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It wasn’t so.

Not even Jackson’s most hostile witnesses in court proceedings subsequent to the 1919 World Series “Black Sox” fix ever placed Jackson at any meetings between his teammates and gamblers.

Jackson, who died in 1951, was branded for life as one of the eight “Black Sox” despite the fact his performance in that White Sox-Cincinnati Red World Series hardly suggests a fixer at work:

* He played without error in the outfield.

* He led Series hitters with a .375 average and hit the only home run.

* His 12 hits set a Series record that stood for decades.

Yet to this day, every baseball commissioner since has failed to exercise leadership in endorsing Jackson’s candidacy to the Hall of Fame, despite support by the likes of Ted Williams.

Of Jackson, turn-of-the-century Hall of Fame pitcher Ed Walsh once said: “Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man that ever played in the big leagues, and I don’t except Babe Ruth.”

The critical event in the Jackson/Black Sox case occurred the night after Chicago’s loss in the Series. Sox pitcher Lefty Williams came to Jackson’s hotel room with an envelope containing $5,000. Jackson, both men later agreed, refused it. An argument ensued, and Jackson stormed from his room.

When he returned he found the envelope with the cash on the bed.

Jackson claimed he tried to see club owner Charles Comiskey the next morning--presumably to turn over the money and tell the owner what he knew of the conspiracy--but said that Comiskey refused to see him.

Comiskey, Gropman writes, is the real villain in the case. He engaged, the author believes, in a cover-up to protect his investment in the game’s greatest team.

And, as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz points out in a forceful introduction, Comiskey is today an honored member of the Hall of Fame. The illiterate Jackson--a photo of an autograph in the book shows him barely capable of signing his own name--remains a scapegoat, nearly 50 years after his death.

Often overlooked in the Jackson case, Dershowitz writes, is that Jackson was found not guilty in the case in two jury trials.

And it wasn’t so that a little boy appeared on the Chicago courthouse steps to say: “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

What is true is that when Jackson walked down those courthouse steps that day in 1920, he walked out of organized baseball forever, remaining to this day arguably the most pathetic American sports figure of the century.