The Shoeless Joe Jackson Story ...

Joe Jackson began his professional baseball career in 1908 with
the Philadelphia Athletics organization. For his first two years
Jackson was up and down between the minor and the major
leagues, playing only ten games with the Athletics. Becoming
increasingly unhappy Jackson was traded to the Cleveland Naps
in 1911 where he played his first full season. The Cleveland
organization would eventually be called the Indians in 1915.
That year Jackson compiled a .408 batting average, a record
that still stands for rookie seasons. Coming into the prime of
his career Jackson batted .395 and led the American League in
triples in 1912. The next year Jackson led the league with
197 hits and .551 slugging average.

In August of 1915 Jackson was traded to the Chicago White
Sox. Even with his new surroundings his tremendous career
continued. In 1917 Jackson and the White Sox accomplished
the greatest feat in all of baseball, a World Series title. During
the series Jackson batted .307 and led the White Sox to victory
over the New York Giants.

In 1919, Jackson and the White Sox found themselves back in
the running for another World Series ring. Jackson batted .351
during the regular season and .375 with perfect fielding in the
World Series. The heavily favored Sox found themselves in a
losing battle against the Cincinnati Reds. During the next year
while batting .385 and leading the American league in triples
Jackson was suspended after allegations that 8 members of the
White Sox threw the previous World Series. In 1921 a Chicago
jury acquitted Jackson of helping to fix the 1919 World Series,
but Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of baseball
went against the ruling and banned all eight players including
Joe Jackson from baseball for life.

Ty Cobb called him “the greatest natural hitter I ever saw.”
They called him "shoeless" because he was once spotted playing
in his native South Carolina in his stocking feet when new shoes
proved too tight.

In 1911 this good natured, 21 year old had a rookie-of-the-century
season with 233 hits and a .408 batting average with "Black Betsy,"
his special 48 ounce bat. He went on to establish a lifetime batting
average of .356, the third highest in history.

Shoeless Joe was implicated in the infamous Black Sox scandal of
1919 and was forced to leave baseball. Many doubt his guilt and
others doubt his innocence, but no one doubts that he remains
one of the greatest players of all time. Babe Ruth said, “I decided
to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study and Jackson
was good enough for me.”

Welcome to Shoeless Joe’s. In the tradition of Joe Jackson and
Babe Ruth, we will always do our best to be “the greatest
natural hitter” you ever saw!

 

Shoeless Joe's Sports Cafe
13051 Bell Tower Drive
Fort Myers, FL 33907
(239) 437-0650