User:Tecmobowl/Joe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Joseph Jefferson Jackson
Joseph Jefferson Jackson
Outfield
Batted: Left Threw: Right
MLB debut
August 25, 1908 for the Philadelphia Athletics
Final game
September 27, 1920 for the Chicago White Sox
Career statistics
Batting Average     .356
Home Runs     54
Runs Batted In     785
Teams

Philadelphia Athletics (1908 - 1909)
Cleveland Naps (1910 - 1915)
Chicago White Sox (1915 - 1920)
Career highlights and awards
  • 3rd Highest Career Batting Average
  • Hit .408 in 1911

Joseph Jefferson Jackson (July 16, 1888 – December 5, 1951) an American baseball player. He is remembered for excellence on the field and for association with the Black Sox Scandal, when members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to lose the World Series. As a result of Jackson's association with the scandal, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball's first commissioner, effectively forced Jackson into permanent retirement after the 1920 season.[1]

Jackson played for three different Major League teams during his twelve-year career. He spent 1908-09 as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics; 1910 through the first part of the 1915 with the Cleveland Naps/Indians;[2] and the remainder of the 1915 season through 1920 with the Chicago White Sox.

Jackson, who played left field for most of his career, currently holds the third highest lifetime batting average of all-time. In 1911, Jackson hit for a .408 average. That average is still the sixth highest single-season total since 1901, which marked the beginning of the modern era for the sport. His average that year set the record for highest batting average in a single season by a rookie.[3]


Contents

[edit] SOURCES TO WORK IN

[edit] Early life

Joe Jackson was born in Pickens County, South Carolina. As a young child, Jackson worked in a textile mill in nearby Brandon Mill. Jackson's job prevented him from devoting any significant time to formal education.[4] The absence of a formal education would be prevalent throughout Jackson's life. It would even become a factor during the Black Sox Scandal.

In 1900, at the age of 13, Jackson started to play for the Brandon Mill team.

http://www.blackbetsy.com/joetime.htm

Chicago Historical Society. chicagohs.com. Retrieved on December 11, 2006.</ref>

Babe Ruth copied swing. http://www.thebaseballpage.com/players/jacksjo01.php

The nickname "Shoeless" came from when he played for the team sponsored by the mill where he worked before he played in the major leagues. Suffering from a blister due to a new, stiff pair of cleat shoes and forced to play when a team mate didn't show up for a game, he took his shoes off before he went to hit, and when he got to base a fan started yelling inappropriate and vulgar comments at him. One of the things he was called was a "shoeless son-of-a-bitch." The name stuck with him all the way to the major leagues.

[edit] Major League career

  • Babe Ruth claimed that he modeled his hitting technique after Jackson's.

THIS IS COPIED http://shoelessjoejackson.com/about/biography.html Joe Jackson began his professional baseball career in 1908 with the Philadelphia Athletics organization. For his first two years Jackson was up and down between the minor and the major leagues, playing only ten games with the Athletics. Becoming increasingly unhappy Jackson was traded to the Cleveland Naps in 1911 where he played his first full season. The Cleveland organization would eventually be called the Indians in 1915. That year Jackson compiled a .408 batting average, a record that still stands for rookie seasons. Coming into the prime of his career Jackson batted .395 and led the American League in triples in 1912. The next year Jackson led the league with 197 hits and .551 slugging average.

In August of 1915 Jackson was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Even with his new surroundings his tremendous career continued. In 1917 Jackson and the White Sox accomplished the greatest feat in all of baseball, a World Series title. During the series Jackson batted .307 and led the White Sox to victory over the New York Giants.

In 1919, Jackson and the White Sox found themselves back in the running for another World Series ring. Jackson batted .351 during the regular season and .375 with perfect fielding in the World Series. The heavily favored Sox found themselves in a losing battle against the Cincinnati Reds. During the next year while batting .385 and leading the American league in triples Jackson was suspended after allegations that 8 members of the White Sox threw the previous World Series. In 1921 A Chicago jury acquitted Jackson of helping to fix the 1919 World Series, but Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of Baseball went against the ruling and banned all eight players including Joe Jackson from baseball for life. THIS IS THE END OF THE COPY

[edit] Black Sox scandal

Main article: Black Sox Scandal

After the White Sox unexpectedly lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, eight players, including Jackson, were accused of "throwing" games. In September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate. Jackson admitted under oath that he participated in the fix, and accepted $5,000 as part-payment for his cooperation (a sum he claimed to have attempted to return twice). He also admitted to complaining to other conspirators that he had not received his full share. The then-current owner of the Sox, Charles Comiskey, encouraged Jackson to admit these things. A jury, however, acquitted him of criminal charges related to the scandal, although the trial itself could also be regarded as having been fixed, key evidence having gone missing from the prosecutor's office shortly before the trial.[citation needed] Jackson was found guilty of not reporting the scandal.

