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"J" is for Jackson, Joseph Jefferson Wofford [1888-1951]

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"J" is for Jackson, Joseph Jefferson Wofford [1888-1951]. Baseball Player. "Shoeless Joe" Jackson was reared in the mill villages of Pelzer and Greenville. He never attended school and could neither read nor write.  At thirteen he began to work full-time in the mill and also to play for the mill's baseball team.  In 1908 he turned pro and during the season landed in the majors with the Philadelphia Athletics.

In 1915 he was traded to the Chicago White Sox and led the team to a World Series title in 1917 and a pennant in 1919. He was barred from baseball for his alleged participation in a scheme to throw the 1919 World Series. He was acquitted in a jury trial and modern researchers are convinced that Shoeless Joe Jackson was innocent.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.