Shoeless Joe Jackson
Shoeless Joe Jackson was born into rural poverty in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1888. By the age of six, he was working seventy-hour weeks at the local cotton mill alongside his father. Without access to formal education, Jackson grew up illiterate. At fifteen, he joined the mill's baseball team, and within five years, he was playing for a local minor league team, earning his nickname by playing in his stocking feet.

In 1908, Jackson joined the Philadelphia Athletics in the major league. By 1910, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians, and five years later, he was traded again to the Chicago White Sox.

The White Sox were owned by the stingy Charles Comiskey, who even refused to pay for the team's laundry, leading them to be nicknamed the Black Sox. The players were poorly compensated, with Jackson's highest annual salary being $6,000. Comiskey preferred contracts that gave all control to the owner rather than the player. In the novel, Ray laments the Ten Day Clause, "which voided contracts, could end any player's career without compensation, pension, or even a ticket home."

Although all the details remain unclear, the conspiracy was led by first baseman Chick Gandil, who recruited the other players. Gamblers promised each of the eight players $20,000 to lose the 1919 World Series. At the time, the White Sox were a strong team expected to defeat the Cincinnati Reds—but they lost the series. Jackson received $5,000 but later attempted to return it. It's uncertain if he participated in throwing the series. He batted .375, leading all players, collected twelve hits, and made no fielding errors. These statistics have led many fans, including Ray's father in the novel, to argue that he did not partake in the conspiracy.

A year later, following an investigation initiated by sportswriters, Jackson and two other players confessed to a grand jury. A famous story recounts a young boy pleading with his idol as he left a Chicago courthouse, "Say it ain't so, Joe." Jackson reportedly replied, "I'm afraid it is, kid."

Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned all eight players from baseball for life. In 1921, a jury acquitted all eight players because evidence, including their signed confessions, had been stolen and was unavailable.

Jackson returned to Greenville, where he and his wife ran a successful dry-cleaning business. He played semi-pro baseball in the South Georgia League until he was forty-five. There are legends, disputed by some baseball historians, that he sometimes played under a false name elsewhere. The novel begins with Ray recalling how his father claimed to have seen Shoeless Joe, "playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name."

Jackson is still considered one of the greatest baseball players ever. With a lifetime batting average of .356, he holds the third-highest mark in major league history. Ty Cobb described him as the "best natural hitter he ever saw."

Jackson passed away from a heart attack in 1951 when he was sixty-three years old.

Similes and Metaphors
Kinsella's prominent use of similes and metaphors, where one thing is compared to another that is generally quite different, is a key element of his style. These comparisons come frequently and rapidly. In just the first seven pages, you encounter the following examples: the wind "is as soft as a day-old chick"; speakers at baseball stadiums resemble "ancient sailors' hats"; small objects gather at one end of a sloping verandah "like a herd of cattle clustered with their backs to a storm"; Annie collapses into Ray's arms "like a cat that you suddenly find sound asleep in your lap"; black clouds drift away "like ghosts of buffalo." Later, Kinsella uses extended metaphors, such as when describing the rumors about J. D. Salinger. These rumors are "like mosquitoes from a swamp and buzz angrily and irritatingly in the air." Kinsella can't help but immediately follow this with another simile, where Ray, whose favorite author is Salinger, says he collected those rumors "as a child might collect matchbooks and stash them in an unruly clamor in a dresser drawer already full of pens, tape, marbles, paper clips, and old playing cards."

Style
Kinsella's writing is characterized by a lyrical, poetic style, especially evident when he describes the Iowa landscape infused with the magic of the baseball field. For instance, just before Shoeless Joe makes his first appearance, Ray senses the approaching magic, "hovering somewhere out in the night like a zeppelin, silky and silent, floating like the moon until the time is right." Following Ray's initial conversation with Shoeless Joe, "A breath of clover travels on the summer wind. Behind me, just yards away, brook water plashes softly in the darkness, a frog shrills, fireflies dazzle the night like red pepper. A petal falls."

