Joseph Jefferson Jackson (July 16, 1887 – December 5, 1951), nicknamed “Shoeless Joe”, was an American baseball player who played Major League Baseball in the early part of the 20th century. He is remembered for his performance on the field and for his association with the Black Sox Scandal, in which members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series. As a result of Jackson’s association with the scandal, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball’s first commissioner, banned Jackson from playing after the 1920 season.
Legend has it that as Jackson was leaving the courthouse during the trial, a young boy begged of him, “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” and that Jackson did not respond. And so that brings us to Phil Ivey. It is alleged that from June 2009 until April 2011, Phil Ivey borrowed money from Full Tilt Poker at least eighteen times, totalling at least $10,715,000, repaid loaned money to the poker site at least five times, totalling at least $5 million, and was paid at least $1.2 million by the site in various marketing payments and perks. You can read the full story over here at Subject Poker. Of course this inevitably started a lengthy discussion over on 2+2 and you can read all about that here. Is this all true, probably. Was anything untoward done, I don’t know, but I do feel a little like the mythical boy in the Joe Jackson Story. Apparently once again the Emperor has no clothes and as we plead for Phil or Full Tilt to “Tell us it ain’t so”, it seems just as Shoeless Joe didn’t respond all those years ago once again the silence is deafening.
