Joseph Jefferson Jackson (July 16, 1887 – December 5, 1951), nicknamed "Shoeless Joe", was an American professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the early 20th century. His .356 career batting average is one of the highest in major-league history. Jackson is often remembered for his association with the Black Sox Scandal in which eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series. As a result, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis permanently banned Jackson and the other seven players from professional baseball after the 1920 season. During the World Series in question, Jackson had led both teams in several statistical categories and set a World Series record with 12 base hits, including, during the last game, the only home run in that World Series. Jackson's role in the scandal, banishment from the game, and exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame have been fiercely debated. In 2025, Commissioner Rob Manfred removed Jackson and other deceased players from the MLB's permanently ineligible list, thus lifting the ban and making him once again eligible for the hall of fame.
Jackson played for three major-league teams during his 12-year career, primarily in left field. He spent 1908–1909 as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics and 1910 with the minor league New Orleans Pelicans before joining the Cleveland Naps at the end of the 1910 season. He was still considered a rookie in 1911 when he hit for a .408 average, a single-season record for a rookie that still stands. He remained in Cleveland until early in the 1915 season; he then played for the White Sox through 1920. Later, Jackson played baseball under assumed names throughout the South.
Jackson holds the now Cleveland Guardians and Chicago White Sox franchise records for triples in a season and career batting average. In 1999, he ranked number 35 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. The fans voted him as the 12th-best outfielder of all time. He also ranks 33rd on the all-time list for non-pitchers according to the win shares formula developed by sabermetrician Bill James. Baseball legend Babe Ruth said that he modeled his hitting method after Jackson's. (archived January 26, 2009).
Early life
Jackson was born in Pickens County, South Carolina, the oldest son of George Jackson, a sharecropper. While Jackson was still a baby, his father moved the family to Pelzer, South Carolina. A few years later, the family moved to a company town called Brandon Mill on the outskirts of Greenville, South Carolina.Fleitz p. 7 An attack of measles almost killed him when he was 10. He was bedridden for two months and paralyzed while he was nursed back to health by his mother.Fleitz p. 9
Starting at the age of 6 or 7, Jackson worked in one of the town's textile mills as a "linthead", a derogatory name for a mill hand. Family finances required Jackson to take 12-hour shifts in the mill, and since education at the time was a luxury the Jackson family couldn't afford, Jackson was functionally illiterate. His lack of education ultimately became an issue throughout Jackson's life. It even affected the value of his memorabilia in the collectibles market; because Jackson was illiterate, he often had his wife forge his signature. Consequently, anything provably autographed by Jackson himself brings a premium when sold, including one autograph which was sold for $23,500 in 1990 (). In restaurants, rather than ask someone to read the menu to him, he would wait until his teammates ordered and then order one of the items that he heard.Honig, Donald. The Man in the Dugout.
In 1900, when he was 13 years old, his mother was approached by one of the owners of the Brandon Mill, and he started to play for the mill's baseball team.Fleitz p. 10 He was the youngest player on the team. He was paid $2.50 to play on Saturdays (). Jackson was initially a pitcher, but one day he accidentally broke another player's arm with a fastball. No one wanted to bat against him, so the team manager placed him in the outfield. Jackson's hitting ability made him a celebrity around town. Around that time, he was given a baseball bat that he named Black Betsy. He was compared to Champ Osteen, another player from the mills who made it to the majors. Jackson moved from mill team to mill team in search of better pay, playing semi-professional baseball by 1905.
Nickname In an interview published in the October 1949 edition of Sport magazine, Jackson recalled that he got his nickname during a mill game played in Greenville, South Carolina. Jackson had blisters on his foot from a new pair of cleats, which hurt so much that he took his shoes off before he was at bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks and shouted, "You shoeless son of a gun, you!" and the resulting nickname "Shoeless Joe" stuck with him throughout the remainder of his life.
Professional career
Early professional career In 1908, Jackson began his professional baseball career with his hometown minor league team, the Greenville Spinners of the Carolina Association, married 15-year-old Katie Wynn, and eventually signed with Connie Mack to play for the Philadelphia Athletics.