These vivid descriptions of the Iowa landscape contribute to the enchanting atmosphere Kinsella aims to create. He directly appeals to the senses, just as Ray advises Salinger: "Open up your senses, smell the life all around you, touch it, taste it, hear it." This sensory engagement is crucial to seeing the world as Ray does, and Kinsella supports his readers in this endeavor. Consider, for example, the visual and olfactory appeal in the following description: "Moonlight butters the whole Iowa night. Clover and corn smells are as thick as syrup." The imagery of moonlight "buttering" the night is particularly memorable and effective.

The evocative lyricism also extends to the descriptions of the baseball players and their games, as illustrated in the portrayal of the young Archie Graham in action:

He cranks up his arm, rears back, and throws, and the ball ... travels in a white arc, seeming to leave behind a line like a streak of forgotten rainbow as it drops over the fence, silent as a star falling into a distant ocean.

When Eddie mentions to Ray that his uncle had a talent for "describing the beauty and mystery of baseball," those words could just as easily describe Kinsella, the author.

The depictions of Ray's wife, Annie, and his relationship with her, radiate with a similar kind of sensual glow. It's as if everything within Ray's deeply imaginative view of life is bathed in this soft, romantic light.

Symbolism
When Ray visits a carnival in Iowa City to meet Gypsy, she shows him a part of the show. Inside a trailer, there are about a dozen glass containers, each holding a faded black-and-white photograph of a deformed fetus. Kinsella emphasizes this moment, as just before it happens, Ray's daughter Karin repeatedly echoes a sales pitch she heard from Richard: "the world's strangest babies are here." This is meant to catch the reader's attention.

The grim image of twelve dead fetuses symbolizes the stifled, aborted dreams that Ray has revived in his magical baseball park. These twelve represent the eight banned White Sox players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, as well as Moonlight Graham, Eddie Scissons, Johnny Kinsella (Ray's father), and J.D. Salinger.

This image brings to mind an event from Ray's childhood when he shot a sparrow. To discourage him, his mother told him to bring the bird back to life. Although he couldn't do it then, Ray has since understood that certain things—forgotten dreams and thwarted desires—can be revived. The sparrow incident is connected to the image of the dead fetuses when Ray calls his mother, reminds her of the dead sparrow, and tells her she must come and see "what I've brought to life." He refers to the baseball field, but the next day he visits the carnival and sees the glass cases, leaving Kinsella to let the reader draw the symbolic connection.

Kinsella masterfully blends fantasy with reality, and fact with fiction, to craft an engaging and suspenseful story. At its core, the plot revolves around Ray's enchanting baseball field where dreams come to life. Once the fantasy begins, the details are so vividly described that readers are swept away by the characters and unfolding events. Additionally, by switching between the fantastical baseball games and the characters' real-life experiences, Kinsella captures the fleeting nature of dreams while highlighting the elegance and essence of baseball. This sport, uniquely an American tradition, is described by Salinger as "a living part of history, like calico dresses, stone crockery, and threshing crews waiting at outdoor tables. It continually reminds us of what it once was, like an Indianhead penny in a handful of new coins."

• 1920s: Following the Black Sox Scandal in 1919, baseball faces a significant crisis. Owners fear that fans will abandon the game, perceiving it as tainted by corruption. In response, eight players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, are permanently banned from baseball in 1920 to both punish those involved and restore public trust.

  1980s: Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, is banned for life in 1989 by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti for gambling on baseball. Additionally, Giamatti declines to reopen the case of Shoeless Joe Jackson.

  Today: The debate continues over whether Shoeless Joe Jackson should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1999, Republican representative Jim DeMint of South Carolina introduces a resolution advocating for Jackson to be "appropriately honored" for his contributions to the game.

• 1920s: Baseball players earn modest salaries, with the average annual earnings ranging from $5,000 to $6,000. Without a players' union or agents, players have limited leverage in salary negotiations.

