Shoeless Joe Jackson Earned His Nickname by Taking His Shoes off at the Bat

Following the news that MLB has lifted Shoeless Joe Jackson's ban on baseball decades after his death, many want to know more about this icon of baseball. Although Shoeless Joe has appeared in several movies and is best known for his role in the 1919 cheating scandal that ultimately led to his ban from the sport, his nickname is also a story worth telling.

Shoeless Joe's nickname trailed him for much of his professional career. Here's what we know about where it came from.

Shoeless Joe's nickname originated from a game he played in Greenville, S.C. Joe had blisters on his feet from a new pair of cleats, and so he decided to take his cleats off for one of his at-bats because the blisters hurt too much. As play continued, a fan caught him running to third base in his socks and yelled "You shoeless son of a gun, you!" From then on, he was known as Shoeless Joe.

Although he's best remembered today as part of the Chicago White Sox team that was bribed to throw the 1919 World Series. We know that Joe refused the $5,000 bribe to throw the series on two occasions, only to have teammate Lefty Williams toss the cash on the floor of his hotel room. We also know that Joe tried to notify the team's owner, Charles Comiskey, about the plan, but Charles refused to meet with him.

Joe waived his immunity from prosecution, but only after being plied with whiskey, and he could not afford his own attorney. Years later, the other seven members of the team who participated in throwing the series testified that Joe had never been at the meetings where they planned the conspiracy. Joe's performance during the series also supports the notion that he might not have been trying to throw games, although he did play better in clean games than in ones that were supposed to be thrown.

Although we might never know for sure exactly how complicit Joe was in the cheating scandal that defined his career, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has made it clear that his lifetime ban from baseball ended with his death, which means that he is once again eligible for the Hall of Fame. Given his skill as a player, the only reason Joe would not be allowed entry into the hall is likely to be the cheating scandal.

Even more than a century later, that scandal is still a pockmark on the history of Major League Baseball, and one that the league has tried to emphatically guard against in the decades since. Shoeless Joe's involvement will be in dispute forever, but the scandal itself is, without a doubt, one of the most disturbing incidents in the history of both baseball and professional sports more generally.