Shoeless Joe

In Kinsella's Shoeless Joe Jackson returns to Iowa, Kinsella questions the American fascination with the past and also criticizes Americans and their dreams. By presenting what is basically a ghost tale disguised as an American sports story, Kinsella blurs the lines between practicality and what is unreasonable. A middle aged farmer, Ray Kinsella who obsesses over a baseball diamond to the point in which it almost causes financial turmoil builds a baseball field to watch the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson play ball. While many just argue he is just a hardworking American with a dream to build a field, it is easy to see the absurdity of his mission. However, as Ray and many others are taught to believe really true? Can you achieve anything you…

Shoeless Joe Jackson has the third best batting average of all time. “ Shoeless Joe Jackson was a superb hitter whose career average of .356 is the third highest attainted in the history of baseball’’ (“Shoeless Joe Jackson”). “ Joseph Jefferson Jackson was born in poverty on July 16, 1887, in the small South Carolina town of Brandon Mills. His father was a mill worker and never received a decent salary. Joe Jackson's education ended before his twelfth birthday, and he was illiterate when he…

Critical Analysis In the book Shoeless Joe and Me, Dan Gutman talks about the old time baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson. Joe was a baseball player for the Chicago White Sox. He was involved in a scandal that’ll never be forgotten. This story is about a baseball fan who has the powers to go back in the time of the year a baseball card is. He wanted to travel back in time to 1919, to find out if Shoeless Joe was really involved in this or if he was against it. He also wanted to stop it from…

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson The 1920’s also known as the “Roaring Twenties” is known for being a decade long party, but within it was corruption deception and change. All throughout America changes happening. People were looking for something different, and those who stood out are remembered too this day. Among those standouts was man by the name of Joseph Jackson. A quirky man born July 16, 1887 in Brandon Mills, South Carolina. Jackson as a young boy never went to school and as a result was…

Shoeless Joe brings the other seven Sox players out on the baseball field to practice with him. All of these players are deceased, but they come to the field to play. Not everyone can see them but Ray, Annie, and their daughter Karin can. Once the players finish practicing, they disappear in the corn. Could this field be heaven for the players? Just as they leave Ray hears the voice again, this time it says “Ease his pain.” Once again he struggles to figure out what it means. After all his…

In W.P. Kinsella’s novel, Shoeless Joe, utmost measures are taken in order to change the past, consequently leading to schizophrenia and a fictional past. Ray Kinsella gets a feeling he has to visit J.D. Salinger in order to fix the past. Ray claims to hear a voice and assumes the meaning behind it is to build a baseball field. Ray talks to Joe Jackson, Shoeless Joe, about completing the rest of the field since he only completed left field. Ray’s desperation to change the past leads him to…

capital, and corruption in the sports and trying to clean it up. The issues of America were grand and these three sports brought it life in a brighter, bigger, and clearer form. The film Eight Men Out exemplifies this era of American lives. The eight ball players of the Chicago White Sox are angry with the owner Charles Comiskey because time and time again he would under pay players and do all he can to make sure players could not meet their bonus incentives. Most of the players on the team…

suspense for the first pitch to be thrown. All of America is waiting in the stadium and around their televisions for the outcome of this momentous occasion to begin. No one could guess that this event was about to be ruined by the act of eight players. As baseball and gambling started to grow exponentially, management was poor in enforcing rules against gambling problems and in managing the White Sox team, leading to the event in 1919, when the White Sox threw the World Series which resulted in…

Joseph Jefferson Jackson was a professional baseball player, who was one of the best players of his time. However, his reputation tarnished when he, including seven other teammates were accused of losing a game in order to earn cash from gamblers; hence were banned from playing professional baseball for life. Nevertheless, I have confidence that Jackson wasn’t involved in the 1919 World Series scandal. First of all, during a game, he and his teammates were accused of participating in a fix with…

is where two or more individuals compete to win determined by their set of skills or talents. On the other hand, gambling is where one favors a distinct result in order to gain more money. Therefore, if players continue to use actions similar to the Black Sox then the meaning of a baseball game would be irrelevant. The game should always be played with ones best effort in order to beat the opponent. Thus, purposely fixing games ruins the game and is rather seen as a standard performance or play.…