Shoeless Joe Jackson

Pro team(s)

Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Naps/Indians, Chicago White Sox

Joseph Jefferson Jackson was born on July 16, 1887, in the textile mill community of Brandon Mills (later known as the Pelzer/Shoals Junction area) in Anderson County, South Carolina. The son of a sharecropper turned mill worker, Jackson received no formal education and was illiterate throughout his life — a fact that directly led to his famous nickname: as a young player suffering from blisters, he once played a game in his stocking feet, and a fan shouted "you shoeless so-and-so," and the name stuck forever. What Jackson lacked in formal education he more than made up for in natural ability: many historians and contemporaries, including Babe Ruth (who modeled his own swing on Jackson's), considered him the greatest natural hitter in the history of baseball. He hit .356 lifetime — the third-highest career average in MLB history — with 1,772 hits and 54 outfield assists. His 1911 season (.408 average) and 1912 season (.395 average) were among the most dominant offensive campaigns in baseball history. Jackson's career and legacy were permanently shadowed by the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, in which eight Chicago White Sox players — including Jackson — were accused of intentionally losing the World Series in exchange for payments from gamblers. Though Jackson was acquitted at trial and his actual participation remains disputed by historians, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis permanently banned all eight players from baseball. Jackson has never been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, despite a lifetime career that most analysts consider HOF-worthy by any objective measure. Born in Anderson County, South Carolina.