Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean
I read another good book on the scandal about 15 years ago: Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball. The author apologized way too much for Joe's actions, but it included a copy of Joe's grand jury testimony.
Joe was asked by the D.A. whether he hit, fielded, ran the bases, etc. with the intent to win at all times, and each time Joe answered that yes, he did.
About 5 pages later Joe was asked if he took part in a meeting with gamblers in which throwing the Series was discussed. Joe replied that he did. He was asked if he was promised money to throw the Series. Joe said that he was promised $10,000, but that he only received $5000. "We got the screw" was his exact quote. 
Jackson appeared to believe he hadn't done anything wrong because, although he took the bribe and conspired to lose, he had actually played to win, making him either really dumb or really naive IMHO. |
I am familiar with the book you mentioned. I have not read it, but that was one of the choices I looked at when I was looking for a Shoeless Joe book. I ultimately went with the book I did because the reviews talked continually about how the David Fleitz book goes down a far different road than Eight Men Out or Field of Dreams in that it doesn't paint Shoeless Joe as a saint or a martyr, but provides a lot more balanced profile of the man's positives and negatives.
One of the points the Fleitz book really drove home was that Shoeless Joe may have been an illiterate country boy, but he definitely understood what money was and was motivated by such a fact. The grand jury testimony of Jackson that susbsequently disappeared always seems very damning. A lot of Shoeless Joe books and movies simply gloss over that fact.