With legalized sports gambling on the legislative agenda's in a lot of states right now, and more than likely will be legal nationwide within the next 5 years, I don't ever see the Baseball Hall of Fame ever saying it's OK for any player to fix a game or games, much less a World Series. I wouldn't be surprised within the next 20 years we don't actually see more players receive "lifetime" bans for fixing games if we do in fact see legalized sports gambling. The "lifetime" ban has to remain in effect and in full force as a deterrent, or they are just saying fixing games isn't that big of a deal.
Personally, I think Joe Jackson should be in the Hall of Fame, but the fact still remains that he did conspire to throw a World Series. It doesn't matter if he actually took money or not, what his batting average in the Series was, the bottom line is he was a member of a "conspiracy" to fix games for gamblers, and for that he was banned from the game for life.
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