Hello and welcome to Issue 009 of Shoeless Notes, the email newsletter for the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library in Greenville, South Carolina.
No matter which holiday(s) you’re celebrating this year, no matter how you’re celebrating, and no matter who you’re celebrating with, hopefully it’s a happy conclusion to one of the strangest and most challenging years we’ve ever had. The more I look back on the year we’ve had, the more I feel like what has happened at the museum can teach us all some great lessons about life.
The Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library has been closed due to construction and the coronavirus since December of 2019.
In 2020, our museum wasn’t open for a single day. Not one. And yet, we still had one of our best years ever, thanks to the kindness, generosity, and belief of all of you reading this right now. We started a membership program and have had hundreds of people support our mission by purchasing a membership, making a donation, or buying something from our online store. I learned that even if things don’t seem to be going the way you had hoped, if you continue to do good work, and do it genuinely and honestly, people will notice, and do what they can to support you.
Since our museum was closed all year, we weren’t able to have any real, face-to-face interaction with you all. Many of you experienced something similar this year, not being able to see your friends, your families, or even your coworkers. And that was hard. A huge part of the human experience is being able to meet people and talk to people and bond with people. Those of us who have lost loved ones would have given anything to have been able to see them just one more time. Unfortunately, most of us weren’t afforded that opportunity this year, to the detriment of our mental health. But we all found ways to continue to interact, even if it was just digitally.
Virtual interactions and presentations were key in 2020. Here is a shot from one of the many pieces of content created during the shutdown.
We had zoom calls and conferences, we started this newsletter, we rebuilt our website, and we became much more active on social media. As of this moment, we have 3,394 followers on Twitter, 801 Likes on Facebook, and 647 followers on Instagram. For accounts which all started within the past 15 months, those are thrilling numbers to see, and they continue to grow every month. It reinforced the notion that this museum is about more than just some old baseball player. It’s about connecting with people. It’s about building a community, both in person and online. And the community we’ve been building together is incredible.
Sports looked a lot different this year, in many ways. Seasons were cut short, fans weren’t allowed to be in the stands the same way we’ve become accustomed to, and broadcasts were sometimes done remotely because even the commentators weren’t always allowed in the stadium. TV shows and movies were affected, too, leaving us with an insatiable appetite for good, interesting content. So we started a podcast this year, called My Baseball History. To date, there have been 12 episodes posted. We’ve had thousands of listeners from all over the globe. Literally. People from the US, Canada, and the UK. From Ireland, Belgium, France, and Austria. From Sweden, Finland, Thailand and Australia. From South Africa, and South Korea.
It has been so much work to put together these episodes and their accompanying liner notes on our website, but the reward has been seeing and hearing your reactions. In a year when we were all dying for content, it was overwhelming to see the positive responses to the things we created and posted. The comments, the shares, and the random emails, voicemails, and text messages from people saying they loved a specific part of an episode they just listened to made it all worth it. The ones where people say they learned something new were even better.
It has been incredibly hard to stay positive this year. To stay motivated. To stay productive. A lot of times, it has felt like nothing has been getting done, and that this entire year was a waste. But we’re all still here. And that’s something to be celebrated, in and of itself. I stopped counting how many friends I’d lost this year when the number hit double digits. That was in June. So no, this year hasn’t gone the way any of us were hoping for, or expecting. But we’re lucky enough to still be here. We’re still writing our own stories. And hopefully this upcoming year will be better. But the only way it will be better is if we do what we can to actively make it better. That’s what 2020 has been about, to me. Putting in the work now, so we can have the future we’ve been hoping for. The future we’ve been expecting.
When we’re able to reopen, the museum will look like you’ve never seen it before. We’re going to have new displays, new artifacts, and new photos. We’re not only going to be telling Joe’s story, but we’ll be telling Katie’s story, and the story of Greenville and the Textile League. You’re going to see things in completely new ways, both literally and figuratively. We’re working incredibly hard to bring you an experience you’ll never forget.
