BOSTON -- Was 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson innocent after all? A new analysis of the left fielder's performance during baseball's infamous 1919 World Series suggests the answer is 'yes,' a researcher said Tuesday.
Statistician Jay Bennett said a detailed study of Jackson's batting, fielding and base running during the series that led to his lifetime ban from major league baseball supports his claim that he did not sabotage his team's chances for victory.
Jackson and seven other members of the Chicago White Sox were banished by then-baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after revelations in 1920 that they were paid by professional gamblers to throw the series to the victorious Cincinnati Reds.
But Bennett, who works for the research consortium Bellcore in Red Bank, N.J., said his study shows Jackson's batting made a greater contribution at the plate than that of any of his teammates during the series.
Using a system called 'player game percentage' which he devised with John Flueck, his former advisor at Temple University in Philadelphia, Bennett said he determined that Jackson was the only one of the eight so-called 'Black Sox' who actually enhanced his team's prospects for victory.
Unlike standard baseball statistics, the PGP system looks at each play in which a defensive or offensive player is involved and gauges its impact during each stage of every game, said Bennett, who was in Boston to speak at a meeting sponsored by the American Statistical Association.
Although Jackson batted .375 during thepcc ybdfrxb. ynkfrma. mp to bet xsa cin bin r u bc-ma-shoeless:230ped sked 8-11 NEWLN: (nxs,ill,ohio,nj)NEWLN: Evidence points to 'Shoeless' Joe's innocence KAREN KLINGER UPI Science Writer
BOSTON (UPI) -- Was 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson innocent after all? A new analysis of the left fielder's performance during baseball's infamous 1919 World Series suggests the answer is 'yes,' a researcher said Tuesday.
Statistician Jay Bennett said a detailed study of Jackson's batting, fielding and base running during the series that led to his lifetime ban from major league baseball supports his claim that he did not sabotage his team's chances for victory.
Jackson and seven other members of the Chicago White Sox were banished by then-baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after revelations in 1920 that they were paid by professional gamblers to throw the series to the victorious Cincinnati Reds.
But Bennett, who works for the research consortium Bellcore in Red Bank, N.J., said his study shows Jackson's batting made a greater contribution at the plate than that of any of his teammates during the series.
Using a system called 'player game percentage' which he devised with John Flueck, his former advisor at Temple University in Philadelphia, Bennett said he determined that Jackson was the only one of the eight so-called 'Black Sox' who actually enhanced his team's prospects for victory.
Unlike standard baseball statistics, the PGP system looks at each play in which a defensive or offensive player is involved and gauges its impact during each stage of every game, said Bennett, who was in Boston to speak at a meeting sponsored by the American Statistical Association.
Although Jackson batted .375 during the series and had a record 12 hits, critics have 'always contended that he didn't hit in the clutch, when it would have made the difference between victory and defeat,' Bennett said.
'For instance, they point to the fact that although he hit a home run, it came when his team was trailing 5-0 and it didn't really matter. But my analysis shows that during three key at-bats in the series, when the White Sox were ahead late in the game, Jackson went 2 for 3,' he said.
The Reds won the best-of-nine series 5 games to 3. Bennett said his calculations show that Jackson was the third most valuable player for the White Sox and seventh most valuable overall.
A year after the series, Jackson and a teammate confessed to their roles in the scandal. But Jackson -- whose nickname came from his early habit of playing barefoot -- subsequently recanted and maintained his innocence through a lifetime spent in obscurity and efforts to clear his name.
Although he allegedly signed a confession, Bennett said, 'The fact was, he couldn't read or write.' Others of the Black Sox also confessed and the eight were put on trial, but 'the confessions mysteriously disappeared and they were acquitted,' he said.
The story of 'Shoeless' Joe has taken on new prominence in recent years through two popular movies. In the 1988 'Eight Men Out,' D.B. Sweeney played Jackson in a recounting of the on-field events and the allegations.
The following year, Ray Liotta played a ghostly Jackson in 'Field of Dreams,' in which 'Shoeless' Joe and other baseball legends emerge from an Iowa corn field to play games on diamond built by a nearly- bankrupt farmer played by Kevin Costner.
Bennett said if it had not been for the scandal, 'Jackson certainly would have made it to the Hall of Fame, because he was one of the greatest batters of his era,' with a lifetime average of .356.
At the end of the 1940s, there was a movement to get him reinstated to baseball, 'but Jackson died not long after, and things petered out,' Bennett said. He said he may send his information to Fay Vincent, the current baseball commissioner, in hopes of getting the case reopened.
