark brown hickory-wood bat that in 2001 sold on eBay for $577,610.

In 1919, Jackson batted .351 during the regular season and a spectacular .375 with perfect fielding in the World Series. Unfortunately for Jackson, the heavily favored White Sox lost the series to the Cincinnati Reds. This brought on the infamous ‘Black Sox Scandal,’ which alleged that eight members of the Chicago White Sox had conspired to throw the Series. Even though Jackson’s performance had been flawless throughout the series, he wound up being tarred with the same brush as his teammates. 

Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox players were banned from baseball at the end of the 1920 season by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. A Chicago jury acquitted them of wrongdoing the following year, but despite that acquittal, Jackson was not reinstated and never played another game of major league baseball. The White Sox didn’t win another World Series until 2005.

Shoeless Joe Jackson in 1919

Jackson maintained his innocence throughout his life, insisting that although he took $5,000 in bribe money –  which he later tried to return – he played his best throughout the series. “I tried to win all the games,” he said in his ‘signed confession.’ Even that confession would lead to controversy among baseball historians, since Jackson was functionally illiterate and had such difficulty writing that he usually had his wife sign his autographs. 

“I went out and played my heart out against Cincinnati,” Jackson insisted in 1949. “I set a record that still stands for the most hits in a Series. I made 13 hits, but after all the trouble came out, they took one away from me. I led both teams in hitting with .375. I hit the only home run of the Series. I came all the way home from first on a single and scored the winning run in that 5-4 game. I handled 30 balls in the outfield and never made an error or allowed a man to take an extra base.” 

Legend has it that on his deathbed, Joe Jackson’s last words were, “I’m about to face the greatest umpire of all, and He knows I am innocent.” 

D.B. Sweeney, who played ‘Shoeless’ Joe in 1988’s Eight Men Out, couldn’t understand why the legendary player was never granted redemption. “The more I learned about Shoeless Joe, the more I felt he was maligned. I realized he got 12 hits, batted .375, didn’t make any errors. What more could he have done – hit .600?” 

After seeing Field of Dreams, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) became interested in Jackson’s case. He requested a review of Jackson’s record by Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, with an eye to reinstating Jackson to baseball, which would make him eligible for the Hall of Fame. Bud Selig replied, “It is a very tragic story, and I certainly will try to be objective, as well as fair, in reviewing the entire file.” 

Yet to this day, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson’s name remains on Major League Baseball’s ineligible list. Unless his name is removed from that list, he can never be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sources:
Furman Bisher, “This Is the Truth!,” Sport, 10/49
Ira Berkow, “The Signed Confession of Shoeless Joe,” New York Times, 6/24/89
George Vecsey, “The Shoes of Shoeless Joe,” New York Times, 8/31/88
“Put Your Foot Down on Shoeless Joe: Petition Asks Hall of Fame Admittance,” Washington Post, 7/22/89
“Selig to Review Shoeless Joe File,” Los Angeles Times, 5/29/99