Hello and welcome to Issue 007 of Shoeless Notes, the email newsletter for the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library in Greenville, South Carolina.
A couple issues ago, I told you about My Baseball History, the podcast I started earlier this year. Last week, Season 2 officially began when my interview with Lester Erwin went live. Lester’s mom was first cousins with Shoeless Joe Jackson’s wife, Katie.
Lester remembers going to visit Joe and Katie when he was a little kid, and tells some incredible stories about those times. One of the things Lester specifically remembers was seeing a baseball bat leaning up against the desk in Joe’s office whenever he would visit. That bat was one of the most famous bats in the history of baseball: Black Betsy.
Black Betsy in 2011. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
We believe Black Betsy was created in 1908, when Joe was around 20 years old. It was turned by Charlie Ferguson, a local fan of the South Carolina mill teams. He used the northern side of a hickory tree to make the bat, which ended up measuring 36 inches and weighing an astounding 48 ounces. Ferguson knew that Joe liked dark bats, so he colored it with tobacco juice, then gave it to Wesley Martin (or Captain Martin, as he was known around town). Martin drove the trolley car that Joe rode to and from his Mill League games.
Joe used the bat in the minor leagues, and took it with him to Philadelphia when he was sold to the Athletics. Joe believed bats only had so many hits in them, and when he went into a slump, he would discard the dead bat and get a new one. The only bat Joe never discarded was Black Betsy.
Joe holding Black Betsy as a member of the 1932 Greenville Spinners.
In 1911, Betsy broke during a game and it sent Joe into a literal depression, as well as a multi-week batting slump. He sent the broken bat to the Spalding Sporting Goods Company, who fixed it for him, and they stamped their brand on the barrel. At some point after that, Joe sent Betsy to Hillerich & Bradsby so they could measure the bat and make copies he could continue using.
When Joe would go back to Greenville or Savannah during the winters, he would always be sure to bring Betsy and his other bats with him. He said, “bats don’t like to freeze no more than me.”
There were even newspaper articles written about Joe and Betsy all throughout Joe’s career. Fans across America would yell “Give ‘Em Betsy, Joe!” while he was in the on-deck circle or at the plate. There have been very few players in history more famous than Joe Jackson, and even fewer bats more famous than Betsy.
This drawing came from a newspaper clipping found in one of the Jackson Family scrapbooks. You can view many of the pages from those scrapbooks on Mike Nola’s website, appropriately named www.blackbetsy.com.
Joe passed away in 1951, and in 1959 when Katie died, Black Betsy was left to Lester Erwin in her will. Our episode dives deep into what Betsy meant to Joe, and what owning Betsy ended up meaning to Lester and his family. If you want to listen to our interview, you can do that and follow along with the liner notes HERE.
Me and Lester Erwin, after our interview for the podcast.
In coordination with that new podcast episode, we are releasing a new t-shirt in our gift shop. It is based on the drawing seen above, which came from a newspaper clipping found in one of the Jackson Family scrapbooks. We are offering the shirt in cream, which you can buy HERE, and in gray, which you can buy HERE.
Our newest t-shirt design, available now!
The artwork was done by Ryan Tinnerman, who has been a longtime supporter of our museum. He has done artwork for us before, including previous t-shirt designs and our Vintage Games logo, and has been along for the ride with us at the museum for years. We have another design that we’ll be releasing as we get closer to reopening, so keep your eyes peeled for that. But for now, enjoy our Black Betsy shirt, which would make a great gift for the holidays.
Speaking of which, it would mean so much to us if you did some of your holiday shopping with us here at the museum. We have shirts, hats, books, and cards, which would all make great stocking stuffers. Of course, an Annual Membership would make a great gift for the baseball historian in your life (even if that’s you!), so be sure to head over to our ONLINE GIFT SHOP and support a small business this holiday season.
Making a donation in someone’s name is another great gift idea to keep in mind. Of course, as a 501(c)3 organization, all donations made to our museum are tax-deductible. If you’d like to take advantage of that as the year ends, you can make a donation via PayPal HERE, or via any major Credit Card or Debit Card HERE.
If you plan on shopping with Amazon this holiday season, we ask you to please use our AmazonSmile link, which you can do HERE. AmazonSmile is a program that donates 0.5% of your eligible purchases on Amazon to the charity of your choice. All you need to do is start your shopping at smile.amazon.com and then go about shopping as you normally would. It’s as simple as that. The donation will be made to our museum at no extra cost to you.
Each newsletter, we’re going to spotlight one new member as a token of our appreciation. This issue, we’d like to tell you a little bit about Kevin Kaduk, who recently became a member.
New member Kevin Kaduk, setting a wonderful example for the future of our nation by actually going to a White Sox game
Kevin says he’s just a baseball fan like anyone else. He’s loved watching, following, and writing about the game almost his entire life. He grew up taking in both Sox and Cubs baseball, and he’d credit the 1983 South Siders and the 1984 North Siders — as well as his dad — for really making baseball his favorite sport. He’s never been able to get enough, and while it’s less of an issue in the Internet era, Kevin loved being from Chicago and having two baseball teams on TV and in the sports sections during his formative years.
Kevin was a 10-year-old White Sox fan when Field of Dreams and Eight Men Out came out, and those movies opened an entire part of Sox history up for him that he wasn’t familiar with. While he hasn’t had a chance to visit our museum in person yet, he’s been aware of it for a while, and has followed us on social media. He started to learn more about our museum late last year when the Chicago Sun-Times ran a piece on me moving down to South Carolina to take over. Kevin got in touch with me a few months later to write a piece for his newsletter, Midway Minute.
Like many people who have been forced by me to answer this question, Kevin had a hard time picking just one moment in baseball history he would go back to watch if he had a time machine. But all three of his answers have one thing in common: historic home runs by someone on the Yankees. He’d like to go back to one of the following three events:
Game 3 of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field, so he can find out for himself if Babe Ruth really called his shot
The 1933 All-Star Game at Comiskey Park, in which Babe Ruth hit the first home run in the first ASG in history
Reggie Jackson’s famous 3-HR game in the 1977 World Series, so Kevin could experience that era in New York City history for himself
Kevin is a great writer, and even if you’re not from Chicago, you should still sign up for his newsletter. You can do that HERE. It’s free, and a great way to follow all Chicago sports, not just baseball (but also, especially baseball).
See if you can pick out all of the Chicago references in the artwork for Midway Minute.
Now that Kevin has become a member of our museum, he can’t wait until we reopen and the pandemic is over so he can make a road trip to see it for himself. Neither can we.
If you want to have a chance to be the new member we spotlight in our next newsletter, you can BECOME A MEMBER of our museum at whichever level best fits your current budget.
As always, thanks for being here. Until next time…
-dan