Jackson started the season with the Spinners for $75 a month and hit .346 to lead the Carolina Association in batting average, hits, and RBI for 1908. In August 1908, his contract was purchased by Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics for $900. Jackson immediately reported to the Athletics and made his major-league debut on August 25, 1908, starting in centerfield and batting fourth against Cleveland at Philadelphia's Columbia Park. Jackson came to bat with one out in the first inning with Topsy Hartsel on third base and Eddie Collins on first to face Cleveland's Heinie Berger. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "The youngster was given a kindly welcome by the fans and he acknowledged it by singling past Bradley, scoring Hartsel." Jackson would finish 1 for 4 in the game, which the A's lost 3-2.
For the first two years of his career, Jackson had some trouble adjusting to life with the Athletics; reports conflict as to whether he did not like the big city or was bothered by hazing from teammates. Consequently, he spent much of that time in the minor leagues. Between 1908 and 1909, Jackson appeared in just 10 major-league games. During the 1909 season, Jackson played 118 games for the South Atlantic League's Savannah Indians. He batted .358 for the year."Shoeless Joe Jackson Minor League Statistics & History". baseball-reference.com. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
The Athletics gave up on Jackson and in 1910 traded him to the Cleveland Naps. He spent most of 1910 with the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association, where he won the batting title and led the team to the pennant. Late in the season, Jackson was called up to play on the major-league team. He appeared in 20 games for the Naps and managed a batting average of .387.
Major-league career In 1911, his first full major-league season, Jackson set several rookie records. His .408 batting average that season is a record that still stands and was good for second overall in the league behind Ty Cobb's .419 — one of the few times in baseball history that a batting average above .400 did not win a batting title. His .468 on-base percentage led the league. The following season, Jackson batted .395 and led the American League in hits, triples, and total bases. On April 20, 1912, Jackson scored the first run in Tiger Stadium.The Final Season, p.5, Tom Stanton, Thomas Dunne Books, An imprint of St. Martin's Press, New York, 2001, The next year, he led the league with 197 hits and a .551 slugging percentage.
In August 1915, Jackson was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Two years later, Jackson and the White Sox won the American League pennant and also the World Series. During the series, Jackson hit .307 as the White Sox defeated the New York Giants.
Jackson missed most of the 1918 season while working in a shipyard because of World War I. In 1919, he returned to post a strong .351 average during the regular season and .375 in the World Series. However, the heavily favored White Sox lost the series to the Cincinnati Reds. The following season, the 32-year-old Jackson batted .382. He was having one of his best overall seasons, leading the American League in triples and setting by large margins career marks for home runs, RBI, and fewest strikeouts per plate appearance until he was suspended with seven other members of the White Sox after allegations surfaced that the team had thrown the previous World Series.
Black Sox Scandal
After the White Sox lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, Jackson and seven other White Sox players were accused of accepting $5,000 each () to throw the Series. In September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate the allegations.
Jackson's 12 base hits set a Series record that was not broken until 1964, and he led both teams with a .375 batting average (.286 in the games the White Sox lost and .545 in the games they won). He committed no charged errors and threw out a runner at the plate. However, the Reds hit an unusually large number of triples, three out of nine total, to Jackson's position in left field. The Sox pitchers said the team's outfielders were playing out of position and slowly fielding balls.Neyer, Rob. Say it ain't so ... for Joe and the Hall. ESPN Classic.com. August 30, 2007.
Jackson admitted to participating in the fix during grand jury testimony on September 28, 1920, although he maintained he had not taken any on-field actions in exchange for the $5000 he received.
In 1921, a Chicago jury acquitted Jackson and his seven teammates of wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the newly appointed Commissioner of Baseball, imposed a lifetime ban on all eight players. "Regardless of the verdict of juries," Landis declared, "no player that throws a ballgame; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame; no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball."
After the grand jury returned its indictments, Charley Owens of the Chicago Daily News wrote a regretful tribute headlined, "Say it ain't so, Joe."See wikiquote:Shoeless Joe Jackson#This is the Truth! (1949) The phrase became legendary when another reporter later erroneously attributed it to a child outside the courthouse: When Jackson left the criminal court building in the custody of a sheriff after telling his story to the grand jury, he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, waiting for a glimpse of their idol. One child stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said: "It ain't true, is it, Joe?" "Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is," Jackson replied. The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight. "Well, I'd never have thought it," sighed the lad.
In an interview in Sport nearly three decades later, Jackson confirmed that the legendary exchange never occurred.
Dispute over Jackson's guilt