Markazi: Meet Arlene Marcley, the 73-year-old lady fighting for Shoeless Joe Jackson
From Arash Markazi at ESPN.com on September 1, 2015, on SABR member Arlene Marcley:
Arlene Marcley isn’t a baseball fan. She doesn’t know or care about the statistical benchmarks of a Hall of Fame player. She fell asleep the first time she watched “Field of Dreams.” She hadn’t even heard of Shoeless Joe Jackson 20 years ago despite being the executive assistant to the mayor of Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson’s hometown.
But no one has done more to clear the name of one of baseball’s greatest players — but a central figure in the 1919 Black Sox scandal — than Marcley, a 73-year old retiree who is the founder and president of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library in Greenville.
Shortly after Rob Manfred became Major League Baseball’s commissioner at the end of January, Marcley started writing him in an attempt to have Jackson removed from the sport’s ineligible list.
“I sent the first letter in February and I’ve sent him five or six letters over the past six months,” Marcley said by phone Tuesday. “He first responded on Feb. 12 and wrote, ‘Your letter makes some interesting points. I will investigate the matter more fully as time permits.’ I was very happy to read that. I felt we had a possible chance to clear Joe’s name. The correspondence continued and then finally I got the letter dated July 20 giving his decision.”
Read the full article here: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/13560985/arlene-marcley-73-leads-fight-clear-shoeless-joe-jackson-name-get-baseball-ineligible-list
Originally published: September 2, 2015. Last Updated: September 2, 2015.