We’re not doing that alone, though. We’ll detail the people who have been helping to make things happen in future newsletters, but for now, please bear with us and continue to be as patient as you’ve been all year. I promise, as hard as it has been for you to not be able to come visit us this year, it’s been even harder on us, not having a museum to show you. But the wait will be worth it. As Chuck Palahniuk said, “The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.” I truly feel like that’s what we’re doing here. I hope you feel the same.
Each newsletter, we’re going to spotlight one new member as a token of our appreciation. This issue, since we’re already on the theme of ways our 2020 was made better, we’d like to tell you a little bit about Jason Schwartz, who recently became a member.
New member, Jason Schwartz, in the basement of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, holding the bat Ted Williams used for his 2,000th career hit.
Jason first heard about us when he read an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about a local bartender who was quitting his job and packing his bags to take over the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in South Carolina. Jason’s first thought was, "He's nuts!" His next thought was, "He's my idol!"
One thing you should know about Jason is that he LOVES baseball cards. So it’s fitting that his first exposure to Joe Jackson was from the back of a 1979 Topps baseball card that listed the highest career batting averages in MLB history. Even at 9 years old, a .356 average was enough for Jason to take notice. The movies Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams turned Joe into a larger-than-life figure whose story felt worth pursuing much further, and as the years have gone by, that’s what Jason has done.
Jason is one of the two co-chairs of the Society for American Baseball Research's Baseball Cards Research Committee, and is a frequent contributor to their blog at sabrbaseballcards.blog. Among the 500+ articles on the blog are several covering cards from Joe's era, including a few that cover his cards, in particular. You can read some of those articles HERE, or HERE, or HERE, or HERE.
While all of that is really cool and very interesting, what has made Jason so special and important to us this year is that he also runs Heavy J Studios, where he creates art from baseball cards to raise money for non-profits. He has raised a great deal of money for us here at the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library, but he also contributes to dozens of other organizations and foundations, including the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, The Jackie Robinson Foundation, The Josh Gibson Foundation, The Dave Parker Foundation, and The Kirk Gibson Foundation, to name a few.
Jason has gotten some great press detailing his efforts. The video above was made by Emmy Award winner Jeremy Ross in September, and THIS ARTICLE in The Sporting News was written by our friend Ryan Fagan.
Back in August, Jason decided that he was going to run a promotion with us where anyone who sent him a screen shot proving they had become a member of our museum would get a Heavy J Studios card. That helped us gain dozens of new members, and was a great boost for us during a hard financial stretch. In addition to that, Jason has also sold individual cards on Twitter and eBay, and donated all of the proceeds to our museum. He not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk. He has made multiple purchases from our store, and says he owns more Shoeless Joe Jackson shirts than any other baseball player. He loves the Philadelphia image shirt, and the Black Betsy shirt we just recently released.
A Heavy J original, donated to the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library by Jason in July of 2020.
Jason loves Negro Leagues history, and would give anything to be able to go back and watch the 1942 Negro World Series between the Kansas City Monarchs and Homestead Grays. Watching Josh Gibson hit off Satchel Paige would be just incredible to him, and of course both teams were absolutely stacked with other talented players. Jason would love to own an autographed postcard of Josh Gibson, but as a Dodgers fan, it’s another Gibson’s artifact he’s truly on the hunt for: the Home Run ball hit by Kirk Gibson during the 1988 World Series. At the moment, its whereabouts are completely unknown so it's probably a longshot, but that’s what makes collecting fun.
Now that Jason 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.
The 2021 Member pins are hot off the presses! Get yours by purchasing a membership starting January 1, 2021.
Thanks to Angie and Kirsten at Big League Pins, our 2021 Member pins are in hand and ready to be sent out! Any membership bought starting January 1, 2021 will receive the 2021 pin. If you haven’t purchased a membership yet and want to make sure you get your 2020 pin, place your orders before the start of the new year. Once 2021 begins, the 2020 pins won’t be sold or sent out anymore.
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