Joe Jackson Barnstorming Photo

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Now that this has ended we can talk about it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1923-JOE-JACKSON-Negro-Baseball-Barnstorming-Photo_W0QQitemZ5228869416QQcategoryZ50129QQssPageN ameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This is an unbelievable photo, where'd you find it Rhys? How many different post 1920 team photos exist with Jackson?

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Let's not talk about it...it just makes those of us on a budget cry!

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Posted By: Mike H

That doesn't look a whole lot like Joe Jackson to me. Am I alone in this? In fact, it doesn't look at all like him. A persons ears don't move and get smaller as they get older.

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Posted By: Rhys

It came from a local Ohio estate and was from the family of the team owner named Perry marks. I got several e mails about the photo, about 20 people said it was definetly him, including some who certainly would know and some auction houses as well, and 2 people thought it was not him. What you have to remember about this picture is that it is 1923 which is three years after he was banned from baseball. I spent hours and hours making phone calls and trying to contact people in Zainesville Ohio to do as much research as I could (all of which was on the ebay description) and after coming to an impasse because of the problem with assumed names and lack of newspaper accounts of these games I decided to list it on ebay. I am convinced it is him, and my research indicates that it is most likely him as well. When you start to add up the circumstantial evidence surrounding the piece the odds are very heavily in favor of it being Jackson, but as the item said, I have no concrete proof mostly because of the assumed name problems. I was figuring about $700-$1,000 so others obviously share my opinion on the picture.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

I think Rhys is pretty up front about everything..and with photography technology and my familiarity with lens distortion from that era, it might be possible that the camera more than anything else accounts for the discrepency. Probably him, possibly not, but then again, if everyone (or at least enough people) think it's him...then it's not much different.

BlackSoxFan

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Posted By: scgaynor

Definitely looks like him, the ears, nose and eyebrows give him away.

Scott

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Posted By: Rhys

If I had any intention of misleading anyone I would not have put up close up pictures which enlarged his head about 10 times so people could see every wrinkle under his eyes. I think that it is him and my research indicates that it most likely is, but there is nothing you can do with items like this except let people make their own decisions. I went to great lengths with my research on this, and I contacted everyone including the people who operate the Joe Jackson websites and the experts on him and although not all were in agreement on whether or not it might be him, there was noconsensus that it was not him or else I would not have sold it. This photo was shown to at least 50 people before I sold it and the consensus was that it could very well be, but nobody could say for sure 100% one way or another. After all the research I could do and no more experts to show it to, I felt comfortable listing it and I stand behind that. If you do not personally think it is Joe, that is completely fine and others probably agree with you, but judging from all the hours of research I have put in and the countless people I have shown it to, that opinion is in the minority.

All you can do with an item like this is lay it all out there and make sure there are large scans and let people decide if they want it or not based on what they read and see and feel. I tried my best to do that and I think my item description was very upfront about the research I had and the facts that were still missing for 100% verification.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

agreed

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Posted By: Brian

Looks like Joe to me. What an amazing photo!

I wonder what he was thinking at that moment...

Brian

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Posted By: joe brennan

I also watched this piece soar above my budget. Great piece Rhys. I also want to thank Rhys and Scott for helping me add to my collection. I purchased a neat 1868 print of the Harvard 9 from Rhys and Scott is the one I purchased my newest T206, that SGC 40 Cobb that I posted earlier. Thanks Guys. Joe



"I had the right to remain silent. I just didn't have the ability" Ron White

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

yes joe, but did you cry and scream like i did! I must have shot at least three people during Grand Theft Auto to get out my anger! LOL

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Posted By: Craig

The guy standing 4th from the right, next to the black player looks a lot like Sam Crawford. Any thoughts?

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

IMO there is no doubt that this is Joe Jackson in that photo.
When you consider that the guy standing to the right of Jackson is a dead ringer for Eddie Cicotte and the guy to his right is a dead ringer for Lefty Williams, and then you got a guy in the front row who is a dead ringer for Happy Felsch, and don't even mention the fact that the guy in the Army uniform is a dead ringer for Sam Crawford....well there's not much more you can say unless this Marks guy was running around the country with a bunch of impersonators.

edited to remove the Army reference because after further research I could not find a link between the Army and Crawford.

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Posted By: Mike H

Rhys, I was in no way questioning your ethics or knowledge of this piece. I was simply stating my oppinion regarding the likeness.

