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ironhorse

Shoeless Joe

April 14, 2005 at 03:05PM View formatted

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[color=Black]Should Joe Jackson be in the hall?[/color] Hey folks, it's the Horse once again. On today's question, should shoeless joe get into the hall has been asked over and over again for over half a century. Yes he had a part in the 1919 fix. However, according to data that has been revised, Joe didn't help his team lose. As a matter of fact he batted .375, had a record of 13 hits, with one being counted as an error, and above all he made no errors. Mathewson was one of the scorers and even said later that he saw him do nothing wrong in comparision to his other teammates. On Joe's role however, it is uncertain for sure. Some argue that he did not fully understand what he was getting himself into (it was actually found out later that he was boarderline retarded) and he got caught up. This is the most used agruement in his defense. Some though, claim that he knew completely what was going on and played both sides of the table, meaning that he took the money and played with brillance, as he had always done in the field and at bat and choose to not look bad. Yes, it is a cardinal sin in baseball to "fix" ball games and go to BALCO for performance inhancement. However, we must remember that the game then was actually crooked with management trying to cheat players for their own benefit. Jackson claimed that he himself went to Comiskey and tried to tell him what had happened and wanted to give him the money that he recieved but was turned away by his secretary. In the movie 8 men out, we see D.B Sweeney playing Jackson as a guy conflicted as to what to do. In reality, we don't know what was going through Jackson's mind as the events in question occured, we only know that he claimed he was innocent. Yet, in a 1949 interview, he admits to throwing the series. Although i still think he is innocent, i think that he admitted to wrong doing to perhaps persuade the commissioner that he was sorry for what he did and wanted another chance. Think of Rose (but rose actually did bet and lie about it for years and then came clean not too long ago). He batted .356 in over 4,000 plus ab's. He was 30 when the lively ball era began and had for the first time over 100 rbi's (121), and he reached double figures in homers (12), and banged out 20 triples. Honestly, he could have challenged Wahoo Sam's record in that department. He was actually when you think about it beginning to reach his full potential and making up for short seasons stat wise. Who knows, he might have won a batting title, finally. Everyone from Cobb to Ruth, Lajoie to Collins, and later Williams said that he was a great hitter, and looking at his numbers, if he was allowed to play his career out, the 1920's might have let him make up for the 1908-10, 15 &18 seasons, and maybe a chance for over 2,700 hits. Unfortunately, we will never know, and as you can see, this seems pretty biased. Let me know, should Bud finally give Joe the nod? :cool2:
drunkengoat

April 14, 2005 at 03:36PM View BBCode

Feh, time heals all wounds, at least I believe it ought to.

Time to just unban Rose, unban Jackson, put em in the Hall, and let everyone shut up about it. They had the ability as players, and everyone is going to remember their fuck ups, so remember the player for what he did on the field...

This, however, is not condoning the idea that players who use steroids should be included, because this directly affects how a player performs on the field. Science now is able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt as to whether or not a player uses performance enhancing drugs to improve his game; there is more than a reasonable doubt as to whether Shoeless Joe actually did contribute to the loss in the 1919 World Series, so these cases can't really be compared. I just felt like covering all my bases here.
lvnwrth

April 14, 2005 at 04:26PM View BBCode

Jackson's place in baseball lore is secure. No need to put him in the Hall of Fame. He's been dead a long time.

Rose is acknowledged as the all-time hits leader...even if he did play for 3-4 years after he was totally worthless and hurting his team in order to reach that goal. Again, his position in baseball lore is secure. No need to put him in the Hall. Your position on steroids can pretty easily be applied to Rose. There is very little doubt that he bet on baseball.
nextyearcubs

April 18, 2005 at 05:34PM View BBCode

Steroids and betting on, or fixing ballgames... two different things. If a game is fixed, why bother watching it? Gambling threatens the very relevance of having games in the first place, killing the sport.
Taking steroids is cheating to get better, much like corking a bat or using an emery board, just on a much broader, unseen scale. Its horrible, but it doesn't threaten the relevance of a contest, because anyone from pitchers to hitters could juice and we don't know exactly who... I don't think anyone would have pegged Alex Sanchez as a juicer. The game itself is still relevant as a contest because both teams are trying to win, and taking steroids is a product of that.
On that, I still think that gamblers shouldn't be allowed in the Hall. Pete Rose knew what he was doing, he knew the consequences, and did it anyways. He lied about it for over a decade, and when he came clean, he did it in a way to maximize his own personal gain from it, and made no apologies for it. He isn't sorry for gambling, he's sorry for getting caught.

Joe Jackson was probably a victim of his own ignorance, but at the same time he did accept money... It is entirely possible, though, that he could have had decent numbers and still not gone all out on purpose in situations where it really counted. I mean, if he had initially agreed to a fix, but failed to do so, does anyone really think the high rollers who put up the cash and placed the bets wouldn't be above directing a little violence his way? If they had all that money to lose, I think they probably would have threatened Jackson into compliance... I don't know, that's just my own speculation, if he'd agreed to a fix, they'd have made sure he came through to their satisfaction.
Eddie Collins played for that team and made the Hall, ditto Red Faber (although he didn't pitch that series) because they weren't in on the fix, so its not like the Hall negectled the whole team.
Eddie Cicotte probably would have made the Hall from that team, but nobody has this sentiment for him, and he pitched two CG's and had a 2.91 ERA... 7 ERs in 21.2 IP, which isn't terrible either.

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