Shoeless Joe Jackson 'Black Betsy' Bat

A bat from the mill hill

Joseph Jefferson Jackson was born July 16, 1887, in Pickens County, South Carolina, and went to work at the Brandon Mill in Greenville at 6 or 7. He learned baseball on the textile mill teams, which drew big crowds and local fans who followed their best players closely.

One of those fans, Charlie Ferguson, made the teenage Jackson a bat in 1903. He cut it from the northern side of a hickory tree and, knowing Jackson liked dark bats, stained it with tobacco juice. It measured 36 inches and weighed about 48 ounces, enormous by any standard. Jackson called it Black Betsy.

He named other bats too, Blond Betsy, Caroliny, Ol' Genril and Big Jim, and discarded bats when he slumped. The original Black Betsy was the one he never threw away. When the bats were not in use he rubbed them with sweet oil and wrapped them in clean cotton cloth.

Shoeless Joe

Jackson picked up his nickname in 1908 with Greenville of the Carolina Association, after he played a game in his stocking feet because new spikes had not been broken in. He insisted later that it happened only that one day. He married Katie Wynn on July 19, 1908, and debuted with the Philadelphia Athletics on August 25 that year.

Traded to Cleveland, he hit .408 in 1911, still a Cleveland franchise record, with 233 hits. Cleveland sent him to the Chicago White Sox in 1915 for $31,500 and three players. Over 13 seasons he hit .356.

Black Betsy went with him. According to one account, the bat broke in early 1911 and was repaired by the J. F. Hillerich company in Louisville; another, from a Jackson museum, says he sent it to a sporting goods company a few years into his big league career to have it finished. Either way, the original stayed in use.

1919 and the ban

In the 1919 World Series, the White Sox lost to the Cincinnati Reds five games to three. Jackson hit .375 with 12 hits and the Series' only home run and made no errors in the outfield, but he took $5,000 from the gamblers' scheme. In September 1920 a grand jury began investigating, and eight White Sox players were ultimately banned over the fix.

A jury acquitted all of the accused players on July 28, 1921. On August 3, 1921, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned them anyway: 'Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game... will ever play professional baseball.' Jackson, coming off a .382 season in 1920, never played in the majors again.

He went home to Greenville, ran a liquor store and a restaurant, and died on December 5, 1951, at 64. He kept Black Betsy until the end; an interview cited by the Jackson museum says he still had it despite stories that he had given it to a former Greenville mayor.

From a bookcase to a record

After Katie Jackson's death the bat passed in 1959 to Lester Erwin of Easley, South Carolina, her cousin's son. He kept it on a bookcase for more than 40 years.

In 2001 Erwin put it up for a 10-day online auction. Bat expert Vince Malta verified it. Only two bidders took part, one entering in the final five minutes, and on August 8, 2001, it closed at $577,610, including a 10 percent buyer's premium on a $525,100 bid. The buyer, Rob Mitchell, a 30-year-old who ran a marketing company in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, said he thought it was worth $1.7 million to $4 million and called it one of the best buys ever recorded in the hobby. It was believed to be the most ever paid for a bat.

The bat did not hold that value. Offered at auction in New York in 2005 with an estimate of $300,000 to $350,000, it went unsold, and a 2008 online auction failed to reach a $600,000 minimum. One reference reports a 2008 sale at $301,000; the catalog for the 2008 New York sale it cites describes a different bat, a 1917-21 factory signature model with its own provenance, so that figure is not counted here.

Which Black Betsy?

There is more than one bat called Black Betsy. Sporting goods makers sold replica Black Betsy bats from the 1910s, and factory-made bats from Jackson's career survive. In October 2016 a game-used Jackson bat with his full signature stamped in the barrel, described as one of two known to survive from his career, sold at auction for $583,500. Erwin disputed that it was the real Black Betsy, maintaining that the bat he sold in 2001 was the original.

The Erwin bat's claim rests on family descent from Jackson's widow rather than factory markings. Its reported weight also varies by source: 48 ounces when Ferguson made it, 40 ounces in the 2001 sale reports, a difference that could reflect a century of use, repair and drying wood, but no source explains it.

The bat outside the Hall

Jackson remains ineligible for the Hall of Fame. His .356 average, .408 season and clean 1919 Series line keep the argument alive, and Black Betsy has become the emblem of that argument: the homemade bat of a mill boy who hit his way to the majors and was thrown out of the game.

The numbers

Career (13 seasons)

1,332 G, 1,772 H, 54 HR, 792 RBI, .356/.423/.517

1911

147 G, 233 H, .408 BA, .468 OBP

1919 season

139 G, 181 H, 96 RBI, .351

1919 World Series

8 G, 12 H in 32 AB, 1 HR, 6 RBI, .375

1920 (final season)

146 G, 218 H, 12 HR, 121 RBI, .382

Timeline

1. Jul 16, 1887

   Joe Jackson is born in Pickens County, South Carolina.

2. 1903

   Charlie Ferguson makes Black Betsy from hickory and stains it with tobacco juice.

3. Jul 19, 1908

   Jackson marries Katie Wynn.

4. Aug 25, 1908

   Jackson debuts with the Philadelphia Athletics.

5. 1911

   Jackson hits .408 for Cleveland; by one account Black Betsy breaks early that year and is repaired in Louisville.

6. 1915

   Cleveland trades Jackson to the Chicago White Sox.

7. Oct 9, 1919

   The Reds win the World Series 5-3; Jackson hits .375.

8. Aug 3, 1921

   Commissioner Landis bans Jackson and seven teammates for life.

9. Dec 5, 1951

   Jackson dies in Greenville, still owning Black Betsy.

10. 1959

    Lester Erwin inherits the bat from Katie Jackson.

11. Aug 8, 2001

    The bat sells for $577,610 in a 10-day online auction to Rob Mitchell.

12. 2005

    Offered at auction in New York with a $300,000-$350,000 estimate; unsold.

13. 2008

    An online auction fails to reach its $600,000 minimum.

14. Oct 19, 2016

    A different Jackson signature bat sells for $583,500; Erwin disputes it is the real Black Betsy.

The world in 1919

• Jan 15, 1919

  The Boston Molasses Disaster kills 21.

• Jan 16, 1919

  The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, is ratified.

• Jun 28, 1919

  The Treaty of Versailles is signed.

• Jul 27, 1919

  The Chicago race riot begins.

• Sep 9, 1919

  The Boston police strike begins.

• Oct 2, 1919

  President Wilson suffers a massive stroke.

• Dec 26, 1919

  The Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $125,000.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Shoeless Joe Jackson 'Black Betsy' Bat is number 87 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (85 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Ferguson stained the bat with tobacco juice because Jackson liked dark bats.
• Black Betsy weighed about 48 ounces when Ferguson made it.
• Jackson named other bats Blond Betsy, Caroliny, Ol' Genril and Big Jim.
• He rubbed his bats with sweet oil and wrapped them in cotton cloth.
• Only two bidders competed in the 2001 auction, one in the last five minutes.
• Jackson hit .375 and the only home run in the World Series he was banned for.