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Posted By: Joan

Joe Jackson is my all-time favorite and to answer Brian's question, I think he is thinking--MMM Hmm, Yes sir, these here jerseys are purty, REAL purty... and one of these days I'monna ask one of these here nice fellers what they says.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I pulled both of the pictures above and resized them to equalize head sizes. The salient features of the images line up--eyes, mouth--like whaty they do with facial recognition software. It is Jackson. Can't say about the others. Still, an amazing insight into what it must have been like for these guys after the scandal and banishment.



Above is the composite image made by reducing the opacity of one image 50% and putting it on the other one. Below are the two images side by side.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Now THAT is cool!

Can you morph me with Babe Ruth?

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

that his ears got so much smaller over the years.

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Posted By: Mike H

And his eyes moved closer together

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Once again, camera lenses make a difference gentleman!

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Posted By: MW

In my opinion, it's not Joe Jackson. Joe Jackson's eyes are further apart, his ears are much larger (relative to the size of his head -- see image below), and his nose is longer and shaped differently.

I don't think that's Lefty Williams, Eddie Cicotte or Hap Felsch either.

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Posted By: Josh Evans

Not Joe Jackson
Josh

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Posted By: DJ

This should be the newest voting topic.

Is it or isn't.

My vote is "ISN'T" as well. I don't think so.

I also believe Rhys to be one of the most honest dealers around.

DJ

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Posted By: Jim Crandell

There is no way that is Joe Jackson.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I don't believe that the player identified as Felsch in the photo is him. Felsch was a righty and that player has a lefthander's glove on.

I still think that Joe Jackson and Sam Crawford are in this photo.

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Posted By: HW

I do not think that it is Joe Jackson either.

I also find it hard to believe that if the famous Joe Jackson was going to play for a local team that there would not be corresponding news stories.

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Posted By: Rhys

There is a lot of evidence of Jackson in Ohio at this time playing for other company teams just like this one and sometimes it was publicized and sometimes it was not. He played under his real name sometimes in 1923 and under assumed names as well so Jackson got as much publicity as he wanted to get at this time.

People can think what they want of the photo, but as an attorney I could put on a much stronger case FOR this being Jackson than it not being Jackson based on the circumstantial evidence I have compiled on the team owner, where Jackson was at this time, the heights of the players, the other company teams he was playing for at this same time period etc. Like I said, people can think what they want but this item was shown to numerous people before it was even considered to be sold and the overwhelming consenus based on the info I had and the picture itself was that it was probably Jackson; and these were Jackson experts who would certainly know if it was not him.

Rhys

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

If this were not a team shot with "Jackson" taking up only a very small part of the photo, you might be correct that an oddball lense/angle shrunk his ears and pushed his eyes together.

We went through a similar process with Patrick's photo of "Honus Wagner" and based on that experience, there is only one thing that is certain: if someone examines these two photos closely and decides that it is Joe Jackson, nothing is going to change their mind.

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

My best uneducated subjective guess is no, principally because the person in the picture does not appear to have Jackson's very distinctive nose -- the nose is quite distinctive in both MW's Conlon card and in the inset photo. The difference in the set of the eyes and the ears is less persuasive but somewhat compelling as well.

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Posted By: Julie

This picture was taken 10 years earlier:


Oh--won it from Lelands.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Look at many of the close ups on http://www.blackbetsy.com/. I think the person in the photo is Jackson--too many similarities in the facial features.

Greg

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Posted By: Donald Johnson

In looking at that website, it does look like Jackson to me as well.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I'm not sure how old Jackson is in the two photos in this thread, but there is some time difference in them. Ballplayers from this era aged prematurely from spending every day in the spring, summer, and fall playing day games. Tris Speaker looked like he was 60 years old when he retired as a player. Eddie Collins same thing. Anyone ever seen Ty Cobb as a rookie? He doesn't even look like the same person just three years later.

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Posted By: Joan

i think it looks more like Carl Mays; this should be in the Carl Mays thread. His coconut is real big; too big... for Joe.

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Posted By: Mike H

In every picture from the black betsy site and here, his ears (cab doors) are as long as his nose or slightly longer than his nose. The lobes start between his upper lip and the tip of his nose also. This guy doesn't have big ears and they get bigger not smaller as you age.

