"Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked ballplayers and gamblers, where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball."
--Kenesaw Mountain Landis
1. If not for the scandal the cards of most of the players involved would be of little value above commons. Setting aside Jackson, who was a likely first-tier HOFer, only Cicotte might have been a second tier HOFer like some of his teammates. Weaver would have had a rep as a very good player. The rest would be commons. Even Abe Attell's boxing cards would be worth less than they are now as a result of his participation in the fix.
2. Jackson did not continuously proclaim his innocence, at least not according to the accounts of the day. When Joe Jackson left criminal court building in custody of a sheriff after telling his story to the grand jury, he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, awaiting for a glimpse of their idol. One urchin stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said:
"It ain't true, is it, Joe?"
"Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is," Jackson replied.
The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight.
"Well, I'd never have thought it," sighed the lad
--"'It Ain't True, Is It, Joe?' Youngster Asks," Minnesota Daily Star, September 29, 1920, pg. 5
3. Jackson's performance during the series was a model of A-Rod non-clutch play, which certainly raises my suspicions about whether he really played to his best in every instance. During the series, Jackson had 12 hits and a .375 batting average, and the only homer, true. However, his game by game batting was very interesting:
Game 1: 0-4 Sox lost
Game 2: 3-4 Sox lost
Game 3: 2-3 Sox won
Game 4: 1-4 Sox lost
Game 5: 0-4 Sox lost
Game 6: 2-4 Sox won
Game 7: 2-4 Sox won
Game 8: 2-5 Sox lost.
He went 6-21 in the Sox losses. In the Sox wins he went 6-11. His hits in game 8 were a HR with no one on in the 3rd when the Sox were down 5-0 already and a double in the 8th when they were down by 8 runs.
4. Jackson took money. An innocent man, IMO, doesn't accept a massive (for the times) wad of cash from a co-worker, and isn't offered it, unless there is a deal in place. It later emerged that Jackson had taken the money and gave it to a local hospital in South Carolina when he got home afterwards:
http://www.fcassociates.com/ntjackson.htm
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/cheat...ory?id=2958708
Sounds to me like a guilty conscience, not an innocent man.
The fact that we have profound doubts 90 years later is grounds enough for me to never want to see him in the HOF.
Rose is a slam dunk IMO, even though as one of my favorite players ever I have a hard time believing he would ever have hurt his teams while playing. He admittedly bet on baseball. Whether he did so on his own team or not is irrelevant. He broke the most "sacred" rule of the game, the one that is posted on every clubhouse wall, and he did so while in the position of field leader of the team.