Shoeless Joe Jackson
The man couldn’t read, but his soul keeps writing.
On March 30th and June 22nd of 2015, Arlene Marcley, President of the Shoe Joe Jackson Museum in Greenville, SC wrote letters to new Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, asking him to remove Jackson’s name from the list of players deemed ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
On July 20, 2015, Manfred answered the Museum’s request, refusing to take that action, citing his agreement with the statement of former Commissioner Bart Giamatti several years ago that “The Jackson Case is now best given to historical analysis and debate as opposed to a present-day review with an eye to reinstatement.”
President Marcley now states on the museum’s Facebook page that they have no plans to pursue the matter further. The letter from Manfred is also posted at this same link:
Several questions arise, however from Commissioner Manfred’s choice for inaction-as-his-plan-for-action in the Jackson case:
1) Since all of the major figures in the nearly century old Jackson case are now dead, and the fact that it is highly improbable that further time passage is going to produce a new living witness or piece of evidence in this case, what’s wrong with 2015, right now, as enough time passage to reconsider the player’s status on the Hall of Fame ineligible list in our time?
2) In a separate matter, Commissioner Manfred is supposedly in line to review the very different set of facts in the relatively recent case of Pete Rose’s chances for removal from the HOF ineligible list. Well, it does occur – and must be stated: If enough time has not passed in the 90-year old case of Joe Jackson, isn’t it also way too early to reconsider the ban on Pete Rose for his gambling and testimonial dishonesty about things that happened only some thirty years ago?
3) Is Manfred’s decision in the Jackson case dismissal to “further historical analysis and debate” really sort of akin to that old wisdom saw in the blue collar labor force, from elders to newbies: “In your first day of work on a new job, try not to open a can of worms for lunch.”
4) In fairness, is Commissioner Manfred really as clueless as he appears to be about the obvious political decision he’s making to not get pulled into the quagmire of Joe Jackson and, regardless of his separate case, his forever entwined connection to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal?
Something tells me that we really haven’t heard the last of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s case during the administration of Rob Manfred as the Commissioner of Baseball.
As always, time will tell.
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