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Posted By: Anonymous

In my expert opinion, this photo does not contain Joe Jackson, nor Lefty Williams. While I will agree there are some similarities in the two men, there are more differences in the two that lead me to my conclusion that this IS NOT Joe Jackson. Yes, Jackson played a few games in Ohio in 1923, but a very few...as he was in Bastrop, LA for the first part of their baseball season and then it was on to Americus, GA and to Waycross, GA. The key to proving this IS or IS NOT Joe Jackson lies with someone in Zanesville, OH. Someone there needs to go to the library and read the newspaper accounts of the day for the year 1923 (probably the Spring months of that year or after September of that year...because we know where he was in May, June, July, most of August and early September). I would need some sort of proof (newspaper accounts) before I would put my blessing on this being Joe Jackson. It is hard for me to believe someone paid that kind of money without hard proof.

It is my hope that someone here can prove me wrong. I would be happy to apologize to everyone here if I get the hard proof I'm looking for....as I am trying to track down where Jackson was before Bastrop, LA.......I know he played a few games in Ohio...as I said before....but it was a very few games...best I can tell (by timeline analysis).

And by the way....I don't see Wahoo Sam nor Hap in this photo either..........

Mike Nola
Official Historian
The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame Web Site
http://www.blackbetsy.com/
Home of the Joe Jackson model Louisville Slugger baseball bat offer.
The voice said "Build it and they will come".........and they have!!!!!

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

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Posted By: Anonymous

Well....I don't know it all....and sure don't claim to.....but I have analyzed this photo extensively and passed it on to Jackson family members as well as other Jackson experts. None of these folks think it's Joe Jackson and I even tried to sell it up to them that it was Joe (even though I did not believe it to be him)....just wanted to see what they would say..... Again, NONE of these folks thought it was Jackson. The ears were something everyone said when responding back to me. I have never heard of anyone's ears getting smaller as we grow older...in fact...I do believe the ears continue to grow!!!

Again...I would LOVE for someone to prove me wrong on this as that would put another piece in my puzzle as I search out everywhere Jackson played post-banishment. So, if someone is in the Zanesville, OH area....would love to hear from them with information proving that Jackson did INDEED play for this team.

I'm not waiting by my email box for that though................

Mike
Official Historian
The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame Web Site
http://www.blackbetsy.com/
Home of the Joe Jackson model Louisville Slugger baseball bat offer.
The voice said "Build it and they will come".........and they have!!!!!

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Posted By: Anonymous

I just went back to the eBay listing and looked at some of the comments.

Someone there thought Eddie Cicotte is in that photo......WRONG. Ole Knuckles ain't in that photo. The one that got me though was someone thought the third player from the right, first row was Happy Felsch. If you will notice that guy has a glove on the right hand...with the ball in the left. Felsch threw right handed.......even if the guy looked like Hap...which he doesn't....that little tidbit should tip you off that it ain't Hap.

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Posted By: scgaynor

You should ask the family if they know who this guy is, since the guy in the "Mark" photo has either the same mother or the same father as Shoeless Joe. It seems like too much of a coincidence for two guys that ugly to be playing Baseball at the same time, and in the same state no less.

How many of the family members actually met him before he died 54 years ago, or do they know him only from the same pictures that we see.

I think that the big floppy ears match up just fine, it is just that the images were taken from different angles. The nose is dead on, as are the eyebrows, bags under the eyes, cleft chin and even the lines below his cheeks. If it is not Joe, I feel sorry for the poor bastard who was unfortunate enough to be his twin.

Scott

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I still think it's Jackson as well. Someone emailed me last night and said that there was no way that the photo had Lefty Williams in it either because the guy who is purported to be Williams in the photo has an earlobe and there are no known photos of Williams that show he has an earlobe. If anyone out there has a copy of Eight Men Out by Asinof there is a Brace photo in the book that clearly shows Lefty Williams has an earlobe. I seriously think there are so many things going for this photo to be genuine that it would be a statistical oddity to have four men on the same team who all resemble former major leaguers.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Trust me......I want this to be Joe Jackson more than anyone here...except maybe the guy that paid that huge amount of cash for it.....for my own personal reasons.....but I simply do not see Jackson in this man.....Again...I agree there are some mannerisms about the way he stands and all that do remind me of Joe Jackson. But when I compare the photos I have of Joe Jackson in 1923 from all different camera angles....I simply don't see it. The Jackson family members all knew Joe (obviously not from this time...but later in life.....and you'd think even years later they would be able to recognize one of their own....and NONE of them did). Neither did any of the other Jackson experts around the country when contacted.

