11-22-2016, 07:58 PM
I was spurred into reading about Shoeless Joe Jackson after watching one of the the documentaries, specifically his role in the the Black Sox scandal, because I remembered there being some conflicting stuff around that. Admittedly, this is from Wikipedia, not an official source on anything, but I was surprised to read all of this and couldn't figure out why Ken Burns didn't at least acknowledge that there was some controversy surrounding the matter. The Baseball documentary came out in '94 and Ted Williams made his case for Jackson to be reinstated in '98, so I'm not sure what evidence there was that Jackson might have been innocent before '94 except an article by the American Statistician that's referenced in the below quote. Maybe what's here is bs, but the possibility of him being innocent is pretty sad. The fact that three MLB commissioners refused to clear him suggests that there's nothing conclusive, despite what the other 7 players allegedly said.
There are no citations following the claims in bold.
Quote:
Dispute over Jackson's guilt
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<div>Babe Ruth and Jackson, 1920
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Jackson spent most of the last 30 years of his life proclaiming his innocence, and evidence has surfaced that casts significant doubt on his involvement in the fix. Jackson reportedly refused the $5,000 bribe on two separate occasions — despite the fact that it would effectively double his salary — only to have teammate Lefty Williams toss the cash on the floor of his hotel room. Jackson then reportedly tried to tell White Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the fix, but Comiskey refused to meet with him.<sup>[23]</sup>
Unable to afford legal counsel, Jackson was represented by team attorney Alfred Austrian—a clear conflict of interest. Before Jackson's grand jury testimony, Austrian allegedly elicited Jackson's admission of his supposed role in the fix by plying him with whiskey.<sup>[14]</sup> Austrian was also able to persuade the nearly illiterate Jackson to sign a waiver of immunity from prosecution.<sup>[23]</sup>Years later, the other seven players implicated in the scandal confirmed that Jackson was never at any of the meetings. Williams said that they only mentioned Jackson's name to give their plot more credibility. Jackson's performance during the series itself lends further credence to his assertions.<sup>[14]</sup> A 1993 article in <i>The American Statistician</i> reported the results of a statistical analysis of Jackson's contribution during the 1919 World Series, and concluded that there was "substantial support to Jackson's subsequent claims of innocence".<sup>[24]</sup>
An article in the September 2009 issue of <i>Chicago Lawyer</i> magazine argued that Eliot Asinof's 1963 book <i>Eight Men Out</i>, purporting to confirm Jackson's guilt, was based on inaccurate information; for example, Jackson never confessed to throwing the Series as Asinof claimed. Further, Asinof omitted key facts from publicly available documents such as the 1920 grand jury records and proceedings of Jackson's successful 1924 lawsuit against Comiskey to recover back pay for the 1920 and 1921 seasons. Asinof's use of fictional characters within a supposedly non-fiction account added further questions about the historical accuracy of the book.<sup>[25]</sup>
Jackson remains on MLB's ineligible list, which automatically precludes his election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1989, MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti declined to reinstate Jackson because the case was "now best given to historical analysis and debate as opposed to a present-day review with an eye to reinstatement."<sup>[26]</sup>
In November 1999, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution lauding Jackson's sporting achievements and encouraging MLB to rescind his ineligibility. The resolution was symbolic, since the U.S. government has no jurisdiction in the matter. Commissioner Bud Selig stated at the time that Jackson's case was under review, but no decision was issued during Selig's tenure.<sup>[27]</sup>
In 2015, the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum formally petitioned Commissioner Rob Manfred for reinstatement, on grounds that Jackson had "more than served his sentence" in the 95 years since his banishment by Landis. Manfred denied the request after an official review. "The results of this work demonstrate to me that it is not possible now, over 95 years since those events took place and were considered by Commissioner Landis, to be certain enough of the truth to overrule Commissioner Landis' determinations", he wrote.<sup>[26]</sup>
![[Image: 220px-1920_Babe_Ruth_and_Shoeless_Joe.jpg]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1920_Babe_Ruth_and_Shoeless_Joe.jpg)
There are no citations following the claims in bold.
