Shoeless Joe Jackson The controversy surrounding the 1919 World Series is most confusing in regards to Shoeless Joe Jackson. The facts (the conspirators' recollections and Jackson's World Series statistics) indicate that Jackson had no involvement with the fix other than being aware that it was going on. "Shoeless Joe" Jackson was on his way to becoming a baseball legend when he was caught up in the Black Sox scandal and banned from the league. (CHS SDN 58463-A) Joe Jackson grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, a town where the men, women, and children worked in cotton mills. Mill life was rough and turnover in the work force was a constant problem for mill owners. The owners discovered that forming baseball teams helped hold their workers. Baseball helped stimulate a sense of community spirit. People of all ages showed up to cheer their favorite mill team and soon the Textile League was established. In 1902, at the age of thirteen, Jackson went to work sweeping floors in the same cotton mill where his father and brother worked. Before long the managers of the Brandon Mill team asked him to play ball. By the time he was sixteen, Jackson was the best-known player in the Textile League and a local hero. He was a natural ball player. He hit home runs, caught seemingly impossible high flies, and could throw the ball more than four hundred feet on the fly. The fans came to watch Jackson play and he never let them down.

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Al Capone - Chicago Black Sox - A Century of Progress - Chicago Fire
The World's Columbian Exposition - Parades, Protests and Politics
The Pullman Era - The Stockyards
Fort Dearborn (Coming Soon!)

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