Again....please understand.....not trying to be a naysayer here....I WANT it to be Jackson too......I really, really do and I am hoping someone brings me the proof I need....a newspaper article......a video interview from their great, great grandfather that saw Jackson play with this team.....something.

Come'on.....somebody out there reading this is within driving distance of Zanesville........do us and the guy that bought this thing a favor.....go read the newspaper accounts at the library and prove me wrong....... Again...I WANT to be proved wrong on this one.....I'll gladly apologize to everyone here....cause that will help me put another piece in my puzzle.........

Help a brotha out!!

Mike
Official Historian
The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame Web Site
http://www.blackbetsy.com/
Home of the Joe Jackson model Louisville Slugger baseball bat offer.
The voice said "Build it and they will come".........and they have!!!!!

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Posted By: Zach

I live no more than 40 or so minutes from Zanesville so I may be able to make a trip to there. Not saying anything for sure but I should know by the end of tonight. Does anyone know the libraries or possibly the historical societies phone number so I can call to ask their hours ? Thanks

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Posted By: Chris Counts

I've been following this subject for the past two days and it is fascinating. On a whim, I called the Zanesville Press Recorder and talked to an editor. I related to him the suggestions on this board that someone research the 1923 Zanesville box scores and game stories. He was aware of the controversy, but had only seen Shoeless Joe's photo, which evidentally was cropped from the team photo and e-mailed to him. He said mine was the second call today he received about Shoeless Joe. I gave him the web address of this forum, so hopefully he'll at least take a look. By the way, he related another curious fact about the Zanesville ball club — Whitey Wietelmann was a big star for the team in the mid 20s. Whitey later was a middle infielder for the Braves (Bees?) in the mid-40s, but is best known as a longtime San Diego Padre player and coach, both in the PCL (player and coach) and majors (coach). He was so revered in San Diego that he earned the nickname "Mr. San Diego Baseball ... I think there is even a Mother's Cookies card of Whitey.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I called the Saunders County Museum in Wahoo, Nebraska today to ask them if they knew if Sam Crawford ever coached for the Army team or if he barnstormed for a Zanesville, Ohio team and they could not come up with anything for me showing he did either. Their timeline has him going straight from the Majors to the PCL then on to coaching at USC. I did a proquest search today and could not find any stories relating to Crawford and the Army. I did find in a proquest search that in January of 1923 he was opening a baseball college, but I could not get further information because proquest was not working right for me today and I could only access the headlines.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

said, they wished they had had the money to win the photo.
IF I had had the money, I would have wanted someone to show me that he played on that team in that state in 1923.
I didn't think the other two mentioned players looked like Felch and Williams, but I did think the "Joe" looked
like Joe. Especially the nose! But I wasn't sure, and there aren't any names on the photo...I think I would have passed, reluctantly.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

You would have made a wise decision.

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Posted By: Mike H

I agree. $2,800 for a picture that the experts and family don't believe is him, along with ears that are 20% too small, is a biiiig gamble.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Listening to all the controversy, i must say i'm glad I didn't bid on this item. I believe Rhy's to be an honest and straight forward seller...

I also believe that many people on here chimming in on this topic are like me, very uneducated...which is why i have stated my uneducated opinion as it is probably him but maybe not..... it is helpful to hear from real experts and i must say that from what i have heard from them it does not appear to be Jackson. I am glad i did not spend my money on this.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

I think most of the people commenting here are "educated" to some degree on this subject, just not "experts".

There are some on the board who deal with vintage photographs, and are photography buffs (actually have manual 35mm cameras with a variety of lenses and have been using them for 30+ years) - thus, know the effects that various lenses, angles, focus, etc., have on the final image. So it's not that difficult to make an educated guess based on various points on "Joe"'s face. The important thing is that ALL points must match, not just a bunch of them. You can't say "well, the nose, eyes, chin, all match up, and it really, really looks like him, so forget about the ears".

Also, it's imperative that the library research be done - I know Rhys, like him and trust him, but I think this is one of the first things a judge in his hypothetical case would ask. "So what did you find in the Zanesville newspaper microfiche?"

Finally, you have a Joe Jackson expert (blackbetsy website rep) commenting on this thread - his opinion is the same as many of the "uneducated" people you refer to.

But it's likely that Zanesville will turn up nothing, in which case it will be impossible for anyone to know definitely whether or not this is Joe Jackson. But we can argue and vote all day, and that is still fun.