  1980s: Major league baseball player salaries see significant increases. In 1981, the average salary is $185,651, which rises to $512,084 by 1989. In November 1989, Kirby Puckett becomes the first player to earn $3 million annually. Shortly thereafter, Rickey Henderson, Mark Langston, and Mark Davis also surpass the $3 million mark.

  Today: By 2001, nineteen major league players have contracts with average annual values of $12.5 million or more. Many fans believe these salaries are excessively high and detrimental to the sport. An April 2001 Gallup poll reveals that 79 percent of fans support allowing major league baseball owners to cap the total amount available for player salaries.

• 1920s: Although African Americans are barred from playing in major league baseball, numerous black professional teams exist. The Negro National League is established in 1920.

  1940s: Baseball begins to integrate racially. In 1945, the Dodgers sign Jackie Robinson, who breaks the major league color barrier in 1947.

  1980s: Los Angeles Dodger vice president Al Campanis is dismissed after stating on ABC's Nightline that African Americans lack the abilities to succeed in baseball management. This comment highlights the scarcity of African Americans in leadership roles across professional sports. A movement to increase minority hiring is initiated, and within two years, Bill White, an African American, is appointed as the National League president.

  Today: Despite significant representation in sports like baseball, football, and basketball, African Americans remain underrepresented in leadership positions.

Kinsella's Shoeless Joe is part of the American sports-literature tradition, which encompasses poems, essays, short stories, and novels about various sports. This genre includes notable sport novels such as Lawrence Shainberg's One On One (basketball), Leonard Gardner's Fat City (boxing), Peter Gent's North Dallas Forty (football, 1973), Bernard Malamud's The Natural (1952), and Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association (1968, baseball).

These novels often reveal the darker sides of their respective sports. For instance, Fat City highlights the inevitable downfall of boxers, professional football's excessive violence driven by corporate interests is depicted in North Dallas Forty, and Roy Hobbs's personal failures are central to The Natural. Generally, such works use sports as a metaphor for the broader world and life itself.

In contrast, Kinsella's Shoeless Joe avoids violence and harsh villains. Instead, it captures the beauty, grace, and essence of baseball as a sport. The novel provides an entertaining escape, allowing readers to immerse themselves in a mythic baseball world, reflecting the oldest sport in American heritage.

The primary themes in The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (1986) revolve around a passion for baseball and the essence of dreams. This is showcased through Gideon Clarke's mission to validate that the Chicago Cubs played a game against the All Stars of the amateur Iowa Baseball Confederacy in Big Inning, Iowa, back in 1908. His friend, Stan Rogalski, an aging Triple-A ballplayer, shares a profound love for the sport and aspires to one day join the major leagues. Much like the dream motifs in Shoeless Joe, both Gideon and Stan realize their dreams when they traverse the "cracks in time" to the "gauzy dreamland that separates the past from the present."

Gideon and Stan, the novel’s main characters, are both ardent baseball enthusiasts. Within the storyline, Gideon is introduced to baseball legends by his father, Matthew, whose lifelong mission is to prove the existence of the game between the Chicago Cubs and the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. This conviction was mysteriously ingrained in him while making love to a carnival dancer under a tree and being struck by lightning. Despite skepticism and disbelief, Matthew pursues his goal, even writing a doctoral dissertation on the history of the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. However, his dissertation committee rejects it and suggests he major in creative writing instead. Tragically, when Matthew is killed by a line drive at a Milwaukee baseball game, his knowledge and ambitions are passed on to Gideon, who takes up his father's quest. Stan Rogalski, who has loved baseball since childhood, plays Triple-A ball in Salt Lake City but yearns to break into the major leagues. Upon discovering an old railway track aptly named the Baseball Spur, Gideon and Stan slip through the "cracks in time" from 1978 to 1908, arriving at the legendary game between the Chicago Cubs and the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. This game lasts forty days and over 2,000 innings, with the Confederacy emerging victorious. Despite their love for the past—where Stan performs admirably for the Confederacy and receives an offer to play for the Cubs—both decide they must return to the present.

