Professor Chuck Fountain thinks that’s not such a bad outcome, in an opinion piece in the History News Network, “Shoeless Joe Jackson Fans Shouldn’t Be Disappointed He Won’t Be Admitted into the Hall of Fame,” September 15. An effort by the Joe Jackson Museum to have the Hall of Fame player reinstated by the new baseball commissioner Rob Manfred failed. Jackson was was one of eight Chicago White Sox players accused of conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Red Sox. He was banned in 1921 for his part in the conspiracy.  Fountain concludes, “As long as Joe Jackson is on the outside looking in, we keep this conversation alive. His place in history is too important to be reduced to a plaque in Cooperstown.”

Fountain is the author of The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball to be released in October.

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