Rob Manfred Refuses to Reinstate Shoeless Joe Jackson

The proprietors of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in Greenville, South Carolina have been unsuccessful in appealing to baseball commissioner Rob Manfred for Jackson’s reinstatement from baseball’s Permanently Ineligible List. Jackson was permanently banned from the game in 1921 by then commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis for his role in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, as one of eight Chicago White Sox players who conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series that year to the heavy underdog Cincinnati Reds.

Jackson who died in 1951, confessed to getting $5000 from the gamblers, but he insisted he did nothing to help the Sox lose. The numbers, at least, back him up. Jackson hit .375 with a home run, two doubles, and six RBIs in eight games (it was a best of nine series) and committed no errors in the field. Jackson hit .356 lifetime, third on the all time list behind Ty Cobb (.366) and Rogers Hornsby (.359).

Jackson’s proponents believe he is innocent of the charges that he helped fix the series, and that he should be reinstated so he could be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. While the Hall of Fame is a separate entity from Major League Baseball, since 1991 it has been the Hall’s policy that those on the Ineligible List are also ineligible for entry into the Hall of Fame. Manfred basically decided that he saw no reason to go against the decisions of previous commissioners who also declined to remove Jackson from the ineligible list, that Jackson received few Hall of Fame votes before the 1991 Hall policy was instituted, and that it is essentially ancient history. It’s possible the Hall of Fame could make an exception to the policy and let Jackson in, but don’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

In a related matter, Manfred upheld the ban on White Sox third baseman Buck Weaver back in July. Weaver insisted he did not participate in the fix, but did admit to knowing about it. He was banned by Landis for failing to come forward with this knowledge, and Manfred upheld that decision.