Kinsella does not focus heavily on social issues in The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Gideon holds a disdain for big business, corporate farming, academia, and religion. His sister, Enola Gay—named "a full year before the bomber droned over Hiroshima"—becomes America's first urban guerrilla, bombing a Chicago Dow Chemical subsidiary long before the actions of the Chicago Seven, the Weather Underground, and the Symbionese Liberation Army. However, the narrator's scorn and Enola Gay's actions are secondary; Kinsella's primary interest lies in storytelling and captivating the reader.

As in Shoeless Joe, Kinsella skillfully blends fact with fiction and reality with fantasy to craft an engaging novel. This time, the plot elements in The Iowa Baseball Confederacy are even more fantastical than those in Shoeless Joe. For instance, a massive cemetery statue known as the Black Angel plays for the Confederacy. Teddy Roosevelt makes an appearance and takes his turn at bat. Leonardo da Vinci floats through the skies in a striped balloon, claiming he invented baseball. The mythical Indian Drifting Away materializes to hit the winning run. During a forty-day game, a torrential rainstorm and flood devastate Big Inning, Iowa. Additionally, Gideon falls in love with Sarah, who tragically dies in one of the few automobiles in town.

Kinsella employs the time-machine concept, reminiscent of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895), to move his characters back and forth through time's cracks. Although the past offers Gideon and Stan a magical place where dreams can come true, they ultimately choose to return to the present, where reality resides.

In 1984, the movie adaptation of Shoeless Joe, titled Field of Dreams, premiered. Directed by Phil Alden Robinson, the film garnered mostly positive reviews. It featured Kevin Costner in the role of Ray Kinsella, Amy Madigan as Annie Kinsella, Burt Lancaster as Doc Graham, and James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann. The character of Terrence Mann was introduced in place of J. D. Salinger's role from the novel.

• Shoeless Joe was adapted into the film Field of Dreams, directed by Phil Alden Robinson and featuring Kevin Costner, in 1989.

Sources
Beach, Charles Franklyn. "Joyful vs. Joyless Religion in W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe." In Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall 1998, pp. 85-94.

Garman, Bryan K. "Myth Building and Cultural Politics in W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe." In Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue Canadienne d 'Etudes Americaines, Vol. 24, No. 1, Winter 1994, pp. 41-62.

Lewis, Maggie. Review in Christian Science Monitor, July 9, 1982, p. 14.

Merlock, Ray. "Shoeless Joe: From Pickens County to the Field of Dreams." In South Carolina Review, Vol. 22, No. 2, Spring 1990, pp. 68-76.

Plummer, William. "In Another League." In Newsweek, August 23, 1982, p. 64.

Review in Publishers Weekly, February 26, 1982, p. 141.

Schweld, Barry. Review in Library Journal, April 1, 1982, p. 745.

Further Reading
Joffe, Linda S. "Praise Baseball. Amen: Religious Metaphors in Shoeless Joe and Field of Dreams." In Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, Vol. 9, No. 2, Spring 1992, pp. 153-63. Joffe explores various Christian allusions in the novel and examines the differences between the book and its film adaptation.

Kirtz, Mary K. "Canadian Book, American Film: Shoeless Joe Transfigured on a Field of Dreams." In Literature/Film Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1995, pp. 26-31. Kirtz contends that the movie Field of Dreams removes the feminine "moral presence" found in the novel, thereby presenting the narrative as a "man's story" with a patriarchal political message.

Lord, Timothy C. "Hegel, Marx, and Shoeless Joe: Religious Ideology in Kinsella's Baseball Fantasy." In Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall 1992, pp. 43-51. Lord highlights how baseball acts as a metaphor for religion and discusses Ray's response to threats against his farm, revealing his philosophical beliefs about spiritual and material realities.

Pellow, C. Kenneth. "Shoeless Joe in Film and Fiction." In Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, Vol. 9, No. 1, Fall 1991, pp. 17-23. Pellow argues that the film Field of Dreams fails to capture the novel's poetic essence and misrepresents its political and social themes.