[Archive]

Posted By: howard

Much of what you hear from Joe Jackson defenders is only partly true or not true at all. For one thing he was not a simple minded country bumpkin. Perhaps he was naive when he entered the bigs, like any other player, but by the time of the scandal he was a grown man who had been around the block a few times. He was probably not a stupid man as evidenced by the fact that he was able to run a business after his ball playing days. Yes he batted .375 & was not charged w/an error in the series but look at the situations. In the three games the Sox won (games they likely did not try to throw) he was 6 for 11. In the other games he was 6 for 21 and in one of those games (game 8) he got two hits when the game was already out of hand. Another hit in a thrown game (game 4) was a fly ball that Edd Roush seemingly should have caught. He clearly hit much better when it "counted" then when it did not. In addition, there were questions at the time about his lackadisical efforts on some plays in the field.

Comparisons to Speaker & Cobb are not fair. There was no evidence that they fixed games. Letters produced by Dutch leonard alluded only to betting. Notions of a fix were voiced solely by Leonard who had an axe to grind w/both Cobb & Speaker. As opponents in 1914 Cobb deliberately spiked Leonard after forcing him to cover first by bunting. Later when Cobb was his manager they did not get along & Leonard was outraged when he was put on waivers. He was also angry at former friend Speaker because as manager of the Indians Speaker did not claim him off waivers.

I have no problem w/putting Jackson in the Hall (or Pete Rose) but not because he was "innocent" but because he was one of the all time greats.