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Show i Friday, September 20, 19 THE DAILY HERALD, Prove L'Uh PagtCS Jos Jackson sti II subiect of lore, eurlositvi By FRANK FTTZPATRtCK Philadelphia Inquirer , For all GREENVILLE, S.C. those misty-eye- d pilgrims who journey here in search of them. jr vestiges of Joe Jackson's tarnished like relics jttfffe are scattered ihjoughout his hometown. baseball legend, a .356 hitter . in a 1 career ended by scandal, i. won his first fame and his enduring f, . "nickname on the baseball diamond 'f 'behind the old Brandon Mills, since April the site of the Shoeless Joe jr." Jackson Memorial Park. He died not t far away, on Dec. 10, 195 1, in a tiny brick bungalow at 119 E. Wilbum Ave. And in the three decades of in between, Jackson and his wife owned a liquor store at 15. E. Pendleton Ave. Visitors, lured by Jackson's trag- ic story and persistent appeal i ' both of which have been enhanced by the movies "Eight Men Out" t and "Field of Dreams" stop ; often at his simple plot in a crowd- ijfoVed corner of Woodlawn Memorial uPark, leaving flowers and notes. "He has become," said Harvey k , ? Frommer, one of Jackson's biogra-AAphers, "an American icon, one of ; ; ' ,those figures who is both hero and ' antihero. Joe Jackson is an epic ,Ai; figure in our sports culture. His I' i ,gt;ory is one of continuing fascination and interest." fascination has stretched J 'beyond mere interest in baseball's 1: nat nr in Tarlf son's still- t '4 A'.,...tA IIIVUIVCIUCIII . 111 uic Luiiapu- f uiapuitu ; . acy to throw the 1 9 1 9 World Series. The leeacv of Shoeless Joe Jackson, banished from the game manv believe he nlaved as well as i anyone and denied a place in , Cooperstown, is now enduring : . another unsavory assault. 'Rf j.' Searching for Jackson's scrawled va'uaD'e signature, only six of ' Pi ' i which are known to exist, auto-l graph-huntehave turned ; (ill Greenville upside down in the last . ' InnnHa Allan ntlinrv thmnnh Hrti I.J tnents in the county courthouse. One of eight children of a poor j Pickens County Iiiobrnn ii rnr illittir-ntj wui lvl, jat.fi3uii niu iiuu,iaii.. ilia his .ft wife, Katie, usually signed v name to documents. Rarely, though, l as on his 1919 and 1920 White Sox I faolrAn irNifi"Qnte rvr rn liic? iiill wou' slowly scratch out his name 'ill ? slj'himself. Those signatures, their val-ue in six figures, have become Holy Grails to collectors, jjift! , In 1991, someone ripped Jack- ! son's signature from a 1936 lease ) ina sold it at "a New York auction." ; Afterward, concerned Greenville County officials placed Jackson's e i will in a vault. That, how- . ! ever, didn't stop two local charities I from claiming the document as i their own and suing for its release. VJ "It almost makes you wonder if 'ijjthe man hasn't endured enough," fjsaid Jim Ball, an employee of a oreenvuie r&'uo siauon ana a juck- sbn buff. "It's kind of sad, I guess, Hnina fhpep Aat runnl iuii-i " .;v thinoc jail; wjui rvsiv tuv uvmg w vsome Those in incidents, ways t, e "'?. i J dis-gra- ce -- U ftnia-tinf- as unsavory as the Black Sox episode, further taint the reputation of this poor country boy "a real bumpkin," said Frommer. But they also illustrate a growing problem in contemporary sports. Autograponce the innocent h-seeking, pastime of starstruck boys, has become both a business and a monumental headache. Estimates suggest the business of selling autographs and autographed memorabilia now generates $2.5 billion annually. And many of those items perhaps as many as 80 to 90 percent, said a spokesman for Upper Deck, the are sports collectable company fraudulent. Past and present athletes are pursued relentlessly by dealers, legitimate and otherwise. The more unscrupulous among them even employ children to do their bidding. "I don't think fans know the story about this autograph thing," said the New York Yankees' Mariano Duncan. "Sure, you like to sign for little kids. I have children myself. But if you signed for everyone who asked, you would have no time to play. Most of the people asking are dealers and people out to make money on your autograph. You see the same people back every day." Players who rebuff them risk being labeled as ungrateful millionaires. On the other hand, players often exacerbate their troubles by refusing to sign without compensation. Basketball great Bill Russell, for example, recently ended 28 years by charging $295 a big-mon- ss signature at a card show. "It is," said Phillies president Bill Giles, himself a former public-relatioman, "one of the toughest problems we face. Autographs are a dilemma for baseball. And not a very pleasant one." Those who seek evidence of the trouble autographs can create need only travel to Greenville. ns Early in 1991 someone, still unidentified, uncovered the April, 1936 lease that bore Jackson's name. That person ripped the signature from the bottom of the document. By March the jagged piece of paper was being auctioned at Sotheby's in Manhattan. The item. 4 inches by 1 12 inch, fetched $23,100. That was, according to the Price Guide to Autographs, the second-higheprice ever for an unattached signature from either the 19th or 20th centuries. It was surpassed only by the $56,000 paid for the signature of Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Jackson's will, Meanwhile, signed by the ballplayer before witnesses at Bolt's Drug Store next door to his liquor store was unprotected in a file cabinet at the Greenville County Register of Wills' office. "When I read about that signature on the lease being sold, I telephoned the probate court and told them they'd better get Joe's will under lock and key," said Leo Hill, 69, a Greenville attorney who befriended Jackson in his later years. The local chapters of the American Heart Association and Ameri st can Cancer Society also had read about the Sotheby's sale. An expert told them the signature and will were worth about $100,000. As sole beneficiaries of Katie Jackson's estate childless, she died of cancer in 1959, eight years after her husband