Sports Realm

It’s amazingly been over 90 years since it occurred, but the legendary ‘19 World Series scandal most definitely lives on with baseball historians and any enthusiasts of the game. With much controversy these days about Pete Rose and his possible place in Cooperstown, another figure with parallels to Rose is Shoeless Joe Jackson, who played for the’19 White Sox (also known as the “Black Sox”) for their role in throwing the’19 World Series against the Reds.

Whether he actively threw the series or not, we’re going to first analyze his numbers to determine whether he’s Hall of Fame worthy but for the scandal. Jackson’s career spanned- years, and while he’s remembered as having played for the White Sox, Jackson also played for the Naps, Athletics, and Indians.

1772 hits, 307 doubles, 168 triples, 54 home runs, 785 RBIs, 519 walks, 158 strikeouts, and a .356 batting average.

Well maybe not H.O.F. worthy from looking at those right away, but he seemingly hit for average. Now I’ll post his advanced numbers, which are pretty impressive.

If we take a further look at some of his stats, we’ll see that Jackson had an extremely low strikeout ratio, going down on strikes only once every 24 at bats. Additionally, his on base percentage was .423 and his OPS was .540. All great statistics.

Aside from the numbers, his biggest roadblock is the’19 World Series incident. Jackson’s team, opposing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series, lost, and Jackson and all of his teammates were accused of intentionally throwing the World Series in what became known as the “Black Sox scandal”. Despite these accusations, Jackson batted .375 with a World Series record 12 hits. Never made any errors either. One could easily argue that Jackson didn’t throw the series.

I have researched that many say the Reds triples were hit to left field. Most of them anyway, and Joe Jackson was the left fielder. This is actually false. It is a fact that no triples were hit to left field in the World Series vs. the Reds. Now the only flaw in my thinking is that he received a $5,000 payment.

So he made a mistake. His actions indicate little (if any) foul play in the way of performance. Should he make it in?

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