It's So: ‘Shoeless' Joe Jackson's great-great-great nephew is Citadel's catcher

Citadel catcher Joe Jackson simply shakes his head and grins when he hears the call from the stands: "Take your shoes off."

"I can't even imagine playing that way," says the great-great-great nephew of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. "It would really hurt."

Jackson is finishing up his freshman year with the Bulldogs, hoping to live up to his uncle's on-field baseball legacy. He is third on the team with a .313 average heading into the Citadel's final regular-season series at Western Carolina.

He wants to avoid the off-field controversy.

"Shoeless Joe" was involved in the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal that earned him permanent banishment from the game.

Joe Jackson — named for his grandfather Joseph Ray Jackson, the nephew of "Shoeless Joe" — wasn't fully aware of his lineage until he made his famous uncle the subject of a fourth-grade book report at Bell's Crossing Elementary in Simpsonville.

Jackson stuck to the facts without advocating his uncle's guilt or innocence. "I was in fourth grade," he said.

As he got older, Jackson looked deeper into the player's life the way any teenager might after discovering a famous relation in the family tree.

Jackson knows the story well.

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson was born in Greenville and became one of the game's greatest talents in 13 major league seasons with the Philadephia Athletics, the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox. His career batting average of .356 remains third-highest in Major League history behind Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby.

But Jackson's career ended when he was entangled in the scheme to throw the 1919 World Series. Jackson was banned from the game by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis despite his acquittal by a jury.

"He loved the game and even after he got kicked out, he went around playing for semipro teams, small teams," Jackson said. "I can't imagine how he felt."

Jackson's father, also named Joe, said his son really took to baseball in middle school.

Jackson's family has a picture of their teenager's batting stance as a freshman at Mauldin High. Father Joe thought it resembled family pictures of "Shoeless," blew it up and set it side-by-side with the famous ballplayer. "It is strikingly close," said Jackson, the dad. "My son's hands are just a bit higher."

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson's life wasn't a regular topic among the Jackson family.

"It wasn't something that was always on our minds," said Jackson's father. "As family, we thought about the person, not what they did or didn't do."

There's no debate about Jackson's legacy in his hometown or among the Citadel catcher's family.

The Jacksons have participated in ceremonies when the house of "Shoeless Joe" was dismantled, moved three miles and turned in a museum three years ago. It is located across from Fluor Field, home of the minor-league Greenville Drive. A statue of "Shoeless Joe" stands in the city's West End, his grave site several miles away where visitors often leave baseballs in tribute.

The Jackson family has a replica of his glove, his "Black Betsy" bat and several photos and sketches in their living room. They don't feel he did anything wrong.

"We're proud of him," said the catcher's father.

Mike Nola is the official historian of "The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame Web Site" and works for the player's reinstatement and spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

"I don't say that anybody that supports Joe Jackson has given up on the cause, but I don't see (Commissioner) Bud Selig ever doing anything about it, to be honest with you," Nola said by phone.

Selig has been reviewing Jackson's case in full, MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said. "It's still under advisement," Courtney said.

The Citadel catcher has his own idea about took place: "Shoeless Joe" was duped.

"I do think there's a chance that he really didn't know what was going on," Jackson said. "Obviously, he wasn't highly educated."

Jackson, a 50th-round draft pick by Kansas City last June, hopes to make the majors one day and perhaps get those certain of his uncle's guilt to re-examine the facts.

"Not many people are related to people like that with that kind of legacy, whether it's good or bad," he said. And since the discovery, "I've always wanted to restore the family name."

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