Shoeless Who?

Dylan Bumbarger

I am not much of a movie buff. Jurassic Park, Lost World, Titanic, Pulp Fiction -- I have never seen any of these. Growing up, the nearest movie theater was ten miles and an international boundary away. I do rent the occasional odd video, but my tastes are, well, obscure. My cable system gives me Starz and Encore for free, but one only runs The Horse Whisperer and the other only runs some godawful movie with George Burns and Brooke Shields.

Because I'm not a movie buff, I've only seen Ray Liotta and D. B. Sweeney act in one movie apiece. But even with this small sample, I can conclude that they are two of the greatest actors of our time. Not because they're on the verge of winning Oscars, but because they're on the verge of winning something more important: enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Oh, sure, the name on the plaque at Cooperstown will say Shoeless Joe Jackson, but let's not kid ourselves about who the Veterans Committee will have voted for, after Bud Selig inevitably lifts the ban on him, under pressure from Tom Harkin and others. In the end, Joe Jackson will be honored for Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams. What else could it be?

It can't be his memory; even Bob Dole, who forgot that the Dodgers left Brooklyn, is too young to have seen him play. His statistics? Maybe, but my guess is a lot of the people driving the reinstatement movement don't know much about his statistics, only that he was a great player. Guilty feelings about illiteracy, perhaps?

Both movies claim that "Shoeless Joe really didn't know what he was doing when he agreed to throw the Series, and since he was the leading hitter in the Series, he played to win anyway." (Of course, one movie also claims that disembodied voices and ghosts roam Iowa cornfields, and Joe Jackson speaks like he belongs on Broadway, when he probably really sounded like he belonged in the pit crew on some NASCAR track, but never mind).

First, to me this isn't a convincing argument. He took money from gamblers to play less than at his best. That he double-crossed them doesn't make him more honorable. Heck, Rose was banned for less than this.

Second, I just reread Eight Men Out, the book, keeping an eye on the parts about Jackson, and the evidence doesn't support this. The Black Sox didn't give Weaver his money, because it was obvious from the start that he was playing to win. There was no hesitation that I could detect giving it to Jackson.

Then there was the off-season. Charles Comiskey, before trying to cover the whole thing up, decided to get rid of the seven Black Sox who betrayed. That, again, excludes Buck Weaver, and includes Jackson. So the players and management certainly didn't think he played all-out. Not to mention that he confessed in court, and that he allegedly asked for double when the idea was first proposed to him. This evidence does not point to someone who is totally innocent.

How could even his most ardent supporters overlook this? I get the feeling most of his supporters don't even know anything about that, just that he hit .375 in the 1919 World Series. If not, why are they supporting him? What, exactly are they honoring? Baseball, not just Commissioner Landis, judged him guilty in 1921, and for us to overturn that now is like history forgiving O. J. in 2075, so we need very solid reasoning to do this. To me, that reasoning just isn't there.

But maybe his supporters would be willing to overlook all that, saying that eighty years in baseball prison is long enough, no matter what he did. If so, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Kindness and compassion are wonderful traits.

But I think in the interest of fairness, before any decision on reinstatement is made, we need to contact Oliver Stone. Commission him to do a movie with Alan Rickman or Michael Ironside or some other perpetual bad guy as Jackson, and have him do something really terrible, like convince the government to take Kinsella's cornfield, or inspire Pepsi to make more commercials. Only then will we know that it's Shoeless Joe Jackson who the people support, and not some movie star.

about the author

Dylan Bumbarger can't sleep because "the voice" keeps telling him to "lance his boil." Try to help figure that one out at db@strikethree.com.