{"id":29557,"date":"2015-05-10T08:12:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T12:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seamheads.com\/?p=29557"},"modified":"2015-05-10T16:14:13","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T20:14:13","slug":"the-shoeless-joe-jackson-interview-an-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/10\/the-shoeless-joe-jackson-interview-an-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shoeless Joe Jackson Interview: An Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The October, 1949 issue of\u00a0SPORT Magazine<\/em>\u00a0published something that has never been seen before or since. It was an interview with \u201cShoeless\u201d\u00a0Joe Jackson<\/a>,\u00a0focusing on the 1919 Black Sox scandal and his expulsion from baseball. He had previously declined to publicly discuss the subject, and while it\u2019s unclear why he made this exception, it provides fascinating insight into one of the most mythical figures in baseball history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Is The Truth!\u201d was conducted by Furman Bisher, who wrote the piece in narrative form, as it was told to him by Jackson. Bisher was a young journalist from the South, who went on to write for heavy-hitting publications like\u00a0Sports Illustrated<\/em>,\u00a0Sporting News<\/em>, and\u00a0The Saturday Evening Post<\/em>. His lengthy career included a Red Smith Award for sports journalism, and incredibly he retired in 2010 after more than 70 years at the typewriter.<\/p>\n

The entire Jackson interview is available online at\u00a0http:\/\/www.blackbetsy.com\/theTruth.html<\/a>. For the sake of analysis, I am pulling out what I found to be the most interesting portions of his statements, and including my own thoughts in italics.<\/p>\n

Jackson was not looking for forgiveness:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI had been acquitted by a twelve-man jury in a civil court of all charges and I was an innocent man in the records. I have never made any request to be reinstated in baseball, and I have never made any campaign to have my name cleared in the baseball records. This is not a plea of any kind. This is just my story. I\u2019m telling it simply because it seems that 30 years after that World Series, the world may want to hear what I have to say.<\/p>\n

If I had been the kind of fellow who brooded when things went wrong, I probably would have gone out of my mind when Judge Landis ruled me out of baseball. I would have lived in regret. I would have been bitter and resentful because I felt I had been wronged.<\/p>\n

But I haven\u2019t been resentful at all. I thought when my trial was over that Judge Landis might have restored me to good standing. But he never did. And until he died I had never gone before him, sent a representative before him, or placed before him any written matter pleading my case. I gave baseball my best and if the game didn\u2019t care enough to see me get a square deal, then I wouldn\u2019t go out of my way to get back in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollywood is the primary culprit for perpetuating the image of a haunted Jackson, pining until his death to be allowed to play the game he loved so much. If his statement is to be fully believed, he received the only vindication he felt he needed when he was acquitted in a court of law.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jackson believed he was banned from baseball for the company he kept:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIt was never explained to me officially, but I was told that Judge Landis had said I was banned because of the company I kept. I roomed with\u00a0Claude Williams<\/a>, the pitcher, one of the ringleaders, they told me, and one of the eight White Sox players banned. But I had to take whoever they assigned to room with me on the road. I had no power over that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson may have been trying to distance himself from the betting scandal with this statement. While historians point to his .375 batting average and no errors in the 1919 World Series, it\u2019s clear he knew of the plot, and is very probable that he accepted money. In his mind, he may have felt that if he played his hardest, he was only being blamed because of the influence of others.<\/em><\/p>\n

Comiskey was tipped off by Jackson that the Series was not on the level:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cWhen the talk got so bad just before the World Series with Cincinnati, I went to Mr. Charles Comiskey\u2019s room the night before the Series started and asked him to keep me out of the line-up. Mr. Comiskey was the owner of the White Sox. He refused, and I begged him: \u2018Tell the newspapers you just suspended me for being drunk, or anything, but leave me out of the Series and then there can be no question.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hugh Fullerton, the old time New York sportswriter who\u2019s dead now, was in the room and heard the whole thing. He offered to testify for me at my trial later, and he came all the way out to Chicago to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement contradicts Jackson\u2019s previous assertion that he was banned from baseball for simply associating with the wrong players on the team. It\u2019s possible that after being in on the plot and\/or receiving money, Jackson came to realize he was dealing with some pretty serious people. Trying to beg out of playing may have been his initial knee-jerk reaction to evacuating the mess without having to throw the games or double cross the gamblers by playing well.<\/em><\/p>\n

