Senator Stubs His Toe on Shoeless Campaign

Say it ain’t so, Sen. Harkin.

Tom Harkin, a former Democratic presidential candidate from Iowa, is now campaigning to have Shoeless Joe Jackson reinstated to major league baseball so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame.

“Shoeless Joe Jackson was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable baseball players in the rich history of America’s pastime,” Harkin wrote in a letter dated March 30 to Commissioner Bud Selig. “His athletic abilities on the diamond were unmatched, and the dignity he brought to the game was vital to baseball’s growing popularity.

“My state of Iowa has come to embrace the story of Shoeless Joe through the filming of the movie, ‘Field of Dreams,’ which was filmed primarily in Dyersville, Iowa. The story of Shoeless Joe has inspired people of all generations, and he is truly a respected figure in America’s sports history.”

Harkin is right when he contends that Jackson was a remarkable baseball player. As for the rest of the letter, I can only assume that Harkin is familiar only with the Shoeless Joe Jackson from the movie.

That Shoeless Joe Jackson, played by Ray Liotta, bore about as much resemblance to the real player of that name as William Bendix’s Babe Ruth did to the real player of that name in “The Babe Ruth Story.”

Nevertheless, Selig responded in a letter dated May 5 that he would review the file.

Let’s hope that promise was motivated by political expediency instead of any real notion that the facts might have changed in eight decades since the Black Sox Scandal.

Neither am I in favor of Pete Rose’s reinstatement, not until major league baseball is assured that he has given a full accounting of his gambling activities. But his alleged crime against baseball was far less grievous than Jackson’s admitted role in the conspiracy by eight Chicago White Sox players to throw the 1919 World Series.

If Jackson’s bust is ever admitted to Cooperstown, Rose should be there holding the door open.

Those who defend Jackson usually argue three points.

1. He was too dumb to know what he was doing.

Jackson was illiterate, but he wasn’t dumb. There is a difference.

He was smart enough to demand $20,000 for joining the conspiracy, smart enough to accept $5,000 and smart enough to sign a confession when offered immunity (later withdrawn) from prosecution.

2. He hit .375 during the eight-game (best of nine) World Series against Cincinnati with 12 hits and no errors in the outfield, thus couldn’t have been throwing games.

In “Eight Men Out,” the book providing the most comprehensive account of the scandal, author Eliot Asinof writes that Jackson had second thoughts, feeling so conflicted that he became almost physically ill before Game 1 and threatened to sit out.

But he added that, despite Jackson’s statistics throughout the series, he was “a disappointment to himself, playing ball with only a part of himself working. . . . Half the time, he didn’t know whether he was trying or not.”

In Game 5, the day after he received his $5,000 in a dirty envelope, he let a fly ball drop in left center that many thought he normally would have caught.

3. He was acquitted.

So were all eight of the players accused, and, yet, no one crusades on behalf of any of them except for Jackson and third baseman Buck Weaver.

No matter what an Illinois court ruled, anyone who has studied the case, starting with the commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who banned the players for life, has to concede that a swindle did occur.

As for Jackson’s complicity, he signed a confession. It was stolen before he could be prosecuted, but later resurfaced when he sued the White Sox for back pay.

Since 1951, there have been numerous efforts to clear Jackson’s name. Last year, Ted Williams and Bob Feller asked Selig to review 50 pages of documents they compiled on the case. But Harkin’s is the first to cite “Field of Dreams.”

Dan Gutman, who wrote the book “Baseball Babylon” in 1992, called that shot.

”. . . For all the ‘Field of Dreams’ sentiment, it was the players who initiated the fix, not the gamblers,” he wrote.

“Shoeless Joe Jackson may have become a romantic figure, but he did take an envelope with $5,000 in it and complained that he didn’t get $20,000.”

The only real confusion is whether the young fan outside the Chicago grand jury room when Jackson emerged ever said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” Gutman contends that the boy really said, “It ain’t true, is it, Joe?”

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.