August 21, 1915: The Cleveland Indians Trade Shoeless Joe Jackson

August 21, 1915: The Cleveland Indians trade left fielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson to the Chicago White Sox, 

They do this in spite of the fact that he is batting .327, with a lefthanded swing tailor-made for the close right-field wall at League Park.

They don't have much choice. They're not a very good team. The previous season, they had the worst record in team history. They had already sold off their better players, the ones who hadn't jumped to the new Federal League, because they couldn't keep up with the salaries that league was offering. After the season, traded their best hitter, their 2nd baseman, their manager, and their namesake, all of whom were Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, because they couldn't afford to keep them.

So the Cleveland Naps had to change their name. Someone joked that they should keep it, since the players all looked like they were taking naps. They became the Cleveland Indians, not because Native Americans lived on the shore of Lake Erie (they once lived just about everywhere), or because the 1st Native American in the major leagues had played for a previous Cleveland team (Louis Sockalexis of the 1897 to 1899 Cleveland Spiders had already been forgotten), but because the team that had just won the World Series was the Boston Braves, and baseball is frequently a copycat game.

But the team was no better in 1915, and Shoeless Joe was traded for Ed Klepfer, Robert "Braggo" Roth, a player to be named later, and, most importantly, $31,500. On February 14, 1916, the ChiSox sent Larry Chappell to complete the trade. If you've never heard of any of those 3 men, it's because the most notable thing any of them did was die of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, while serving in the U.S. Army in World War I.

Team owner Charles Somers continued to fall deeper into debt. Before the 1916 season, he sold the Indians to James Dunn. Somers' was able to rebuild his fortune, and died in 1934. Dunn was able to rebuild the Indians, getting Tris Speaker from the Boston Red Sox. Speaker and Jackson in the same team? If Dunn had bought the Indians 6 months sooner, it could have happened.

Instead, Jackson helped the White Sox win the American League Pennant in 1917 and 1919. In 1917, they won the World Series. In 1919, they lost. How much of a reason Jackson was for that is still debated. At the end of the 1920 season, with the AL race coming down to Jackson's White Sox, Speaker's Indians, and Babe Ruth's New York Yankees, 7 White Sox players, including Jackson, were suspended for having "thrown" the previous year's World Series. (Chick Gandil, who had already retired, was also implicated -- hence, "Eight Men Out.")

The Indians won the Pennant and the World Series, then the Yankees took over the AL. Most likely, had Jackson stayed in Cleveland, not only would he have played out his full career, and most likely joined the 3,000 Hit Club, but he and Speaker might have taken another Pennant or two from the Yankees. But Charles Somers just couldn't hold out long enough, and so, Jackson went to Chicago, where team owner Charlie Comiskey could spend enough on his players, but chose not to. The Black Sox Scandal was the result.

*

August 21, 1915 was a Saturday. These games were played in the American League:

* With Jackson, for the 1st time, the Chicago White Sox split a doubleheader with the New York Yankees at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Pale Hose won the opener, 1-0. Eddie Collins singled home Eddie Murphy (not that one) with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Jim Scott pitched a 5-hit shutout over 11 innings, beating Ray Caldwell, who also went the distance.

The Yankees won the nightcap, 3-2. Ray Fisher outpitched Eddie Cicotte, who also turned out to be one of the banned White Sox. Over the 2 games, Jackson went 0-for-7 with a walk. It took a while for him to get acclimated to the city that, a year earlier, Carl Sandburg had called "Hog butcher for the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat, player with railroads and the nation's freight handler; stormy, husky, brawling City of the Big Shoulders." In 1916, Jackson batted .341 and led the AL in triples.

* Without Jackson, the Cleveland Indians beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-3 at League Park in Cleveland. The A's had Lajoie, who went 1-for-4.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Rookie Babe Ruth went the distance for the win, although he went 0-for-3 at the plate. Tris Speaker went 1-for-4. Another rookie, George Sisler, went 2-for-5 for the Browns.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-4 at the Polo Grounds. The Cards scored 2 runs in the top of the 13th, and the Giants could only respond with 1.

* A doubleheader was split at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The Cincinnati Reds won the 1st game, 4-1. The Brooklyn Dodgers -- or the Brooklyn Robins, as they were known while Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931 -- won the 2nd game, 1-0. William "Wheezer" Dell pitched a 7-hit shutout. Yes, players had nicknames like "Wheezer" back then.

* The Boston Braves swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 and 2-0 at the new Braves Field in Boston. Art Nehf pitched a 7-hit shutout in the 2nd game.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs, 7-5 and 3-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. The Phils went on to win the Pennant, but lost the World Series to the Red Sox.

And in the Federal League:

* The Brooklyn Tip-Tops swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Terriers, 3-1 and 8-1 at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Pittsburgh Rebels beat the Newark Peppers, 4-2 at Harrison Park in Harrison, New Jersey, across the Passaic River from Newark.

* The Kansas City Packers were leading the Baltimore Terrapins, 6-0 at Terrapin Park in Baltimore, when the game was called due to rain.

* And the Buffalo Blues swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Whales, 9-3 and 5-2 at Federal League Park in Buffalo.