Say it ain\u2019t so! The little boy never said that to Joe when he left the court house:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI guess the biggest joke of all was that story that got out about \u2018Say it ain\u2019t so, Joe.\u2019 Charley Owens of the\u00a0Chicago Daily News<\/em> was responsible for that, but there wasn\u2019t a bit of truth in it. It was supposed to have happened the day I was arrested in September of 1920, when I came out of the courtroom.<\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t any words passed between anybody except me and a deputy sheriff. When I came out of the building this deputy asked me where I was going, and I told him to the Southside. He asked me for a ride and we got in the car together and left. There was a big crowd hanging around the front of the building, but nobody else said anything to me. It just didn\u2019t happen, that\u2019s all. Charley Owens just made up a good story and wrote it. Oh, I would have said it ain\u2019t so, all right, just like I\u2019m saying it now.<\/p>\n

This comes as no great surprise. This always made for a good story and it turns out that\u2019s just what it was. If Jackson\u2019s bravado is to be believed, it\u2019s amazing to consider the contrast between his reality and the tragic narrative that has been built by Jackson supporters and baseball romantics over the years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Did a Ban Johnson vendetta against Comiskey lead to the expulsion of the eight players?:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019ll tell you the story behind the whole thing. The trouble was in the front office. Ban Johnson, the president of the American League, had sworn he\u2019d get even with Mr. Comiskey a few years before, and that was how he did it. It was all over some fish Mr. Comiskey had sent to Mr. Johnson from his Wisconsin hunting lodge back about 1917.\u00a0Mr. Comiskey had caught two big trout and they were such beauties he sent them to Mr. Johnson. He packed the fish in ice and expressed them, but by the time they got to Chicago the ice had melted and the fish had spoiled. They smelled awful and Mr. Johnson always thought Mr. Comiskey had deliberately pulled a joke on him. He never would believe it any other way.<\/p>\n

That fish incident was the cause of it all. When Mr. Johnson got a chance to get even with Mr. Comiskey, he did it. He was the man who ruled us ineligible. He was the man who caused the thing to go into the courts. He did everything he could against Mr. Comiskey.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll show you how much he had it in for him. I sued Mr. Comiskey for the salary I had coming to me under the five year contract I had with the White Sox. When I won the verdict \u2013I got only a little out of it \u2013the first one I heard from was Mr. Johnson. He wired me congratulations on beating Mr. Comiskey and his son, Louis.\u201d<\/p>\n

I doubt there is much merit to this claim. Johnson and Comiskey were former close friends who did have a falling out. However, weakening the White Sox would have hurt both men equally. Johnson, as the president of the American League, had fought for years to bring the junior circuit to prominence. While he would have wanted to disassociate himself from any type of betting scandal, banning the players simply out of spite would have given a major edge to the National League in a key city like Chicago. The Black Sox also led to the creation of the position of Baseball Commissioner, which greatly usurped Johnson\u2019s hold over the American League.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jackson may not have returned to the major leagues if he had been reinstated:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI doubt if I\u2019d have gone back into baseball, anyway, even if Judge Landis had reinstated me after the trial. I had a good valet business in Savannah, Georgia with 22 people working for me, and I had to look after it. I was away from it about a year waiting for the trial. They served papers on me which ordered me not to leave Illinois. I finally opened up a little place of business at 55th and Woodlawn, across from the University of Chicago. It was a sort of pool room and sports center and I got a lot of business from the University students.<\/p>\n

