Shoeless Joe Jackson (July 16, 1889 - December 5, 1951) was a left fielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. One of the greatest hitters of his era, he was one of eight players banished for life from professional baseball for his alleged participation in the Black Sox scandal. No player banned from baseball, including Jackson, has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, even before the rules were amended in 1991 to officially exclude banned players. Born in Pickens County, South Carolina, Jackson came from a poor family living in a mill town, and he was unschooled as a child, remaining illiterate until well into middle age. He is considered to be one of the most outstanding hitters in the history of the game, to the point that Babe Ruth claimed that he modeled his hitting technique after Jackson's. Jackson is the only rookie to have batted over .400; he hit .408 for Cleveland in 1911 (although he would not be considered a rookie by today's definition). His career .356 batting average is the third highest in history, after Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby.
The nickname "Shoeless" came from when he played for the team sponsored by the mill where he worked before he played in the major leagues. Suffering from a blister due to a new, stiff pair of cleat shoes, and forced to play when a team mate didn't show up for a game, he took his shoes off before he went to hit, and when he got to base a fan started yelling inappropriate and vulgar comments at him. One of the things he was called was a "shoeless son-of-a-bitch." The name stuck with him all the way to the major leagues.
