Rob Manfred Kicks Shoeless Joe Jackson Back Into The Grave

The appointment of a new MLB commissioner is always a good time for certain special interest groups—spitball enthusiasts, Montreal baseball fans, Pete Rose truthers—to begin seeking favors. “Maybe,” they think, “the new commissioner will be more reasonable than the last!” This is presumably why the proprietors of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum appealed to commissioner Rob Manfred for Jackson’s reinstatement from the permanently ineligible list, which would open the possibility of him being elected to the Hall of Fame.

Sorry, Shoeless Joe fans, but Rob isn’t trying to hear that shit:

This is probably a good time to remind everyone that Joe Jackson remains banned because of his supposed involvement in the 1919 Black Sox scandal even though he was acquitted of those charges by an actual court of law, even though confessed game-fixers said that he wasn’t in on the plot, and even though nothing that happened in the 1919 World Series would make you think Jackson was in on the fix.