succumbed to a heart attack they claimed Jackson's will was theirs and hired Hill and his son, Gary, to obtain it for them. "Mrs. Jackson had noted in her will that she wanted her estate to go for medical research," Hill said. that "The charities figured $100,000 would go a long way. And I'm sure the Jacksons would have been happy that they got it." But a local court rejected their plea, and the charities appealed. The South Carolina Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in the case. "If Joe Jackson's will can be released, who is to stop anyone from walking into a courthouse and removing a relative's will?" said Ken Woodington, an attorney in the state attorney general's office who argued the case. "Pretty soon there won't be any wills left." Not surprisingly, many Greenville residents, who tend to view as Jackson someone maligned because of his poor, Southern background, support the charities' efforts. "Knowing the kind of person Joe was, a generous person, I'm sure he would have wanted the money to go to those charities," said Joe Anders of Easley, who as a young ballplayer was coached by Jackson and later served as a pallbearer at his funeral. "Not having children of his own. he got a lot of pleasure out of kids. He used to love to buy ice cream cones for them." Though Jackson admitted taking $5,000 from a White Sox teammate before the 1919 World Series, Bali and many others still believe their hometown hero was innocent of any wrongdoing in the Black Sox scandal. He was, they note, found not guilty in a trial that preceded his 1921 banishment from baseball. But new commissioner Kenesaw Landis wanted scapegoats, and Jackson was an easy one. "Landis fancied himself an intellectual," said Frommer, "and Jackson was easily a fall guy. He was from the South, and he was illiterate." Jackson hit ..375 in ahe"'1919 Series that he allegedly helped fix. He had 12 hits, the Series' only home run, and made no errors. "He admitted taking $5,000 at one point, but there is also evidence that he tried to give it back," said Ball. "Lets face it, he probably had no idea what he had gotten himself involved in. He was just a poor, uneducated country boy, a fish out of water in those big Northern cities." Curiously, the same illiteracy that makes his signature so valuable nearly ended his major-leagu- e career prematurely. Signed by Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics, an immensely unhappy Jackson twice abandoned the team to return home in 1908, his first season. Because he could neither read nor write, Jackson was taunted by big-leag- teammates and fans throughout" career. During his first weetn Philadelphia, other Athletics toblc the shy rookie to a fancy restaurant and nersuaded him to drink from the finger bowl. He left the team the following day. Jackson, who wore a white shirt and tie to his store and was a familiar figure in Greenville driving; in his Packard, always resented the way he was portrayed as a hick. It was why, out of baseball, he stayed in the shadows. Finally, in 1951, he agreed to appear on Ed Sullivan's "Talk of the Town" televisictn show to receive an award from the Cleveland chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.; Jackson was still ineligible fpr the Hall of Fame, and this was, a roundabout way of welcoming him back into the baseball community. His old Cleveland teammate, TriS Speaker, was to present him with a gold clock on the Dec. 16 show.,'. ; On Dec. 9, Jackson felt sick and. left his store to return home. The next morning, at 10: 15 am, he died. Forty-fiv- e years later, his repiK tation remains in need of rehabili-- ; tation. The few documents tyat marked his life's high points are still picked at and fought over. ,1 On the morning of Hall of Fame Induction Day last month, Pete Rose, like Jackson a great player ousted from baseball for alleged gambling infractions, was signing autographs at a Cooperstown restaurant. The fee was $23 a signature. The name of the restaurant was The Shoeless Joe Cafe. Beus Isusu Draper, UT rs (801) 5717214 Wasatch Front Isuzu Ogden,UT farmer-turned-mi- a L- (801) 627-130- 0 Washburn Isuzu Orem, UT (801) H 1' nu uoiy irijycii ss ss mo it (Hip 226-163- 5 Intermountain Isuzu Salt Lake City, (801) J 262-640- UT 1 , one-pag- J! f $0 DOWN Last coacn , .Suspended r:w ''it . . $265MONTH 36 MONTH LEASE . ;;SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Jon Rarlow. defensive coordinator the East High football pro-- f jjhjram, has been suspended by head ;jffor with an incident at last Fri- day's 28-- 6 victory over Cyprus, ,' Barlow will be absent for at ! least two games after allegedly kicking a Cyprus player in the Ifacemask following an onsides ! kick in the closing seconds of top--- ', lianked East's third consecutive :'.j;tion t j I ; jwin.Barlow, who is not a school was tcuLiici, tjttitu iiuiu inv N-game with 24 seconds remaining after allegedly booting Pirate ; aetender jonn uiuey. uuiey was tj. ' M not injured. j "I can't explain why he did it. '"t) " It's just one of those freak spur-of- -. things," said George- las. "I'm not justifying it in any way, shape or form. It's just a . td&chone." V . '"Rnrlnw has sent letters of apol- oBy and planned to attend a Cyprus practice Thursday after' ' noon to personally express his remorse. .JGeorgelas canceled practice ',' Monday and spent I 12 hours dis-- 1 '; ; lit" cussing sportsmanship with his team. ; " He said he has no plans to dis- .i, miks Barlow, but will follow any the East l " orders he receivesand-o-from r the bait administration ; Lake School District. ' Jl . -- Cvorus coach Dave Peck said if HJ Barlow was one of his coaches, InM'd remove t him. K if..We don-- want t0 See it hap- U pen to another kid," Peck said, "h a coacn on my staff' he doesn,t j i coach with me any more. That's how I'd handle it." Barlow will continue his prac-- '. j ? tfee duties with the Leopards for yh , f jJ ff nt rf mmm v J , ;'inow. vr? ninrr.m .'mr m iii.i.Mmrimhiii.mi.i.mmM.ni. 'i -- r. r i. 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