Jackson always publicly maintained his innocence and insisted until his death that he was playing his best in the Series. He had a .375 batting average, threw out five baserunners, and handled thirty chances in the outfield with no errors during that series. However, he batted far worse in the five games that the White Sox lost, totalling only one RBI, from a home run in game 8 once the game was 5-0 for the Reds. The Cincinnati Reds also hit an unusually high number of triples to left field during the series, far exceeding the amount that Jackson—generally considered a strong defensive player—normally allowed.[2] Arguably, this could be seen as Jackson attempting the fix the games through inaction, although another possible explanation could be simple game to game ups and downs in performance, typical of even the most elite baseball players.

One play in particular has been subjected to much scrutiny. In the fifth inning of game 4, with a Cincinnati player on second, Jackson fielded a single hit to left field and threw home. Eyewitness accounts say that the throw would have resulted in an out had pitcher Eddie Cicotte, one of the leaders of the fix, not interfered.[citation needed] The run scored and the White Sox lost the game 2-0. James C. Hamilton—the official scorer of the 1919 World Series—testified under oath in a later civil trial between Jackson and Charles Comiskey that the throw was honest and that Cicotte jumped up and knocked it down for an error.[citation needed] Chick Gandil, another leader of the fix, admitted to yelling at Cicotte to intercept the throw in his autobiography.[citation needed]

Ty Cobb and Joe Jackson in Cleveland, 1913
Ty Cobb and Joe Jackson in Cleveland, 1913

[edit] Aftermath

After being banned from the majors, Jackson played extensively in semipro leagues in Georgia and South Carolina. In 1929 he and his wife, Katherine, moved to Greenville, South Carolina.

In the 1940s, he was working at his liquor store when former adversary Ty Cobb and sportswriter Grantland Rice entered as customers. Following an impersonal transaction, Cobb asked, "Don't you know me, Joe?" "Sure, I know you, Ty," replied Jackson, "but I wasn't sure you wanted to know me. A lot of them don't." [citation needed]

Joe Jackson suffered from heart trouble in his later years and died in Greenville in 1951 at the age of 63. He is buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park there. Jackson's last words before his death were reportedly "I'm about to face the greatest umpire of all and He knows I am innocent."

[edit] Retirement

He still holds the White Sox franchise records for triples in a season and career batting average,[5] in 1999, he ranked Number 35 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

[edit] Career statistics

see: Baseball statistics for an explanation of these statistics.

G AB H 2B 3B HR R RBI BB SO AVG OBP SLG
1,332 4,981 1,772 307 168 54 873 785 519 158 .356 .423 .517

[edit] Books

  • "Shoeless: The Life And Times of Joe Jackson", by David L. Fleitz (2001, McFarland & Company Publishers)
  • Shoeless Joe, a novel by W. P. Kinsella
  • Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof
  • Joe Jackson: A Biography, by Kelly Boyer Sagert
  • Say It Ain't So, Joe!: The True Story of Shoeless Joe Jackson, by Donald Gropman
  • A Man Called Shoeless, by Howard Burman
  • "Burying the Black Sox" (Potomac, Spring 2006) by Gene Carney.
  • "Shoeless Joe & Me" (HarperCollins, 2002) by Dan Gutman

[edit] Films

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Joe Jackson FAQ. blackbetsy.com. Retrieved on November 23, 2006.
  2. ^ During Jackson's time with the franchise, Cleveland was known as the Indians in some years and as the Naps in other years
  3. ^ Although he was in the majors as early as 1908, Major League rules at the time stipulated that a player was considered a rookie until he has had more than 130 at-bats in a season.[1]
  4. ^ Black Betsy Sale. shoelessjoejackson.com. Retrieved on November 26, 2006.
  5. ^ Listed at .340, his batting average while with the franchise.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/e/c/User%7ETecmobowl_Joe_c69d.html"
In other languages