"Shoeless" Joe Jackson, 7 other "Black Sox" reinstated by MLB; how they got banned for fixing 1919 World Series
"Shoeless" Joe Jackson and seven other members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox were reinstated by Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday, alongside former Cincinnati Reds star Pete Rose, making them eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jackson was a .356 career hitter, ranking the fourth-highest career batting average of all time. He was among eight White Sox players banned by MLB for throwing the 1919 World Series in the infamous "Black Sox" scandal. He died in 1951, but he remains one of baseball's most recognizable names in part for his depiction by Ray Liotta in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.
The other seven former White Sox players who have been removed from MLB's permanent ineligibility list include first baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil, pitcher Eddie Cicotte, center fielder Oscar "Happy" Felsch, infielder Fred McMullin, shortstop Charles "Swede" Risberg, third baseman George "Buck" Weaver, and pitcher Claude "Lefty" Williams.
They were accused of taking bribes from gambling concerns to intentionally lose the World Series that year against the Cincinnati Reds. The scandal ultimately led to the appointment of the first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who banned the implicated White Sox players despite their acquittal on criminal charges.
"Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ballgame, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball," Landis wrote.
While Jackson admitted to taking $5,000 cash from gamblers, he testified that he never did anything to throw any of the games in the World Series. While some of his teammates admitted to fixing games, Weaver denied any involvement, though admitted he knew about it. He unsuccessfully applied for reinstatement into MLB in 1922, to no avail.
Jackson batted .375 with the only home run for either team in the World Series, and Weaver batted .324, with neither committing any fielding errors, lending credence to their claims they weren't in on the fix.
Whether or not Landis' punishments were fair or reasonable has remained a debated issue. But, as SABR's Bill Lamb once noted, "Game-fixing virtually disappeared from the major-league landscape after that penalty was imposed on the Black Sox."
Rose's reinstatement comes eight months after his death, and a day before the Reds have planned to honor MLB's career hits leader with Pete Rose Night.
Manfred announced Tuesday that he was changing the league's policy on permanent ineligibility, saying bans would expire at death. Rose and the Black Sox were among 17 total players and executives reinstated.
Under the Hall of Fame's current rules, the earliest Rose or Jackson could be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame would be in 2028.
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