Morris’s own Shoeless Joe roots for White Sox legend to go into the Hall of Fame

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced in early May that Shoeless Joe Jackson would be one of a few players to have their lifetime ban from the game removed.

Although Jackson passed away in 1951, this opens the door to right a wrong Morris resident Joe Schmitz believes should have been corrected almost a century ago – Shoeless Joe Jackson can go into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Schmitz serves on the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum Advisory staff, and he’s met members of the White Sox legend’s family and the museum curator. He even got to wear Jackson’s 1917 World Series championship ring. That year, the White Sox defeated the New York Giants in six games.

“I got invited down to the game where [a team representing] the Shoeless Joe Museum plays the Ty Cobb Museum,” Schmitz said. “They play by the old rules. The umpire sits in a chair behind the pitcher’s mound with a top hat on. It was really interesting.”

Schmitz traveled with his friend, Guy Christensen, and they played on the field that Jackson grew up playing on at Brandon Mills in Greenville, South Carolina.

“He started working at the mills when he was 6 years old,” Schmitz said. “That’s why he was illiterate. By the time he was 13, he could play baseball so well that they started him on the Brandon Mills baseball team. All the cotton mills down there in South Carolina and Georgia had their own teams.”

Jackson worked at the mill with his father, and they both played on the team. Schmitz said that even at that age, Jackson was a great player. His home runs were known as “Saturday specials,” his line drives as “blue darters,” and other players called wherever he was playing in the outfield “where triples go to die.”

“He was such a good defensive outfielder and hitter,” Schmitz said. “I mean, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Ted Williams all patterned their stances off of him. Babe Ruth said he was the greatest hitter ever.”

According to Baseball Almanac, Ruth was in fact a big fan of Jackson.

“I thought [Joe Jackson] was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw,” Ruth said, according to Baseball Almanac. “He’s the guy who made me a hitter. I copied his swing.”

Jackson’s great hitting translated beyond the regular season in 1919 into the World Series. He led both teams with a batting average of .375, hit the series’ only home run, and set what was at the time the record for hits in the World Series with 12. Jackson didn’t commit any errors, and he was acquitted in court by a jury.

To Schmitz, that doesn’t look like the statistics of a player who threw the World Series, although he did receive $5,000 from a teammate, Lefty Williams. Williams received $10,000 for throwing the World Series, and he was Jackson’s roommate.

“Jackson tried not to take it, but Lefty Williams left $5,000 of his $10,000 he received on the bed when he made his exit from the hotel,” Schmitz said. “Joe took the $5,000 off the bed.”

Williams and Jackson were two of the eight players banned from baseball despite all eight being acquitted in court. The other players were first baseman Chick Gandil, pitcher Eddie Cicotte, center fielder Happy Felsch, backup infielder Fred McMullin, shortstop Swede Risberg and third baseman Buck Weaver.

Schmitz said “The Ginger Kid” by Irvin M. Stein, about Buck Weaver, is one of his favorite books. He said Weaver has a sad story of his own.

The World Series that year was nine games instead of seven due to the shortened season because it took place during World War I.

The White Sox were down 4-1 in the series when the gamblers started waffling about the money, and Cicotte and Dickey Kerr, another pitcher, each won the next two games.

“Now the gamblers are getting nervous, and they threaten – according to Williams, who is pitching Game 8 at Comiskey Park – they threaten to kill his wife,” Schmitz said. “They had too much money involved at that time. He threw the game.”

“The commissioner of baseball then, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, threw Joe and seven other members out of baseball for life regardless of the court’s decision,” Schmitz said. “That couldn’t happen today and shouldn’t have happened then.”

Williams and Cicotte received $10,000 each to throw the series at a time when the best players in the league might make $10,000 for a whole season. Cicotte was the second highest paid player in the league with a $15,000 salary, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.

Cicotte made $8,000, Weaver made $7,250, Schalk made $7,083 and Jackson made $6,000. According to the Society for American Baseball Research, the gamblers were paying the players in $20,000 installments for each loss during the World Series.

Despite Jackson taking the money, he still performed well in the World Series, as he did the rest of his career. He had a career .356 batting average and led the league in hits twice in 1912 and 1913 while playing for Cleveland.

One statistic today’s players are held to is WAR, or wins above replacement. According to MLB, WAR is a formula meant to put a number on how many wins a player is worth above the average player at his position.

Jackson was worth 62.2 WAR over his career, and he was good for 7.5 WAR in his final season in the league, post-Black Sox, in 1920. He hadn’t yet been banned from baseball.

To put that number into perspective, current Mets outfielder Juan Soto was good for 7.9 WAR last season with the Yankees, which was good for sixth in the league.

“Shoeless Joe belongs in the Hall of Fame,” Schmitz said. “He was a great player, a great hitter, and I hope I live long enough to see him get there.”

Jackson’s next chance at the Baseball Hall of Fame comes in 2027, when the Eras Committee votes again. If they decide to induct him into the Hall of Fame, he will be inducted with the Class of 2028.

The Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum is at 356 Field St., Greenfield, South Carolina, and it is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.