why was shoeless joe jackson banned from baseball

Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned from baseball because he was one of eight Chicago White Sox players implicated in attempting to fix the 1919 World Series by accepting bribes to intentionally lose the series. Although he and his teammates were acquitted in a Chicago jury trial, Major League Baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, imposed lifetime bans on all involved players after the 1920 season to protect the integrity of the game. Jackson's involvement remains controversial because he performed exceptionally well during the series, setting a World Series record for hits and showing no clear evidence of throwing games. Despite the ban, he was recently reinstated posthumously in 2025, which makes him eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame again.