As Major League Baseball prepares for the post-season and World Series, it is important that we look back at one of baseball's greatest players and the events of 1919. The scandal surrounding the World Series that year would forever change the face of professional sports. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's professional career was abruptly ended after being banned from baseball in 1921 for his alleged part in fixing the World Series of 1919. I hope to shed some light on Joe's life in and out of baseball and describe the events surrounding his banishment.
             Joseph Jefferson Jackson was born in Pickens County, South Carolina in 1888. In 1901, at the age of 13 after he worked in a textile mill for 7 years, Joe began playing baseball for the company team. At age 20 he turned professional by playing for Greenville of the Carolina Association, and then briefly for the Philadelphia Athletics of the Major League Baseball Association. (Joe Jackson Timeline, 2002). Joe Jackson was nicknamed "Shoeless Joe" in 1908 when he was playing for his hometown Greenville team. The new baseball cleats that he was wearing hurt his feet so much that he went to bat in the middle of the game in his stocking feet. Upon reaching third base after his triple an opposing fan yelled, " You shoeless son of a gun you!" The nickname, not liked by Joe, stuck with him (Frequently Asked Questions, 2002). In 1911, a year after being traded to Cleveland, he played his first full year of baseball. There he batted an astounding .408, the highest ever by a rookie. In 1915 Joe was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Two years later Joe batted .307, having led the White Sox to victory over the New York Giants in the World Series (Joe Jackson Timeline, 2002). The White Sox at that time were better known as the "Black Sox." This was not because of any improprieties but because their uniforms were always dirty. Owner Charles Comiskey was cha...