Pete got hosed for years imo but Joe Jackson is another story. He helped throw a World Series while taking mafia money.
Dispute over Jackson's guilt
Babe Ruth and Joe Jackson in 1920
Jackson's involvement in the scandal remains controversial to this day. He reportedly refused the $5,000 bribe twice—even though it would effectively double his salary—only to have teammate
Lefty Williams toss the cash on the floor of his hotel room. Jackson then tried to tell White Sox owner
Charles Comiskey about the fix. Still, Comiskey refused to meet with him.
[29] Unable to afford legal counsel, Jackson was represented by team attorney Alfred Austrian—a clear conflict of interest. Before Jackson's
grand jury testimony, Austrian allegedly elicited Jackson's admission of his supposed role in the fix by plying him with whiskey.
[21] Austrian also persuaded the nearly illiterate Jackson to sign a waiver of immunity from prosecution.
[29]
Years later, the other seven players implicated in the scandal confirmed that Jackson was never at any meetings. Williams said they only mentioned Jackson's name to give their plot more credibility, although he did not say why Jackson would have been paid $5,000 had that been the case. Jackson's performance during the series itself lends further credence to his assertions, although the game records show that he hit far better during the "clean" games than those thrown.
[21] A 1993 article in
The American Statistician reported the results of a statistical analysis of Jackson's contribution during the 1919 World Series and concluded that there was "substantial support to Jackson's subsequent claims of innocence".
[30]
An article in the September 2009 issue of
Chicago Lawyer magazine argued that
Eliot Asinof's 1963 book
Eight Men Out, purporting to confirm Jackson's guilt, was based on inaccurate information. For example, Jackson never confessed to throwing the series as Asinof claimed. Further, Asinof omitted key facts from publicly available documents, such as the 1920 grand jury records and proceedings of Jackson's successful 1924 lawsuit against Comiskey to recover back pay for the 1920 and 1921 seasons. Asinof's use of fictional characters within a supposedly non-fiction account also damaged the book's historical accuracy.
[31]
In 1989, MLB Commissioner
A. Bartlett Giamatti declined to reinstate Jackson because the case was "now best given to historical analysis and debate as opposed to a present-day review with an eye to reinstatement."
[32] In November 1999, the
U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution lauding Jackson's sporting achievements and encouraging MLB to rescind his ineligibility. The resolution was symbolic since the U.S. government had no jurisdiction in the matter, and Jackson died in 1951, some 48 years earlier. Commissioner
Bud Selig stated that Jackson's case was under review, but no decision was issued during Selig's tenure.
[33] In 2015, the
Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum formally petitioned Commissioner
Rob Manfred for reinstatement, on grounds that Jackson had "more than served his sentence" in the 95 years since his banishment by Landis. Manfred denied the request after an official review, writing: "The results of this work demonstrate to me that it is not possible now, over 95 years since those events took place and were considered by Commissioner Landis, to be certain enough of the truth to overrule Commissioner Landis' determinations".
[32]
In 2020, ESPN reported that MLB had shifted its policy and that the league "has no hold on banned players after they die because the ineligible list bars players from privileges that include a job with a major league club." It is unclear how that might affect Jackson's Hall of Fame prospects.
[34]
On May 13, 2025, Manfred announced that MLB had changed its policy such that all players were removed from the permanently ineligible list upon death. With this decision, Jackson was once more eligible for the Hall of Fame.
[35] Jackson, along with other reinstated players, will be eligible for consideration by the Hall of Fame's Classic Baseball Era Committee in 2027.
[36]
Career statistics
See
baseball statistics for an explanation of these statistics.
| G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | R | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | FP |
|---|
| 1,332 | 4,981 | 1,772 | 307 | 168 | 54 | 873 | 785 | 519 | 158 | .356 | .423 | .517 | .964 |
Later life
Jackson and his wife Katie on their wedding day in 1908
During the remaining 20 years of his baseball career, Jackson played with and
managed several semi-professional teams, most located in
Georgia and
South Carolina, under assumed names.
[37] In 1922, Jackson moved to
Savannah, Georgia, and opened a
dry cleaning business with his wife.
In 1933, the Jacksons moved back to
Greenville, South Carolina. After opening a barbecue restaurant, Jackson and his wife opened "Joe Jackson's Liquor Store", which they operated until his death. One of the better-known stories of Jackson's post-major league life occurred at the store.
Ty Cobb and sportswriter
Grantland Rice entered the store, with Jackson showing no sign of recognition of Cobb. After making his purchase, Cobb finally asked Jackson, "Don't you know me, Joe?" Jackson replied, "Sure, I know you, Ty, but I wasn't sure you wanted to know me. A lot of them don't."
[38]
As he aged, Jackson began to suffer from heart trouble. In 1951, at the age of 64, he died of a
heart attack.
[37] Jackson was the first of the eight banned players to die and is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Greenville.
[39] He had no children, but he and his wife raised two of his nephews.
Babe Ruth and Joe Jackson in 1920
Jackson and his wife Katie on their wedding day in 1908
