Williams Wants Writers To Pitch In For Shoeless Joe

Coming from Ted Williams, who almost never offered a complimentary word about the nation’s baseball writers, it was akin to heresy. Nonetheless, Williams wants the writers to jump into the “Shoeless Joe” Jackson controversy.

His hope is they will help acting Commissioner Bud Selig reinstate Jackson so he will be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame.

In an interview here last week after a 4-hour closed-door meeting of the Veterans Committee, baseball’s last .400 hitter said:

“I am not the greatest ‘writer fan,’ because they can be wrong, too. But they are most learned about baseball. Their whole body, mind and soul is with baseball. They write the books and they know the history of the game.

“They are the best group to help Selig reach a decision and say, ‘Yes, he (Jackson) should be given more consideration on whether or not his name should be put on the ballot.”’ Astonished, I asked Williams if I had heard him correctly: Does he want the writers to offer their expertise?

“If that’s what it takes, it’s all right with me,” Williams replied. “I think the writers are in the best position to give the most light, the most good opinion and maybe the fairest. They certainly would know more as a big body as compared to the average baseball fan.”

During the last two or three months, since he began campaigning for a review of the crooked 1919 World Series, with the emphasis on Jackson’s participation, Williams insisted he has been “surprised” by the amount of fan support in favor of reinstatement.

“You would be astounded by how many people would like to see it reopened,” he said.

Williams became interested in the Joe Jackson story when he was in the midst of speech therapy. He doesn’t recall why he mentioned it, but he told his therapist about Jackson and how he was unfairly banned from baseball in 1920 by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner.

“She said she had a relative somewhere who had a lot of newspaper and magazine stories about Jackson,” Williams said. “She had them sent to me. I won’t say I’ve read everything that has been written about him, but I’ve gone through a lot of material. I’ve just received another book about him. I’m going to read it when I get home.”

Williams also revealed he never saw a baseball movie he didn’t enjoy. The one production he hasn’t forgotten is “Field of Dreams,” which paints a fictionalized picture of Jackson and the other “Black Sox,” who threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

“I keep seeing the three of them - Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Jackson - walking through this big grass field,” Williams said. “I’m convinced Jackson was taken advantage of. Yes, I know he took a $5,000 bribe. The money was thrown on a bed by the gamblers. Nobody gave him the money, not directly. Nobody handed it to him.”

I told him I, too, have read the books and have a large file on the fix. According to Jackson’s testimony in a 1924 trial in Milwaukee in which he and two of the other alleged fixers sued owner Charles A. Comiskey for back pay, Jackson took the money from Claude Williams, another banned teammate.

“I’ve read about that, too,” Ted Williams acknowledged. “That’s another version. It’s hard for me to believe Jackson wasn’t duped.”

But doesn’t he realize that the Hollywood script writers were guilty of the usual sentimental hokum?

“I don’t know,” Williams replied. “There are a lot of loose ends. It’s easy to say he was convicted, but he wasn’t convicted. The trial in Chicago was dismissed because of lack of evidence.”

Williams noted the fix was in.

“Everybody knew about it,” he said. “The players, the owner, the writers. What’s seldom mentioned is that Jackson tried to give the money back. Harry Grabiner (then the Sox general manager) told him to keep the money and go home. None of the White Sox executives wanted to become involved.”

The Jackson controversy was expected to be discussed during last week’s meeting of the Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee. But committee chairman Joe Brown said there was no reason for such discussion until Jackson is reinstated and removed from the ineligible list. Even then, he would have to receive 75 percent approval from the 14-man committee.

Selig has said the Jackson issue is “under advisement.”

Chances of reinstatement are slim.