I made my home in Chicago, but I didn\u2019t follow orders completely. I sneaked out of Illinois now and then to play with semi-pro teams in Indiana and Wisconsin. I always asked my lawyer, Mr. Benedictine Short, first and he told me to go if I could get that kind of money\u2026<\/p>\n

I have read now and then that I am one of the most tragic figures in baseball. Well, maybe that\u2019s the way some people look at it, but I don\u2019t quite see it that way myself. I guess one of the reasons I never fought my suspension any harder than I did was that I thought I had spent a pretty full life in the big leagues. I was 32 years old at the time, and I had been in the majors 13 years; I had a life time batting average of .356; I held the all-time throwing record for distance; and I had made pretty good salaries for those days. There wasn\u2019t much left for me in the big leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it may be hard for lovers of baseball to believe, Jackson was undoubtedly like many other players of that era, or any era for that matter; in that he played more for the money than love for the game. If he realized he was making more money as a civilian, he would not have had much incentive to return; especially given the amount of scrutiny the notoriously reticent Jackson would have experienced.<\/em><\/p>\n

The origins of the \u201cShoeless\u201d nickname:<\/strong>\u00a0 When I was with Greenville back in 1908, we only had 12 men on the roster. I was first off a pitcher, but when I wasn\u2019t pitching I played the outfield. 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 \u2013he was a sportswriter in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the last I heard of him\u2013was the manager, and he told me I\u2019d just have to play, blisters or not.<\/p>\n

I tried it with my old shoes on and just couldn\u2019t make it. He told me I\u2019d have to play anyway, so I threw away the shoes and went to the outfield in my stockinged feet. I hadn\u2019t put out much until along about the seventh inning I hit a long triple and I turned it on. That was in Anderson, and the bleachers were close to the baselines there. As I pulled into third, some big guy stood up and hollered \u2018You shoeless sonofagun, you!\u2019<\/p>\n

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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is good to get confirmation that this beloved pearl of baseball history is based in reality. They don\u2019t make nicknames like they used to.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jackson had the final word:<\/strong> \u201cWell, that\u2019s my story. I repeat what I said when I started out \u2014 that I have no axe to grind, that I\u2019m not asking anybody for anything. It\u2019s all water over the dam as far as I am concerned. I can say that my conscience is clear and that I\u2019ll stand on my record in that World Series. I\u2019m not what you call a good Christian, but I believe in the Good Book, particularly where it says \u201cwhat you sow, so shall you reap.\u201d I have asked the Lord for guidance before, and I am sure He gave it to me. I\u2019m willing to let the Lord be my judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement is a far cry from the Joe Jackson so often identified as the tortured soul fading into a ghostly Iowa cornfield, lamenting his banishment from baseball. Throughout the interview, it seems that Jackson\u2019s attitude towards being thrown out of baseball was roughly the same as somebody who was fired from any job. It may have bothered him at first, but once he saw that he could move on and be successful at something else, it softened the blow quite a bit.<\/em><\/p>\n

With \u201cShoeless\u201d Joe Jackson being so liberally portrayed in literature, film, and conjecture, it is nice to have at least one source where he sets the record straight in his own words. This interview is a fascinating glimpse at the man, who exists only as a legend for most. His words shatter the myth of how he left baseball as a broken man, never able to regain his sense of worth and belonging. Say it ain\u2019t so.<\/em><\/p>\n

Andrew Martin is the founder of\u00a0\u201cThe Baseball Historian\u201d<\/a>\u00a0blog where he posts his thoughts about baseball on a regular basis. You can also reach him on Twitter at\u00a0@historianandrew<\/a>\u00a0or on Facebook<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The October, 1949 issue of\u00a0SPORT Magazine\u00a0published something that has never been seen before or since. It was an interview with \u201cShoeless\u201d\u00a0Joe Jackson,\u00a0focusing on the 1919 Black Sox scandal and his expulsion from baseball. He had previously declined to publicly discuss the subject, and while it\u2019s unclear why he made this exception, it provides fascinating insight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":798,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/798"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}